Augustine: DE CIVITATE DEI

[I] De ciuitatum duarum, quarum Dei una, saeculi huius est altera, in qua est, quantum ad hominum genus pertinet, etiam ista peregrina, exortu et procursu et debitis finibus me scripturum esse promisi, cum prius inimicos ciuitatis Dei, qui conditori eius Christo deos suos praeferunt et liuore sibi perniciosissimo atrociter inuident Christianis, quantum me adiuuaret eius gratia, refellissem, quod uoluminibus decem prioribus feci. De hac uero mea, quam modo commemoraui, tripertita promissione decimum sequentibus quattuor libris ambarum est digestus exortus, deinde procursus ab homine primo usque ad diluuium libro uno, qui est huius operis quintus decimus, atque inde usque ad Abraham rursus ambae, sicut in temporibus, ita et in nostris litteris cucurrerunt. Sed a patre Abraham usque ad regum tempus Israelitarum, ubi sextum decimum uolumen absoluimus, et inde usque ad ipsius in carne Saluatoris aduentum, quo usque septimus decimus liber tenditur, sola uidetur in meo stilo cucurrisse Dei ciuitas; cum in hoc saeculo non sola cucurrerit, sed ambae utique in genere humano, sicut ab initio, simul suo procursu tempora uariauerint.

[1] Concerning the two cities, of which one is God’s, the other is of this age, in which latter, so far as it pertains to the race of humans, this one too is a pilgrim, I promised that I would write of their origin and course and due boundaries, after I had first, as far as His grace aided me, refuted the enemies of the City of God, who prefer their gods to Christ its Founder and, with a most pernicious envy, fiercely begrudge the Christians—which I did in the ten prior volumes. But as to this my three-part promise, which I have just recalled: in the four books following the tenth the origin of both was set forth; then the course from the first man up to the flood in one book, which is the 15th of this work; and from there up to Abraham, again both, as in the times, so also in our writings, ran along. But from father Abraham up to the time of the kings of the Israelites, where we completed the 16th volume, and thence up to the advent of the Savior Himself in the flesh, to which the 17th book extends, the City of God alone seems to have run in my style; whereas in this age it did not run alone, but both, of course, in the human race, as from the beginning, together by their course have varied the times.

Verum hoc ideo feci, ut prius, ex quo apertiores Dei promissiones esse coeperunt, usque ad eius ex uirgine natiuitatem, in quo fuerant quae primo promittebantur implenda, sine interpellatione a contrario alterius ciuitatis ista, quae Dei est, procurrens distinctius appareret; quamuis usque ad reuelationem testamenti noui non in lumine, sed in umbra cucurrerit. Nunc ergo, quod intermiseram, uideo esse faciendum, ut ex Abrahae temporibus quo modo etiam illa cucurrerit, quantum satis uidetur, adtingam, ut ambae inter se possint consideratione legentium comparari.

Truly I did this for this reason: that first, from the time when the promises of God began to be more open, up to His nativity from a virgin, in whom the things first promised were to be fulfilled, this city which is God’s, running on without interpellation by the contrary city, might appear more distinctly; although up to the revelation of the New Testament it ran not in light but in shadow. Now therefore I see that what I had intermitted must be done, that from the times of Abraham I may touch on how that other also has run, so far as seems sufficient, so that both may be able to be compared with one another by the consideration of the readers.

[II] Societas igitur usquequaque mortalium diffusa per terras et in locorum quantislibet diuersitatibus unius tamen eiusdemque naturae quadam communione deuincta utilitates et cupiditates suas quibusque sectantibus, dum id quod appetitur aut nemini aut non omnibus sufficit, quia non est id ipsum, aduersus se ipsam plerumque diuiditur, et pars partem, quae praeualet, opprimit. Victrici enim uicta succumbit, dominationi scilicet uel etiam libertati qualemcumque pacem praeferens ac salutem, ita ut magnae fuerint admirationi, qui perire quam seruire maluerunt. Nam in omnibus fere gentibus quodam modo uox naturae ista personuit, ut subiugari uictoribus mallent, quibus contigit uinci, quam bellica omnifariam uastatione deleri.

[2] Therefore the society of mortals, diffused everywhere through the lands and, amid however great diversities of places, yet bound by a certain communion of one and the same nature, while each pursues its own utilities and desires, since that which is sought either suffices for no one or not for all—because it is not the selfsame thing—often divides against itself, and one part oppresses another, the part that prevails. For the conquered succumbs to the victor, preferring—over dominion, or even over liberty—whatever sort of peace and safety; so that those who chose to perish rather than to serve were a great wonder. For in almost all nations, in some manner this voice of nature has resounded: that they would rather be subjugated by the victors, by whom it befell them to be conquered, than be wiped out by the all-around devastation of war.

Hinc factum est, ut non sine Dei prouidentia, in cuius potestate est, ut quisque bello <aut> subiugetur aut subiuget, quidam essent regnis praediti, quidam regnantibus subditi. Sed inter plurima regna terrarum, in quae terrenae utilitatis uel cupiditatis est diuisa societas (quam ciuitatem mundi huius uniuersali uocabulo nuncupamus), duo regna cernimus longe ceteris prouenisse clariora, Assyriorum primum, deinde Romanorum, ut temporibus, ita locis inter se ordinata atque distincta. Nam quo modo illud prius, hoc posterius: eo modo illud in Oriente, hoc in Occidente surrexit; denique in illius fine huius initium confestim fuit.

Hence it came to pass that, not without God’s providence, in whose power it is that each person in war <or> be subjugated or subjugate, certain men were endowed with kingdoms, certain were subject to rulers. But among the many kingdoms of the lands, into which the society of earthly utility or cupidity is divided (which we designate by the universal appellation the city of this world), we discern two kingdoms to have come forth far more illustrious than the rest: first that of the Assyrians, then that of the Romans, arranged and distinguished from each other, as in times, so also in places. For as that one was earlier, this one later: so that one arose in the East, this in the West; and finally, at the end of the former, the beginning of the latter was immediate.

Regna cetera ceterosque reges uelut adpendices istorum dixerim.

I would call the other realms and the other kings, as it were, appendages of these.

Ninus ergo iam secundus rex erat Assyriorum, qui patri suo Belo successerat, regni illius primo regi, quando in terra Chaldaeorum natus est Abraham. Erat etiam tempore illo regnum Sicyoniorum admodum paruum, a quo ille undecumque doctissimus Marcus Varro scribens de gente populi Romani, uelut antiquo tempore, exorsus est. Ab his enim Sicyoniorum regibus ad Athenienses peruenit, a quibus ad Latinos, inde Romanos.

Ninus, therefore, was already the second king of the Assyrians, who had succeeded his father Belus, the first king of that kingdom, when Abraham was born in the land of the Chaldaeans. There was also at that time the kingdom of the Sicyonians, very small, from which that in-every-respect most learned Marcus Varro, writing about the nation of the Roman people, as from an ancient time, began. For from these kings of the Sicyonians he passed to the Athenians, from whom to the Latins, thence to the Romans.

Sed ante conditam Romam in comparatione regni Assyriorum perexigua ista memorantur; quamuis Athenienses in Graecia plurimum claruisse fateatur etiam Sallustius Romanus historicus; plus tamen fama quam re ipsa. Nam loquens de illis: "Atheniensium, inquit, res gestae, sicuti ego existimo, satis amplae magnificaeque fuere; uerum aliquanto minores tamen, quam fama feruntur. Sed quia prouenere ibi scriptorum magna ingenia, per terrarum orbem Atheniensium facta pro maximis celebrantur.

But before Rome was founded, in comparison with the kingdom of the Assyrians, these things are recorded as very scant; although even Sallust, the Roman historian, admits that the Athenians were most renowned in Greece; yet more by fame than in reality. For speaking about them: "The deeds of the Athenians," he says, "as I judge, were sufficiently ample and magnificent; but somewhat smaller, however, than they are borne by fame. But because great talents of writers arose there, throughout the orb of the lands the deeds of the Athenians are celebrated as the greatest."

Ita eorum qui fecere uirtus tanta habetur, quantum eam uerbis potuere extollere praeclara ingenia." Accedit huic ciuitati non parua etiam ex litteris et philosophis gloria, quod ibi potissimum talia studia uiguerunt. Nam quantum adtinet ad imperium, nullum maius primis temporibus quam Assyriorum fuit, nec tam longe lateque diffusum, quippe ubi Ninus rex, Beli filius, uniuersam Asiam, quae totius orbis ad numerum partium tertia dicitur, ad magnitudinem uero dimidia reperitur, usque ad Libyae fines subegisse traditur. Solis quippe Indis in partibus Orientis non dominabatur, quos tamen eo defuncto Samiramis uxor eius est adgressa bellando.

Thus the virtue of those who did [the deeds] is held to be as great as illustrious talents were able to extol it with words. To this city, moreover, there accrues no small glory also from letters and philosophers, because such studies flourished there especially. For as far as imperium is concerned, there was none greater in the earliest times than that of the Assyrians, nor so far and wide diffused; since King Ninus, son of Belus, is reported to have subdued all Asia—which of the whole world is said by count of parts to be the third, but in magnitude is found to be the half—up to the borders of Libya. For in the regions of the East, only the Indians were not under his dominion; whom, however, after he had died, Semiramis, his wife, attacked by waging war.

Ita factum est, ut, quicumque in illis terris populi siue reges erant, Assyriorum regno dicionique parerent et quidquid imperaretur efficerent. Abraham igitur in eo regno apud Chaldaeos Nini temporibus natus est. Sed quoniam res Graecae multo sunt nobis quam Assyriae notiores, et per Graecos ad Latinos ac deinde ad Romanos, qui etiam ipsi Latini sunt, temporum seriem deduxerunt qui gentem populi Romani in originis eius antiquitate rimati sunt: ob hoc debemus, ubi opus est, Assyrios nominare reges, ut appareat quem ad modum Babylonia, quasi prima Roma, cum peregrina in hoc mundo Dei ciuitate procurrat; res autem, quas propter comparationem ciuitatis utriusque, terrenae scilicet et caelestis, huic operi oportet inserere, magis ex Graecis et Latinis, ubi et ipsa Roma quasi secunda Babylonia est, debemus adsumere.

Thus it came about that whoever in those lands were peoples or kings obeyed the kingdom and dominion of the Assyrians and effected whatever was commanded. Therefore Abraham was born in that kingdom among the Chaldaeans in the times of Ninus. But since Greek affairs are much better known to us than Assyrian, and those who have probed the nation of the Roman people in the antiquity of its origin have traced the sequence of times through the Greeks to the Latins and then to the Romans, who themselves also are Latins: on this account we ought, where there is need, to name Assyrian kings, so that it may appear in what manner Babylonia, as it were the first Rome, runs along with the pilgrim City of God in this world; but the matters which, on account of the comparison of the two cities, namely the earthly and the celestial, it is proper to insert into this work, we ought to take rather from the Greeks and Latins, where Rome herself too is, as it were, a second Babylonia.

Quando ergo natus est Abraham, secundi reges erant apud Assyrios Ninus, apud Sicyonios Europs; primi autem illic Belus, hic Aegialeus fuerunt. Cum uero egresso Abraham de Babylonia promisit ei Deus ex illo magnam gentem futuram et in eius semine omnium gentium benedictionem, Assyrii quartum regem habebant, Sicyonii quintum; apud illos enim regnabat filius Nini post matrem Samirarnidem, quae ab illo interfecta perhibetur, ausa filium mater incestare concubitu. Hanc putant nonnulli condidisse Babylonem, quam quidem potuit instaurare.

When therefore Abraham was born, the second kings were among the Assyrians Ninus, among the Sicyonians Europs; but the first there had been Belus, here Aegialeus. But when Abraham, having gone forth from Babylonia, God promised to him that from him there would be a great nation and, in his seed, the benediction of all nations, the Assyrians had a fourth king, the Sicyonians a fifth; for among the former the son of Ninus was reigning after his mother Samirarnis, who is reported to have been killed by him, the mother having dared to defile her son with incestuous intercourse. Some think that she founded Babylon, which indeed she could have restored.

Quando autem uel quo modo condita fuerit, in sexto decimo libro diximus. Filium porro Nini et Samiramidis, qui matri successit in regnum, quidam etiam ipsum Ninum, quidam uero deriuato a patre uocabulo Ninyan uocant. Sicyoniorum autem regnum tunc tenebat Telxion.

But when, or in what manner, it was founded, we have said in the sixteenth book. Moreover, the son of Ninus and Semiramis, who succeeded his mother in the kingdom, some also call Ninus himself; but some, from a vocable derived from the father, call him Ninyan. But the kingdom of the Sicyonians at that time was held by Telxion.

Quo regnante usque adeo ibi mitia et laeta tempora fuerunt, ut eum defunctum uelut deum colerent sacrificando et ludos celebrando, quos ei primitus institutos ferunt.

Under his reign, the times there were so mild and happy that, when he was deceased, they worshiped him as though a god, by sacrificing and by celebrating games, which they say were first instituted for him.

[III] Huius temporibus etiam Isaac ex promissione Dei natus est centenario patri filius Abrahae de Sarra coniuge, quae sterilis et anus iam spem prolis amiserat. Tunc et Assyriis quintus erat rex Arrius. Ipsi uero Isaac sexagenario nati sunt gemini, Esau et Iacob, quos ei Rebecca uxor peperit, auo eorum Abraham adhuc uiuente et centum sexaginta aetatis annos agente, qui expletis centum septuaginta quinque defunctus est, regnantibus apud Assyrios Xerse illo antiquiore, qui etiam Baleus uocabatur, et apud Sicyonios Thuriaco, quem quidam Thurimachum scribunt, septimis regibus.

[3] In his times too Isaac, by the promise of God, was born—a son to Abraham, a hundred-year-old father, from Sarah his consort, who, barren and aged, had already lost hope of progeny. Then also among the Assyrians the fifth king was Arrius. To this same Isaac, at sixty years, twins were born, Esau and Jacob, whom Rebecca his wife bore to him, their grandfather Abraham still living and counting 160 years of age, who, with 175 completed, died, with the more ancient Xerxes—who was also called Baleus—reigning among the Assyrians, and among the Sicyonians Thuriacus, whom some write Thurimachus, as the seventh kings.

Regnum autem Argiuorum simul cum Abrahae nepotibus ortum est, ubi primus regnauit Inachus. Sane, quod praetereundum non fuit, etiam apud sepulcrum septimi sui regis Thuriaci sacrificare Sicyonios solere Varro refert. Regnantibus porro octauis regibus, Armamitre Assyriorum, Sicyoniorum Leucippo et primo Argiuorum Inacho, Deus locutus est ad Isaac atque ipsi quoque eadem, quae patri eius, duo illa promisit, semini scilicet eius terram Chanaan et in eius semine benedictionem cunctarum gentium.

But the kingdom of the Argives arose at the same time with the grandsons of Abraham, where Inachus reigned first. Indeed—what ought not to be passed over—Varro reports that the Sicyonians were accustomed to sacrifice even at the sepulcher of their seventh king, Thuriacus. Furthermore, while the eighth kings were reigning—Armamitres of the Assyrians, Leucippus of the Sicyonians, and Inachus, the first of the Argives—God spoke to Isaac and to him also promised the same two things as to his father: namely, to his seed the land of Canaan, and in his seed the blessing of all nations.

Haec ipsa promissa sunt etiam filio eius, nepoti Abrahae, qui est appellatus primo Iacob, post Israel, cum iam Belocus rex nonus Assyriae et Phoroneus Inachi filius secundus regnaret Argiuis, Leucippo adhuc apud Sicyonios permanente. His temporibus Graecia sub Phoroneo Argolico rege legum et iudiciorum quibusdam clarior facta est institutis. Phegous tamen frater huius Phoronei iunior cum esset mortuus, ad eius sepulcrum templum est constitutum, in quo coleretur ut Deus et ei boues immolarentur.

These very promises were also made to his son, the grandson of Abraham, who was called first Jacob, afterward Israel, when already Belocus, the ninth king of Assyria, was reigning, and Phoroneus, son of Inachus, the second, was reigning among the Argives, with Leucippus still continuing among the Sicyonians. In these times Greece, under Phoroneus the Argolic king, was made more renowned by certain institutions of laws and judgments. Yet Phegous, the younger brother of this Phoroneus, when he had died, at his sepulcher a temple was established, in which he was worshiped as a god and oxen were immolated to him.

Credo honore tanto ideo dignum putarunt, quia in regni sui parte (pater quippe loca ambobus distribuerat, in quibus eo uiuente regnarent) iste sacella constituerat ad colendos deos et docuerat obseruari tempora per menses atque annos, quid eorum quatenus metirentur atque numerarent. Haec in eo noua mirantes rudes adhuc homines morte obita deum esse factum siue opinati sunt siue uoluerunt. Nam et Io filia Inachi fuisse perhibetur, quae postea Isis appellata ut magna dea culta est in Aegypto; quamuis alii scribant eam ex Aethiopia in Aegyptum uenisse reginam, et quod late iusteque imperauerit eisque multa commoda et litteras instituerit, hunc honorem illi habitum esse diuinum, postea quam ibi mortua est, et tantum honorem, ut capitali crimine reus fieret, si quis eam fuisse hominem diceret.

I believe they therefore thought him worthy of so great an honor, because in his part of the kingdom (for the father, indeed, had distributed places to both, in which they might reign while he was still living) this man had established little chapels for the worship of the gods and had taught that the times were to be observed through months and years—what of them, and to what extent, they should measure and number. Marveling at these novelties in him, men as yet rude, after his death either supposed or wished that he had been made a god. For Io too is reported to have been the daughter of Inachus, who afterwards, called Isis, was worshiped as a great goddess in Egypt; although others write that she came as a queen from Ethiopia into Egypt, and that she ruled widely and justly and established for them many benefits and letters; that this divine honor was paid to her after she died there, and such honor that one became liable to a capital charge if anyone said that she had been a human being.

[IV] Regnantibus Assyriorum decimo rege Baleo et Sicyoniorum nono Messapo, qui etiam Cephisos a quibusdam traditur (si tamen duorum nominum homo unus fuit ac non potius alterum pro altero putauerunt fuisse hominem, qui in suis posuerunt scriptis alterum nomen), cum rex Argiuorum tertius Apis esset, mortuus est Isaac annorum centum octoginta et reliquit geminos suos annorum centum et uiginti; quorum minor Iacob pertinens ad ciuitatem Dei, de qua scribimus, maiore utique reprobato, habebat duodecim filios, quorum illum, qui uocabatur Ioseph, mercatoribus in Aegyptum transeuntibus fratres adhuc Isaac auo eorum uiuente uendiderant. Stetit autem ante Pharaonem Ioseph, quando ex humilitate, quam pertulit, sublimatus est, cum triginta esset annorum; quoniam somnia regis diuine interpretatus praenuntiauit septem ubertatis annos futuros, quorum abundantiam praepollentem consequentes alii septem steriles fuerant consumpturi, et ob hoc eum rex praefecerat Aegypto de carcere liberatum, quo eum coniecerat integritas castitatis, quam fortiter seruans male amanti dominae et male credulo domino mentiturae ueste etiam derelicta de manibus adtrahentis aufugiens non consensit ad stuprum. Secundo autem anno septem annorum sterilium Iacob in Aegyptum cum suis omnibus uenit ad filium, agens annos centum et triginta, sicut interroganti regi ipse respondit, cum Ioseph ageret triginta et nouem, ad triginta scilicet, quos agebat, quando a rege honoratus est, additis septem ubertatis et duobus famis.

[4] With the Assyrians’ tenth king Baleus and the Sicyonians’ ninth Messapus—who also is handed down by some as Cephisos (if indeed the man of two names was one, and not rather they supposed another man in place of the other, who in their writings set down the other name)—while the third king of the Argives was Apis, Isaac died at one hundred and eighty years and left his twins at one hundred and twenty; of whom the younger Jacob, belonging to the City of God about which we are writing, with the elder of course reprobated, had twelve sons, of whom that one who was called Joseph his brothers, while Isaac their grandfather was still living, had sold to merchants passing into Egypt. But Joseph stood before Pharaoh, when from the humiliation that he endured he was exalted, being thirty years old; since, divinely interpreting the king’s dreams, he foretold that seven years of abundance were to come, whose surpassing plenty the other seven barren years would be going to consume, and on account of this the king set him over Egypt, freed from prison—into which the integrity of chastity had cast him—who, bravely keeping it, to a mistress who loved him badly and to a master badly credulous, fleeing from the hands of the one dragging him, leaving even the garment that would tell a lie, did not consent to defilement. And in the second year of the seven barren years Jacob came into Egypt with all his own to his son, being one hundred and thirty years old, as he himself answered the king who questioned him, when Joseph was thirty-nine—namely, to the thirty which he had when he was honored by the king, there being added seven of abundance and two of famine.

[V] His temporibus rex Argiuorum Apis nauibus transuectus in Aegyptum, cum ibi mortuus fuisset, factus est Serapis omnium maximus Aegyptiorum deus. Nominis autem huius, cur non Apis etiam post mortem,.sed Serapis appellatus sit, facillimam rationem Varro reddidit. quia enim arca, In qua mortuus ponitur, quod omnes iam sarcophagum uocant,soros dicitur Graece, et ibi eum uenerari sepultum coeperant, priusquam templum eius esset extructum: uelut soros et Apis Sorapis primo, deinde una littera, ut fieri adsolet, commutata Serapis dictus est.

[5] In these times Apis, king of the Argives, having been transported by ships into Egypt, when he had died there, became Serapis, the greatest god of all the Egyptians. As for this name—why he was called not Apis even after death, but Serapis—Varro gave a very easy explanation. For the chest in which a dead man is placed, which all now call a sarcophagus, is calledsoros in Greek, and there they had begun to venerate him buried, before his temple had been erected: as it were “soros” and “Apis,” at first “Sorapis,” then, with one letter, as is wont to happen, changed, he was called “Serapis.”

Et constitutum est etiam de illo, ut, quisquis eum hominem fuisse dixisset, capitalem penderet poenam. Et quoniam fere in omnibus templis, ubi colebantur Isis et Serapis, erat etiam simulacrum, quod digito labiis inpresso admonere uideretur, ut silentium fieret: hoc significare idem Varro existimat, ut homines eos fuisse taceretur. Ille autem bos, quem mirabili uanitate decepta Aegyptus in eius honorem deliciis afluentibus alebat, quoniam eum sine sarcophago uiuum uenerabantur, Apis, non Serapis uocabatur.

And it was also decreed about him that whoever had said he had been a man should pay the capital penalty. And since in almost all the temples where Isis and Serapis were worshiped there was also an image which, with a finger pressed upon the lips, seemed to admonish that silence be kept: this the same Varro judges to signify that it should be hushed up that they had been men. But that bull, which Egypt, deceived by marvelous vanity, nourished with overflowing delights in his honor, since they venerated him alive without a sarcophagus, was called Apis, not Serapis.

Quo boue mortuo quoniam quaerebatur et reperiebatur uitulus coloris eiusdem, hoc est albis quibusdam maculis similiter insignitus, mirum quiddam et diuinitus sibi procuratum esse credebant. Non enim magnum erat daemonibus ad eos decipiendos phantasiam talis tauri, quam sola cerneret, ostentare uaccae concipienti atque praegnanti, unde libido matris adtraheret, quod in eius fetu iam corporaliter appareret; sicut Iacob de uirgis uariatis, ut oues et caprae uariae nascerentur, effecit. Quod enim homines coloribus et corporibus ueris, hoc daemones figuris fictis facillime possunt animalibus concipientibus exhibere.

When that ox had died, since a calf of the same color was sought and found, that is, similarly marked with certain white spots, they believed that something marvelous and divinely procured had occurred for them. For it was no great thing for the demons, in order to deceive them, to display to a cow conceiving and pregnant the phantasm of such a bull, which she alone would perceive, whence the mother’s desire would draw in that which would already appear bodily in her offspring; just as Jacob, by means of variegated rods, brought it about that sheep and goats of various pattern should be born. For what men accomplish by true colors and bodies, this the demons can most easily present to conceiving animals by feigned figures.

[VI] Apis ergo rex, non Aegyptiorum, sed Argiuorum, mortuus est in Aegypto. Huic filius Argus successit in regnum, ex cuius nomine et Argi et ex hoc Argiui appellati sunt; superioribus autem regibus nondum uel locus uel gens habebat hoc nomen. Hoc regnante apud Argiuos et apud Sicyonios Erato, apud Assyrios uero adhuc manente Baleo mortuus est Iacob in Aegypto annorum centum quadraginta septem, cum moriturus filios suos et nepotes ex Ioseph benedixisset Christumque apertissime prophetasset, dicens in benedictione Iudae: Non deficiet princeps ex Iuda et dux de femoribus eius, donec ueniant quae reposita sunt ei; et ipse expectatio gentium.

[6] Apis therefore, a king not of the Egyptians but of the Argives, died in Egypt. To him his son Argus succeeded in the kingdom, from whose name both Argos and, from this, the Argives were appellated; but under the earlier kings neither the place nor the people yet had this name. With this man reigning among the Argives, and among the Sicyonians Erato, while among the Assyrians Baleo was still continuing, Jacob died in Egypt at the age of one hundred forty-seven, when, about to die, he had blessed his sons and his grandsons from Joseph and had most openly prophesied Christ, saying in the blessing of Judah: A prince shall not fail from Judah and a leader from his loins, until the things laid up for him shall come; and he himself the expectation of the nations.

Regnante Argo suis coepit uti frugibus Graecia et habere segetes in agricultura, delatis aliunde seminibus. Argus quoque post obitum deus haberi coepit, templo et sacrificiis honoratus. qui honor eo regnante ante illum delatus est homini priuato et fulminato cuidam Homogyro, eo quod primus ad aratrum boues iunxerit.

With Argus reigning, Greece began to use its own fruits and to have crops in agriculture, seeds having been brought in from elsewhere. Argus also, after his death, began to be held as a god, honored with a temple and sacrifices. Which honor, while he was reigning, before him had been conferred upon a private man, a certain Homogyros, thunder‑struck, because he was the first to yoke oxen to the plow.

[VII] Regnantibus Assyriorum duodecimo Mamytho et undecimo Sicyoniorum Plemmeo et Argis adhuc manente Argo mortuus est Ioseph annorum centum decem. Post cuius mortem populus Dei mirabiliter crescens mansit in Aegypto centum quadraginta quinque annos, tranquille prius, donec morerentur quibus Ioseph notus fuit; deinde quia inuidebatur incrementis eius erantque suspecta: quo usque inde liberaretur, persecutionibus (inter quas tamen diuinitus fecundata multiplicatione crescebat) et laboribus premebatur intolerabilis seruitutis. In Assyria uero et Graecia per idem tempus regna eadem permanebant.

[7] With Mamythus the twelfth of the Assyrians and Plemnaeus the eleventh of the Sicyonians reigning, and with Argus still remaining at Argos, Joseph died at the age of 110 years. After whose death the people of God, wondrously increasing, remained in Egypt for 145 years, tranquilly at first, until those to whom Joseph had been known died; thereafter, because its increments were envied and were suspected: until it was freed thence, it was pressed by persecutions (amid which, however, divinely fecundated, it was growing by multiplication) and by the labors of intolerable servitude. In Assyria indeed and in Greece during the same time the same kingdoms were remaining.

[VIII] Cum ergo regnaret Assyriis quartus decimus Saphrus et Sicyoniis duodecimus Orthopolis et Criasus quintus Argiuis, natus est in Aegypto Moyses, per quem populus Dei de seruitute Aegyptia liberatus est, in qua eum ad desiderandum sui Creatoris auxilium sic exerceri oportebat. Regnantibus memoratis regibus fuisse a quibusdam creditur Prometheus, quem propterea ferunt de luto formasse homines, quia optimus sapientiae doctor fuisse perhibetur; nec tamen ostenditur, qui eius temporibus fuerint sapientes. Frater eius Atlans magnus fuisse astrologus dicitur; unde occasionem fabula inuenit, ut eum caelum portare confingeret; quamuis mons eius nomine nuncupetur, cuius altitudine potius caeli portatio in opinionem uulgi uenisse uideatur.

[8] Therefore, when among the Assyrians the fourteenth, Saphrus, and among the Sicyonians the twelfth, Orthopolis, and Criasus the fifth of the Argives, were reigning, Moses was born in Egypt, through whom the people of God was freed from Egyptian servitude, in which it was fitting that it should be exercised so as to desire the help of its Creator. During the reigns of the aforesaid kings, Prometheus is believed by some to have existed, whom therefore they say formed men out of clay, because he is reported to have been a most excellent doctor of wisdom; nor, however, is it shown who the wise men were in his times. His brother Atlas is said to have been a great astrologer; whence the fable found occasion to feign that he carried the sky; although a mountain is called by his name, by whose height rather the carrying of the sky seems to have come into the opinion of the common crowd.

Multa quoque alia ex illis in Graecia temporibus confingi fabulosa coeperunt; sed usque ad Cecropem regem Atheniensium, quo regnante eadem ciuitas etiam tale nomen accepit, et quo regnante Deus per Moysen eduxit ex Aegypto populum suum, relati sunt in deorum numerum aliquot mortui caeca et uana consuetudine ac superstitione Graecorum. In quibus Criasi regis coniux Melantomice et Phorbas filius eorum, qui post patrem rex Argiuorum sextus fuit, et septimi regis Triopae filius Iasus et rex nonus Sthenelas siue Stheneleus siue Sthenelus, uarie quippe in diuersis auctoribus inuenitur. His temporibus etiam Mercurius fuisse perbibetur, nepos Atlantis ex Maia filia, quod uulgatiores etiam litterae personant.

Many other things also from those times in Greece began to be fashioned as fabulous tales; but up to Cecrops, king of the Athenians—during whose reign that same city also received such a name, and during whose reign God through Moses led out his people from Egypt—several dead men were referred into the number of the gods by the blind and vain custom and superstition of the Greeks. Among these were Melantomice, the wife of King Criasus, and Phorbas, their son, who after his father was the sixth king of the Argives; and Iasus, son of Triopas, the seventh king; and the ninth king Sthenelas, or Stheneleus, or Sthenelus, for it is found variously in different authors. In these times Mercury also is reported to have been, the grandson of Atlas by his daughter Maia, which even the more popular letters resound.

Multarum autem artium peritus claruit, quas et hominibus tradidit; quo merito eum post mortem deum esse uoluerunt siue etiam crediderunt. Posterior fuisse Hercules dicitur, ad ea tamen tempora pertinens Argiuorum; quamuis nonnulli eum Mercurio praeferant tempore, quos falli existimo. Sed quolibet tempore nati sint, constat inter historicos graues, qui haec antiqua litteris mandauerunt, ambos homines fuisse, et quod mortalibus ad istam uitam commodius ducendam beneficia multa contulerint, honores ab eis meruisse diuinos.

Skilled in many arts, he was illustrious, and he also transmitted them to men; for which merit they wished him, after death, to be a god, or even believed him to be one. Later is said to have been Hercules, yet pertaining to the times of the Argives; although some prefer him to Mercury in time, whom I judge to be mistaken. But at whatever time they were born, it is agreed among grave historians, who have committed these ancient matters to letters, that both were men, and that, because they contributed many benefactions to mortals for leading this life more commodiously, they deserved divine honors from them.

Minerua uero longe his antiquior; nam temporibus Ogygi ad lacum, qui Tritonis dicitur, uirginali apparuisse fertur aetate, unde et Tritonia nuncupata est; multorum sane operum inuentrix et tanto procliuius dea credita, quanto minus origo eius innotuit. Quod enim de capite Iouis nata canitur, poetis et fabulis, non historiae rebusque gestis est adplicandum. Quamquam Ogygus ipse quando fuerit, cuius temporibus etiam diluuium magnum factum est, non illud maximum: In quo nulli homines euaserunt, nisi qui in arca esse potuerunt, quod gentium nec Graeca nec Latina nouit historia, sed tamen maius quam postea tempore Deucalionis fuit, inter scriptores historiae non conuenit.

Minerva, however, is far more ancient than these; for in the times of Ogyges she is said to have appeared at the lake which is called Tritonis, in maidenly age, whence she was also named Tritonia; truly the inventress of many works, and so much the more readily believed to be a goddess, the less her origin became known. For what is sung, that she was born from the head of Jove, is to be referred to poets and fables, not to history and deeds actually done. Although when Ogygus himself was—at which time, too, a great deluge took place, not that greatest one: In which no humans survived except those who were able to be in the ark, a thing which the history of the nations, neither Greek nor Latin, knows—but yet greater than the one afterward in the time of Deucalion, does not agree among the writers of history.

Nam Varro inde exorsus est librum, cuius mentionem superius feci, et nihil sibi, ex quo perueniat ad res Romanas, proponit antiquius quam Ogygi diluuium, hoc est Ogygi factum temporibus. Nostri autem qui chronica scripserunt, prius Eusebius, post Hieronymus, qui utique praecedentes aliquos historicos in hac opinione secuti sunt, post annos amplius quam trecentos iam secundo Argiuorum Phoroneo rege regnante Ogygi diluuium fuisse commemorant. Sed quolibet tempore fuerit, iam tamen Minerua tamquam dea colebatur regnante Atheniensibus Cecrope, sub quo rege etiam ipsam uel instauratam ferunt uel conditam ciuitatem.

For Varro, beginning from that point, started the book of which I made mention above, and he proposes to himself nothing more ancient, from which he comes to Roman matters, than the deluge of Ogyges, that is, a thing done in the times of Ogyges. But our men who wrote chronicles, first Eusebius, afterward Jerome, who of course followed some preceding historians in this opinion, record that, after more than 300 years, with Phoroneus the second king of the Argives already reigning, the deluge of Ogyges occurred. But at whatever time it was, already, nevertheless, Minerva was being worshiped as a goddess while Cecrops was reigning over the Athenians, under which king they say that the city itself was either restored or founded.

[IX] Nam ut Athenae uocarentur, quod certe nomen a Minerua est, quae GraeceAthena dicitur, hanc causam Varro indicat. Cum apparuisset illic repente oliuae arbor et alio loco aqua erupisset, regem prodigia ista mouerunt, et misit ad Apollinem Delphicum sciscitatum quid intellegendum esset quidue faciendum. Ille respondit, quod olea Mineruam significaret, unda Neptunum, et quod esset in ciuium potestate, ex cuius potius nomine duorum deorum, quorum illa signa essent, ciuitas uocaretur.

[IX] For as to why Athens should be called so, since certainly the name is from Minerva, who in Greek is calledAthena, Varro indicates this cause. When an olive tree had suddenly appeared there and in another place water had erupted, those prodigies moved the king, and he sent to Delphic Apollo to inquire what was to be understood and what was to be done. He replied that the olive signified Minerva, the wave Neptune, and that it was in the citizens’ power, from which name rather of the two gods, of whom those were the signs, the city should be called.

Isto Cecrops oraculo accepto ciues omnes utriusque sexus (mos enim tunc in eisdem locis erat, ut etiam feminae publicis consultationibus interessent) ad ferendum suffragium conuocauit. Consulta igitur multitudine mares pro Neptuno, feminae pro Minerua tulere sententias, et quia una plus inuenta est feminarum, Minerua uicit. Tum Neptunus iratus marinis fluctibus exaestuantibus terras Atheniensium populatus est; quoniam spargere latius quaslibet aquas difficile daemonibus non est.

With this oracle received, Cecrops convoked all the citizens of both sexes (for the custom then in those same places was that even women should take part in public consultations) to cast their suffrage. Accordingly, the multitude having been consulted, the males declared for Neptune, the females for Minerva; and because the women were found to be one more, Minerva prevailed. Then Neptune, enraged, with marine billows seething, laid waste the lands of the Athenians; since to scatter more widely any waters whatsoever is not difficult for daemons.

Cuius ut iracundia placaretur, triplici supplicio dicit idem auctor ab Atheniensibus affectas esse mulieres, ut nulla ulterius ferrent suffragia, ut nullus nascentium maternum nomen acciperet, ut ne quis eas Athenaeas uocaret. Ita illa ciuitas, mater aut nutrix liberalium doctrinarum et tot tantorumque philosophorum, qua nihil habuit Graecia clarius atque nobilius, ludificantibus daemonibus de lite deorum suorum, maris et feminae, et de uictoria per feminas feminae Athenas nomen accepit, et a uicto laesa ipsam uictricis uictoriam punire compulsa est, plus aquas Neptuni quam Mineruae arma formidans. Nam in mulieribus, quae sic punitae sunt, et Minerua quae uicerat uicta est; nec adfuit suffragatricibus suis, ut suffragiorum deinceps perdita potestate et alienatis filiis a nominibus matrum Athenaeas saltem uocari liceret et eius deae mereri uocabulum, quam uiri dei uictricem fecerant ferendo suffragium.

Cuius, that his irascibility might be placated, the same author says that the women were afflicted by the Athenians with a triple punishment: that thereafter they should carry no suffrages; that none of those being born should receive the maternal name; that no one should call them Athenaeans. Thus that city—the mother or nurse of liberal doctrines and of so many and so great philosophers, than which Greece had nothing more illustrious and more noble—while the demons were making sport of the quarrel of their own gods, male and female, and of the victory through women, received, as womanly, the name Athens; and, injured by the vanquished, it was compelled to punish the very victory of the victress, dreading the waters of Neptune more than the arms of Minerva. For in the women who were thus punished, even Minerva, who had conquered, was conquered; nor did she stand by her own suffragists, so that, the power of suffrages thenceforward lost and their sons alienated from the names of their mothers, it might at least be permitted for them to be called Athenaeans and to merit the appellation of that goddess, whom the men had made a victress by casting their vote.

Quae et quanta hinc dici possent, nisi sermo ad alia properaret!

What things, and how great, could be said from here, if the discourse were hastening not to other matters!

[X] Et tamen Marcus Varro non uult fabulosis aduersus deos fidem adhibere figmentis, ne de maiestatis eorum dignitate indignum aliquid sentiat. Et ideo nec Areon pagon. ubi cum Atheniensibus Paulus apostolus disputauit, ex quo loco Areopagitae appellati sunt curiales urbis eiusdem, uult inde accepisse nomen, quod Mars, qui GraeceAres dicitur, cum homicidii crimine reus fieret, iudicantibus duodecim diis in eo pago sex sententiis absolutus est (quia ubi paris numeri sententiae fuissent, praeponi absolutio damnationi solebat); sed contra istam, quae multo amplius est celebrata, opinionem aliam quandam de obscurarum notitia litterarum causam nominis huius conatur astruere, ne Areon pagon Athenienses de nomine Martis et pagi quasi Martis pagum nominasse credantur, in iniuriam uidelicet numinum, a quibus litigia uel iudicia existimat aliena; non minus hoc, quod de Marte dicitur, falsum esse adseuerans, quam illud quod de tribus deabus, Iunone scilicet et Minerua et Venere, quae pro malo aureo adipiscendo apud iudicem Paridem de pulchritudinis excellentia certasse narrantur et ad placandos ludis deos, qui delectantur seu ueris seu falsis istis criminibus suis, inter theatricos plausus cantantur atque saltantur.

[X] And yet Marcus Varro does not wish to apply faith to fabulous figments against the gods, lest he feel anything unworthy of the dignity of their majesty. And therefore he does not want the Areopagus, where the Apostle Paul disputed with the Athenians, from which place the curials of that same city were called Areopagites, to have taken its name from this: that Mars, who in Greek is calledAres, when he became defendant on a charge of homicide, was acquitted on that hill by the 12 gods with six votes (because when the votes had been of an even number, acquittal used to be preferred to condemnation); but, against that opinion which is much more widely celebrated, he tries to establish some other cause of this name from the acquaintance with obscure letters, lest the Athenians be believed to have named the Areopagus from the name of Mars and of the hill, as though “the hill of Mars,” to the injury, of course, of the divinities, from whom he deems lawsuits or judgments to be alien; asserting that this which is said about Mars is no less false than that which is said about the three goddesses—Juno, Minerva, and Venus—who are reported to have contended before the judge Paris for obtaining the golden apple concerning the preeminence of beauty, and that, to appease by games the gods who are delighted by these charges of theirs, whether true or false, such tales are sung and danced amid theatrical applauses.

Haec Varro non credit, ne deorum naturae seu moribus credat incongrua; et tamen non fabulosam, sed historicam rationem de Athenarum uocabulo reddens tantam Neptuni et Mineruae litem suis litteris inserit, de cuius nomine potius illa ciuitas uocaretur, ut, cum prodigiorum ostentatione contenderent, inter eos iudicare nec Apollo consultus auderet, sed deorum iurgium finiendum, sicut memoratarum trium dearum ad Paridem Iuppiter, ita et iste ad homines mitteret, ubi uinceret Minerua suffragiis et in poena suarum suffragatricium uinceretur, quae in aduersariis suis uiris obtinere Athenas potuit, et amicas suas feminas Athenaeas habere non potuit. His temporibus, ut Varro scribit, regnante Atheniensibus Cranao, successore Cecropis, ut autem nostri Eusebius et Hieronymus, adhuc eodem Cecrope permanente, diluuium fuit, quod appellatum est Deucalionis, eo quod ipse regnabat in earum terrarum partibus, ubi maxime factum est. Hoc autem diluuium nequaquam ad Aegyptum atque ad eius uicina peruenit.

Varro does not believe these things, lest he believe things incongruous to the gods’ nature or morals; and yet, rendering not a fabulous but a historical account about the appellation of Athens, he inserts into his writings so great a lawsuit of Neptune and Minerva, about by whose name that city should rather be called, that, when they were contending by an ostentation of prodigies, not even Apollo, though consulted, would dare to judge between them, but he would send the quarrel of the gods to be ended to men, just as Jupiter sent that of the aforementioned three goddesses to Paris; where Minerva would win by suffrages and would be defeated in the punishment of her suffragatrices—she who could secure Athens among her adversaries, the men, and could not have her friendly women as Athenians. In these times, as Varro writes, Cranaus, the successor of Cecrops, was ruling the Athenians; but, as our men Eusebius and Jerome say, with that same Cecrops still remaining, there was the deluge which was called Deucalion’s, because he himself was reigning in those parts of the lands where it was chiefly done. This deluge by no means reached Egypt and its neighboring regions.

[XI] Eduxit ergo Moyses ex Aegypto populum Dei nouissimo tempore Cecropis Atheniensium regis, cum apud Assyrios regnaret Ascatades, apud Sicyonios Marathus, apud Argiuos Triopas. Educto autem populo in monte Sina diuinitus acceptam tradidit legem, quod uetus dicitur testamentum, quia promissiones terrenas habet, et per Iesum Christum futurum fuerat testamentum nouum, quo regnum caelorum promitteretur. Hunc enim ordinem seruari oportebat, sicut in uno quoque homine, qui in Deum proficit, id agitur, quod ait apostolus, ut non sit prius quod spiritale est; sed quod animale, postea spiritale; quoniam sicut dicit et uerum est, primus homo de terra, terrenus; secundus homo de caelo.

[11] Therefore Moses led out from Egypt the people of God in the latest time of Cecrops, king of the Athenians, while among the Assyrians Ascatades was reigning, among the Sicyonians Marathus, among the Argives Triopas. But when the people had been led out, on Mount Sinai he delivered the law divinely received, which is called the Old Testament, because it has terrestrial promises; and through Jesus Christ there was going to be the New Testament, by which the kingdom of heaven would be promised. For this order had to be observed, just as in each individual man who makes progress in God that is effected which the Apostle says: that not first which is spiritual, but that which is animal; afterward spiritual. For, as he says and it is true: the first man is from the earth, terrene; the second man is from heaven.

Rexit autem populum Moyses per annos quadraginta in deserto et mortuus est annorum centum et uiginti, cum Christum etiam ipse prophetasset per figuras obseruationum carnalium in tabernaculo et sacerdotio et sacrificiis aliisque mysticis plurimisque mandatis. Moysi successit Iesus Naue et in terra promissionis Introductum populum conlocauit ex auctoritate diuina debellatis gentibus, a quibus eadem loca tenebantur. qui cum populum rexisset post mortem Moysi uiginti et septem annos, etiam ipse defunctus est regnante apud Assyrios octauo decimo Amynta, apud Sicyonios sexto decimo Corace, apud Argiuos decimo Danao, apud Athenienses quarto Erichthonio.

But Moses ruled the people for forty years in the desert and died at the age of one hundred and twenty, since he himself had also prophesied Christ through the figures of carnal observances in the tabernacle and the priesthood and the sacrifices and other mystical and very many commandments. Joshua (Jesus Nave) succeeded Moses and, the nations by whom those same places were held having been subdued, settled the people, brought into the land of promise, by divine authority. He, when he had ruled the people after the death of Moses for twenty-seven years, also died, while among the Assyrians Amyntas was reigning in his eighteenth year, among the Sicyonians Corax in his sixteenth, among the Argives Danaus in his tenth, among the Athenians Erichthonius in his fourth.

[XII] Per haec tempora, id est ab exitu Israel ex Aegypto usque ad mortem Iesu Naue, per quem populus idem terram promissionis accepit, sacra sunt instituta diis falsis a regibus Graeciae, quae memoriam diluuii et ab eo liberationis hominum uitaeque tunc aerumnosae modo ad alta, modo ad plana migrantium sollemni celebritate reuocarunt. Nam et Lupercorum per sacram uiam ascensum atque descensum sic interpretantur, ut ab eis significari dicant homines, qui propter aquae inundationem summa montium petiuerunt et rursus eadem residente ad ima redierunt. His temporibus Dionysum, qui etiam Liber pater dictus est et post mortem deus habitus, uitem ferunt ostendisse in Attica terra hospiti suo.

[12] During these times, that is, from the exit of Israel from Egypt up to the death of Joshua, through whom that same people received the land of promise, sacra were instituted to false gods by the kings of Greece, which, with solemn celebration, recalled the memory of the deluge and of the liberation from it, and of the life then toilsome of men migrating now to the heights, now to the level places. For they also interpret thus the ascent and descent of the Luperci along the Sacred Way, that by them are signified the men who, because of the inundation of the water, sought the summits of the mountains and, it subsiding, returned to the depths. In these times they report that Dionysus, who is also called Liber Father and was held a god after death, showed a vine in the land of Attica to his host.

Tunc Apollini Delphico instituti sunt ludi musici, ut placaretur ira eius, qua putabant adflictas esse sterilitate Graeciae regiones, quia non defenderint templum eius, quod rex Danaus, cum easdem terras bello inuasisset, incendit. Hos autem ludos ut instituerent, oraculo sunt eius admoniti. In Attica uero rex Erichthonius ei ludos primus instituit, nec ei tantum, sed etiam Mineruae, ubi praemium uictoribus oleum ponebatur, quod eius fructus inuentricem Mineruam, sicut uini Liberum tradunt.

Then to Delphic Apollo musical games were instituted, in order that his wrath might be appeased, by which they thought the regions of Greece had been afflicted with sterility, because they had not defended his temple, which King Danaus, when he had invaded those same lands in war, burned. And that they might institute these games, they were admonished by his oracle. In Attica indeed King Erichthonius first instituted games for him, and not for him only, but also for Minerva, where oil was set forth as the prize for the victors, because they hand down that Minerva was the inventress of its fruit, just as they hand down Liber to be of wine.

Per eos annos a rege Xantho Cretensium, cuius apud alios aliud nomen inuenimus, rapta perbibetur Europa, et inde geniti Rhadamanthus, Sarpedon et Minos, quos magis ex eadem muliere filios Iouis esse uulgatum est. Sed talium deorum cultores illud, quod de rege Cretensium diximus, historicae ueritati, hoc autem, quod de Ioue poetae cantant, theatra concrepant, populi celebrant, uanitati deputant fabularum, ut esset unde ludi fierent placandis numinibus etiam falsis eorum criminibus. His temporibus Hercules in Syria clarus habebatur; sed nimirum alius, non ille, de quo supra locuti sumus.

During those years by Xanthus, king of the Cretans—of whom among others we find another name—Europa is said to have been ravished; and from that union were begotten Rhadamanthus, Sarpedon, and Minos, who are more widely reported to be sons of Jove by that same woman. But the worshipers of such gods assign that which we said about the king of the Cretans to historical verity; whereas that which the poets sing about Jove the theaters make resound, the peoples celebrate, they consign to the vanity of fables, so that there might be a source whence games should be made for appeasing the numina—even false ones—on account of their crimes. In these times Hercules was held famous in Syria; but assuredly another, not the one of whom we spoke above.

Secretiore quippe historia plures fuisse dicuntur et Liberi patres et Hercules. Hunc sane Herculem, cuius ingentia duodecim facta numerant, inter quae Antaei Afri necem non commemorant, quod ea res ad alterum Herculem pertinet, in Oeta monte a se ipso incensum produnt suis litteris, cum ea uirtute, qua multa subegerat, morbum tamen, quo languebat, sustinere non posset. Illo tempore uel rex uel potius tyrannus Busiris suis diis suos hospites immolabat, quem filium perhibent fuisse Neptuni ex matre Libya, filia Epaphi.

By a more secret history, several Libers and several Hercules are said to have existed. This Hercules indeed, whose enormous twelve deeds they enumerate, among which they do not commemorate the killing of Antaeus the African, because that matter pertains to the other Hercules, they relate in their writings to have been burned by himself on Mount Oeta, since, with that virtue by which he had subdued many things, yet he could not endure the disease with which he was languishing. At that time the king, or rather the tyrant, Busiris was immolating his guests to his gods, whom they assert to have been a son of Neptune by the mother Libya, daughter of Epaphus.

Verum non credatur hoc stuprum perpetrasse Neptunus, ne dii accusentur; sed poetis et theatris ista tribuantur, ut sit unde placentur. Erichthonii regis Atheniensium, cuius nouissimis annis Iesus Naue mortuus reperitur, Vulcanus et Minerua parentes fuisse dicuntur. Sed quoniam Mineruam uirginem uolunt, in amborum contentione Vulcanum commotum effudisse aiunt semen in terram atque inde homini nato ob eam causam tale inditum nomen.

But let it not be believed that Neptune perpetrated this defilement, lest the gods be accused; rather let these things be attributed to the poets and to the theaters, so that there may be a means by which they are placated. Vulcan and Minerva are said to have been the parents of Erichthonius, king of the Athenians, in whose latest years Jesus Nave is found to have died. But since they wish Minerva to be a virgin, they say that, in the contention of the two, Vulcan, having been provoked, poured forth seed onto the earth, and from that, when a human being was born, for that reason such a name was assigned to him.

Graeca enim lingua eris contentio, thon terra est, ex quibus duobus compositum uocabulum est Erichthonius. Verum, quod fatendum est, refellunt et a suis diis repellunt ista doctiores, qui hanc opinionem fabulosam hinc exortam ferunt, quia in templo Vulcani et Mineruae, quod ambo unum habebant Athenis, expositus inuentus est puer dracone inuolutus, qui eum significauit magnum futurum et propter commune templum, cum essent parentes eius ignoti, Vulcani et Mineruae dictum esse filium. Nominis tamen eius originem fabula illa potius quam ista designat historia.

For in the Greek tongue eris is “contention,” thon is “earth,” from which two the composite vocable is Erichthonius. But, what must be confessed, the more learned refute these things and repel them from their gods, who report that this fabulous opinion arose hence: because in the temple of Vulcan and Minerva, which both had as one at Athens, an exposed boy was found wrapped in a serpent, which signified that he would be great; and, on account of the common temple, since his parents were unknown, he was said to be called the son of Vulcan and Minerva. Yet the origin of his name that fable rather than this history designates.

Sed quid ad nos? Hoc in ueracibus libris homines instruat religiosos, illud in fallacibus ludis daemones delectet inpuros; quos tamen illi religiosi tamquam deos colunt, et cum de illis haec negant, ab omni eos crimine purgare non possunt, quoniam ludos eis poscentibus exhibent, ubi turpiter aguntur, quae uelut sapienter negantur, et his falsis ac turpibus dii placantur, ubi etsi fabula cantat crimen numinum falsum, delectari tamen falso crimine crimen est uerum.

But what is that to us? Let this in veracious books instruct religious men; let that in fallacious shows delight impure demons; whom nevertheless those religious people worship as gods, and when they deny these things about them, they cannot purge them from every crime, since they put on shows at their demand, where things are shamefully performed which are denied as if wisely, and by these false and base things the gods are placated—where, even if the fable sings that the crime of the deities is false, nevertheless to be delighted by a false crime is a true crime.

[XIII] Post mortem Iesu Naue populus Dei iudices habuit, quibus temporibus alternauerunt apud eos et humilitates laborum pro eorum peccatis, et prosperitates consolationum propter miserationem Dei. His temporibus fabulae fictae sunt de Triptolemo, quod iubente Cerere anguibus portatus alitibus indigentibus terris frumenta uolando contulerit; de Minotauro, quod bestia fuerit inclusa Labyrintho, quo cum intrassent homines, inextricabili errore inde exire non poterant; de Centauris, quod equorum hominumque fuerit natura coniuncta; de Cerbero, quod sit triceps inferorum canis; de Phryxo et Helle eius sorore, quod uecti ariete uolauerint; de Gorgone, quod fuerit crinita serpentibus et aspicientes conuertebat in lapides; de Bellerophonte, quod equo pinnis uolante sit uectus, qui equus Pegasus dictus est; de Amphione, quod citharae suauitate lapides mulserit et adtraxerit; de fabro Daedalo et eius Icaro filio, quod sibi coaptatis pinnis uolauerint; de Oedipo, quod monstrum quoddam, quae Sphinga dicebatur, humana facie quadrupedem, soluta qua e ab illa proponi soleret uelut insolubili quaestione suo praecipitio perire compulerit; de Antaeo, quem necauit Hercules, quod filius terrae fuerit, propter quod cadens in terram fortior soleret adsurgere; et si qua forte alia praetermisi. Hae fabulae bellum ad usque Troianum, ubi secundum librum Marcus Varro de populi Romani gente finiuit, ex occasione historiarum, quae res ueraciter gestas continent, ita sunt ingeniis hominum fictae, ut non sint opprobriis numinum adfixae.

[13] After the death of Joshua the son of Nun, the people of God had judges, during which times there alternated among them both the humiliations of labors for their sins and the prosperities of consolations on account of the mercy of God. In these times fables were fashioned about Triptolemus, that, by the command of Ceres, carried by winged serpents, he, by flying, brought grain to lands in need; about the Minotaur, that a beast was enclosed in the Labyrinth, where, when men had entered, by an inextricable wandering they could not get out; about the Centaurs, that the nature of horses and men was conjoined; about Cerberus, that he is the three-headed dog of the underworld; about Phrixus and Helle his sister, that, borne by a ram, they flew; about the Gorgon, that she was haired with serpents and turned those looking upon her into stones; about Bellerophon, that he was carried by a horse flying with wings, which horse is called Pegasus; about Amphion, that by the sweetness of the cithara he soothed stones and drew them to him; about the craftsman Daedalus and his son Icarus, that, wings fitted to themselves, they flew; about Oedipus, that a certain monster, which was called the Sphinx, a four-footed creature with a human face, when the question was solved which was wont to be proposed by her as if unsolvable, he compelled to perish by its own headlong plunge; about Antaeus, whom Hercules killed, that he was a son of the earth, because of which, falling onto the earth, he was accustomed to rise stronger; and if by chance I have passed over any others. These fables, down to the Trojan War—where, in the second book, Marcus Varro set the end in his work On the Roman Nation—on the occasion of histories which contain things truly done, have thus been feigned by the wits of men, so that they are not fastened as reproaches upon the divinities.

Porro autem quicumque finxerunt a Ioue ad stuprum raptum pulcherrimum puerum Ganymedem, quod nefas rex Tantalus fecit et Ioui fabula tribuit, uel Danaes per imbrem aureum adpetisse concubitum, ubi intellegitur pudicitia mulieris auro fuisse corrupta, quae illis temporibus uel facta uel ficta sunt, aut facta ab aliis et ficta de Ioue, dici non potest quantum mali de hominum praesumpserint cordibus, quod possent ista patienter ferre mendacia, quae tamen etiam libenter amplexi sunt. qui utique quanto deuotius Iouem colunt, tanto eos, qui haec de illo dicere ausi sunt, seuerius punire debuerunt. Nunc uero non solum eis, qui ista finxerunt, irati non sunt, sed ut talia figmenta etiam in theatris agerent, ipsos deos potius iratos habere timuerunt.

Moreover, whoever fabricated that Jove carried off to debauchery the most beautiful boy, Ganymede—a nefas which King Tantalus committed and by a fable attributed to Jove—or that Danaë sought to attain intercourse through a golden shower, where it is understood that the woman’s pudicity was corrupted by gold—things which in those times were either done or feigned, or done by others and feigned of Jove—it cannot be told how much evil they presumed upon the hearts of men, that they could bear such lies with patience, which nevertheless they even embraced gladly. They, indeed, the more devotedly they worship Jove, by so much the more severely ought to have punished those who dared to say these things about him. But now they are not only not angry with those who fabricated these tales; rather, in order that such figments might also be performed in the theaters, they feared to have the gods themselves angry.

His temporibus Latona Apollinem peperit, non illum, cuius oracula solere consuli superius loquebamur, sed illum, qui cum Hercule seruiuit Admeto; qui tamen sic est deus creditus, ut plurimi ac paene omnes unum eundemque Apollinem fuisse opinentur. Tunc et Liber pater bellauit in India, qui multas habuit in exercitu feminas, quae Bacchae appellatae sunt, non tam uirtute nobiles quam furore. Aliqui sane et uictum scribunt istum Liberum et uinctum; nonnulli et occisum in pugna a Perseo, nec ubi fuerit sepultus tacent; et tamen eius uelut dei nomine per inmundos daemones Bacchanalia sacra uel potius sacrilegia sunt instituta, de quorum rabiosa turpitudine post tam multos annos sic senatus erubuit, ut in urbe Roma esse prohiberet.

In these times Latona bore Apollo, not that one whose oracles, as we were speaking above, are wont to be consulted, but the one who served Admetus together with Hercules; who nevertheless was believed a god in such wise that very many, and almost all, suppose that there was one and the same Apollo. Then too Father Liber waged war in India, who had many women in his army, who were called Bacchae, notable not so much for virtue as for fury. Some indeed write that this Liber was conquered and bound; some that he was also slain in battle by Perseus, nor do they pass over in silence where he was buried; and yet, under his name as if of a god, through unclean demons the Bacchanalia rites—or rather sacrileges—were instituted, at whose rabid turpitude after so many years the Senate so blushed that it forbade them to exist in the city of Rome.

Per ea tempora Perseus et uxor eius Andromeda postea quam sunt mortui, sic eos in caelum receptos esse crediderunt, ut imagines eorum stellis designare eorumque appellare nominibus non erubescerent, non timerent.

During those times Perseus and his wife Andromeda, after they had died, they believed them to have been received into heaven, in such a way that they were not ashamed, nor did they fear, to designate their images with stars and to call them by their names.

[XIV] Per idem temporis interuallum extiterunt poetae, qui etiam theologi dicerentur, quoniam de diis carmina faciebant, sed talibus diis, qui licet magni homines, tamen homines fuerunt aut mundi huius, quem uerus Deus fecit, elementa sunt aut in principatibus et potestatibus pro uoluntate Creatoris et suis meritis ordinati, et si quid de uno uero Deo inter multa Dana et falsa cecinerint, colendo cum illo alios, qui dii non sunt, eisque exhibendo famulatum, qui uni tantum debetur Deo, non ei utique rite seruierunt nec a fabuloso deorum suorum dedecore etiam ipsi se abstinere potuerunt — Orpheus, Musaeus, Linus. Verum isti theologi deos coluerunt, non pro diis culti sunt; quamuis Orpheum nescio quo modo infernis sacris uel potius sacrilegiis praeficere soleat ciuitas impiorum. Vxor autem regis Athamantis, quae uocabatur Ino, et eius filius Melicertes praecipitio spontaneo in mari perierunt et opinione hominum in deos relati sunt, sicut alii homines eorum temporum, Castor et Pollux.

[14] In the same interval of time there arose poets, who would also be called theologians, since they made songs about the gods—but of such gods as, though great men, yet were men; or are the elements of this world, which the true God made; or are in principalities and powers, ordered according to the will of the Creator and their own merits—and if they sang anything of the one true God among many vain and false things, by worshipping along with Him others who are not gods, and by rendering to them servitude which is owed to God alone, they surely did not serve Him duly, nor could they themselves abstain from the fabulous disgrace of their gods—Orpheus, Musaeus, Linus. But these theologians worshipped gods; they were not worshipped as gods; although the city of the impious is wont, somehow, to set Orpheus over infernal rites, or rather sacrileges. Moreover, the wife of King Athamas, who was called Ino, and her son Melicertes, perished in the sea by a voluntary plunge, and by the opinion of men were translated into gods, just as other men of those times, Castor and Pollux.

Illam sane Melicertis matrem Leucothean Graeci, Matutam Latini uocauerunt, utrique tamen putantes deam.

Indeed, that mother of Melicertes the Greeks called Leucothea, the Latins Matuta, yet both, however, considering her a goddess.

[XV] Per ea tempora regnum finitum est Argiuorum, translatum ad Mycenas, unde fuit Agamemnon, et exortum est regnum Laurentum, ubi Saturni filius Picus regnum primus accepit, iudicante apud Hebraeos femina Debbora; sed per illam Dei spiritus id agebat; nam etiam prophetissa erat, cuius prophetia minus aperta est, quam ut possimus eam sine diuturna expositione de Christo demonstrare prolatam. Iam ergo regnabant Laurentes utique in Italia, ex quibus euidentior ducitur origo Romana post Graecos; et tamen adhuc regnum Assyrium permanebat, ubi erat rex uicensimus et tertius Lampares, cum primus Laurentum Picus esse coepisset. De huius Pici patre Saturno uiderint quid sentiant talium deorum cultores, qui negant hominem fuisse; de quo et alii scripserunt, quod ante Picum filium suum in Italia ipse regnauerit, et Vergilius notioribus litteris dicit:

[15] At about that time the kingdom of the Argives was brought to an end, transferred to Mycenae, whence was Agamemnon; and the Laurentine kingdom arose, where Saturn’s son Picus first received the kingship, while among the Hebrews the woman Deborah was judging; but through her the Spirit of God was accomplishing that, for she was also a prophetess, whose prophecy is less clear than that we can show it to have been uttered concerning Christ without a lengthy exposition. Already, then, the Laurentes were reigning in Italy, from whom a more evident Roman origin is drawn after the Greeks; and yet the Assyrian kingdom still endured, where the twenty-third king, Lampares, was, when Picus had begun to be the first of the Laurentes. As to Saturn, the father of this Picus, let the worshipers of such “gods” consider what they think, who deny that he was a man; about whom others too have written that he himself reigned in Italy before Picus his son; and Virgil, in more widely known writings, says:

Is genus indocile et dispersum montibus altis
Composuit legesque dedit Latiumque uocari
Maluit, his quoniam latuisset tutus in oris.
Aurea quae perhibent illo sub rege fuere

That race, indocile and scattered on lofty mountains
he composed and gave laws, and he preferred that it be called Latium,
since on these shores he had lain hidden safe.
Those “golden” times which they report were under that king

Saecula. Sed haec poetica opinentur esse figmenta et Pici patrem Stercen potius fuisse adseuerent, a quo peritissimo agricola inuentum ferunt, ut fimo animalium agri fecundarentur, quod ab eius nomine stercus est dictum; hunc quidam Stercutium uocatum ferunt. Qualibet autem ex causa eum Saturnum appellare uoluerint, certe tamen hunc Stercen siue Stercutium merito agriculturae fecerunt deum.

Ages. But let them suppose these to be poetic figments and assert rather that Picus’s father was Sterces, who, as a most expert agriculturist, is reported to have invented that the fields should be fecundated with the dung of animals, which from his name has been called stercus; some report that this man was called Stercutius. For whatever reason they may have wished to call him Saturn, yet certainly this Sterces or Stercutius they made, deservedly, a god of agriculture.

Picum quoque similiter eius filium in talium deorum numerum receperunt, quem praeclarum augurem et belligeratorem fuisse asserunt. Picus Faunum genuit, Laurentum regem secundum; etiam iste deus illis uel est uel fuit. Hos ante Troianum bellum diuinos honores mortuis hominibus detulerunt.

Picus likewise, his son, they received into the number of such gods, whom they assert to have been a distinguished augur and a belligerent. Picus begot Faunus, the second king of Laurentum; he too is—or was—a god for them. Before the Trojan War they bestowed divine honors upon these, upon men who were dead.

[XVI] Troia uero euersa excidio illo usquequaque cantato puerisque notissimo, quod et magnitudine sui et scriptorum excellentibus linguis insigniter diffamatum atque uulgatum est gestumque regnante iam Latino Fauni filio, ex quo Latinorum regnum dici coepit Laurentumque cessauit, Graeci uictores deletam Troiam relinquentes et ad propria remeantes diuersis et horrendis cladibus dilacerati atque contriti sunt; et tamen etiam ex eis deorum suorum numerum auxerunt. Nam et Diomeden fecerunt deum, quem poena diuinitus inrogata perhibent ad suos non reuertisse; eiusque socios in uolucres fuisse conuersos non fabuloso poeticoque mendacio, sed historica adtestatione confirmant; quibus nec deus, ut putant, factus humanam reuocare naturam uel ipse potuit uel certe a Ioue suo rege tamquam caelicola nouicius impetrauit. quin etiam templum eius esse aiunt in insula Diomedea, non longe a monte Gargano, qui est in Apulia, et hoc templum circumuolare atque incolere has alites tam mirabili obsequio, ut aquam impleant et aspergant; et eo si Graeci uenerint uel Graecorum stirpe prognati, non solum quietas esse, uerum et insuper adulare; si autem alienigenas uiderint, subuolare ad capita tamque grauibus ictibus, ut etiam perimant, uulnerare.

[16] But Troy having been overthrown—that destruction everywhere sung and most well known even to boys, which both by its own magnitude and by the excellent tongues of writers has been conspicuously defamed and made public—and the deed having been done already under the reign of Latinus, son of Faunus, from which the kingdom of the Latins began to be so called and the Laurentine (realm) ceased, the Greeks, victors, leaving Troy destroyed and returning to their own homes, were torn and crushed by diverse and horrendous disasters; and yet even from them they augmented the number of their gods. For they even made Diomedes a god, whom, they report, because of a penalty divinely imposed, did not return to his own; and that his companions were turned into birds they confirm not by a fabulous and poetic mendacity, but by historical attestation; for whom neither he—made a god, as they think—was able himself to recall human nature, nor certainly did he, as a novice heaven-dweller, obtain it from his Jupiter, his king. Nay more, they say there is his temple on the island Diomedea, not far from Mount Garganus, which is in Apulia, and that these birds fly around and inhabit this temple with such marvelous obsequy that they fill water and sprinkle it; and if Greeks should come there, or those sprung from the stock of the Greeks, they are not only quiet, but even fawn; but if they see foreigners, they fly up to the head and wound with blows so heavy that they even kill.

Nam duris et grandibus rostris satis ad haec proelia perhibentur armatae.

For they are reported to be armed with hard and large beaks, sufficient for these battles.

[XVII] Hoc Varro ut astruat, commemorat alia non minus incredibilia de illa maga famosissima Circe, quae socios quoque Vlixis mutauit in bestias, et de Arcadibus, qui sorte ducti tranabant quoddam stagnum atque ibi conuertebantur in lupos et cum similibus feris per illius regionis deserta uiuebant. Si autem carne non uescerentur humana, rursus post nouem annos eodem renatato stagno reformabantur in homines. Denique etiam nominatim expressit quendam Demaenetum gustasse de sacrificio, quod Arcades immolato puero deo suo Lycaeo facere solerent, et in lupum fuisse mutatum et anno decimo in figuram propriam restitutum pugilatum sese exercuisse et Olympiaco uicisse certamine.

[17] To bolster this, Varro recounts other things no less incredible about that most famous maga Circe, who also changed the companions of Ulysses into beasts, and about the Arcadians, who, chosen by lot, used to swim across a certain pool and there were converted into wolves and lived with similar wild beasts through the wastes of that region. But if they did not feed on human flesh, then again after nine years, the same pool having been swum back across, they were re-formed into men. Finally, he even specified by name that a certain Demaenetus had tasted of the sacrifice which the Arcadians were accustomed to make to their god Lycaeus with a boy immolated, and had been changed into a wolf, and in the tenth year, having been restored to his own form, had practiced pugilism and had won in the Olympic contest.

Nec idem propter aliud arbitratur historicus in Arcadia tale nomen adfictum Pani Lycaeo et Ioui Lycaeo nisi propter hanc in lupos hominum mutationem, quod eam nisi ui diuina fieri non putarent. Lupus enim Graece *lu/kos dicitur, unde Lycaei nomen apparet inflexum. Romanos etiam Lupercos ex illorum mysteriorum ueluti semine dicit exortos.

Nor does the historian think for any other reason that in Arcadia such a name was affixed to Pan Lycaeus and to Jove Lycaeus, except on account of this mutation of men into wolves, since they supposed that it could not occur except by divine force. For “wolf” in Greek is called *lu/kos, whence the name “Lycaean” appears to be inflected. He also says that the Roman Luperci arose, as it were, from the seed of those mysteries.

[XVIII] Sed de ista tanta ludificatione daemonum nos quid dicamus, qui haec legent, fortassis expectent. Et quid dicemus, nisi de medio Babylonis esse fugiendum? Quod praeceptum propheticum ita spiritaliter intellegitur, ut de huius saeculi ciuitate, quae profecto et angelorum et hominum societas impiorum est, fidei passibus, quae per dilectionem operatur, in Deum uiuum proficiendo fugiamus.

[18] But concerning this so great ludification by the demons, those who will read these things perhaps expect what we should say. And what shall we say, except that one must flee from the midst of Babylon? Which prophetic precept is understood spiritually in this way: that from the city of this age, which assuredly is the society of impious angels and men, we flee by the steps of faith, which works through love, by progressing into the living God.

Quanto quippe in haec ima potestatem daemonum maiorem uidemus, tanto tenacius Mediatori est inhaerendum, per quem de imis ad summa conscendimus. Si enim dixerimus ea non esse credenda, non desunt etiam nunc, qui eius modi quaedam uel certissima audisse uel etiam expertos se esse adseuerent. Nam et nos cum essemus in Italia audiebamus talia de quadam regione illarum partium, ubi stabularias mulieres inbutas his malis artibus in caseo dare solere dicebant quibus uellent seu possent uiatoribus, unde in iumenta ilico uerterentur et necessaria quaeque portarent postque perfuncta opera iterum ad se redirent; nec tamen in eis mentem fieri bestialem, sed rationalem humanamque seruari, sicut Apuleius in libris, quos asini aurei titulo inscripsit, sibi ipsi accidisse, ut accepto ueneno humano animo permanente asinus fieret, aut indicauit aut finxit.

For the more we see a greater power of the demons in these lowest things, the more tenaciously we must cleave to the Mediator, through whom we climb from the depths to the heights. For if we shall say that such things are not to be believed, there are not lacking even now those who assert that they have either heard some such things as most certain, or even experienced them. For we too, when we were in Italy, used to hear such tales about a certain region of those parts, where they said that stable‑women (hostel‑keepers), steeped in these evil arts, were accustomed to give in cheese to such travelers as they wished or could, whence they were straightway turned into beasts of burden and would carry whatever necessities, and after the work was completed would return again to themselves; nor, however, that in them the mind became bestial, but that the rational and human was preserved—just as Apuleius, in the books which he inscribed with the title The Golden Ass, either reported or feigned to have happened to himself: that, on taking a potion, with the human spirit remaining, he became an ass.

Haec uel falsa sunt uel tam inusitata, ut merito non credantur. Firmissime tamen credendum est omnipotentem Deum posse omnia facere quae uoluerit, siue uindicando siue praestando, nec daemones aliquid operari secundum naturae suae potentiam (quia et ipsa angelica creatura est, licet proprio uitio sit maligna) nisi quod ille permiserit, cuius iudicia occulta sunt multa, iniusta nulla. Nec sane daemones naturas creant, si aliquid tale faciunt, de qualibus factis ista uertitur quaestio; sed specie tenus, quae a uero Deo sunt creata, commutant, ut uideantur esse quod non sunt.

These are either false or so unusual that with good reason they are not believed. Yet it must be most firmly believed that the omnipotent God can do all things that He wills, whether by avenging or by bestowing, and that demons do not effect anything according to the potency of their nature (for the angelic creature it is as well, although by its own vice it is malignant) except what He shall have permitted, whose judgments are many hidden, none unjust. Nor indeed do demons create natures, if they do anything of such a kind—about deeds of which this question turns—but only as to appearance they alter things which have been created by the true God, so that they seem to be what they are not.

Non itaque solum animum, sed ne corpus quidem ulla ratione crediderim daemonum arte uel potestate in membra et liniamenta bestialia ueraciter posse conuerti, sed phantasticum hominis, quod etiam cogitando siue somniando per rerum innumerabilia genera uariatur et, cum corpus non sit, corporum tamen similes mira celeritate formas capit, sopitis aut oppressis corporeis hominis sensibus ad aliorum sensum nescio quo ineffabili modo figura corporea posse perduci; ita ut corpora ipsa hominum alicubi iaceant, uiuentia quidem, sed multo grauius atque uehementius quam somno suis sensibus obseratis; phantasticum autem illud ueluti corporatum in alicuius animalis effigie appareat sensibus alienis talisque etiam sibi esse homo uideatur, sicut talis sibi uideri posset in somnis, et portare onera, quae onera si uera.sunt corpora, portantur a daemonibus, ut inludatur hominibus, partim uero onerum corpora, partim iumentorum falsa cernentibus. Nam quidam nomine Praestantius patri suo contigisse indicabat, ut uenenum illud per caseum in domo sua sumeret et iaceret in lecto suo quasi dormiens, qui tamen nullo modo poterat excitari. Post aliquot autem dies eum uelut euigilasse dicebat et quasi somnia narrasse quae passus est, caballum se scilicet factum annonam inter alia iumenta baiulasse militibus, quae dicitur Retica, quoniam ad Retias deportatur.

Accordingly I would believe by no means that not only the mind, but not even the body, by any method, can truly be converted by the art or power of demons into bestial limbs and lineaments; but that the man’s phantasm, which also by thinking or by dreaming is varied through innumerable kinds of things, and, although it is not a body, nevertheless with wondrous celerity takes on forms like to bodies, can, with the bodily senses of the man lulled or oppressed, be conveyed in some ineffable way I know not what, in a bodily figure to the sense-perception of others; so that the very bodies of the men lie somewhere, alive indeed, but with their senses shut up far more heavily and vehemently than by sleep; while that phantasm, as though embodied, appears to others’ senses in the effigy of some animal, and the man also seems to himself to be of such a kind, just as he could seem such to himself in dreams, and to carry burdens—burdens which, if they are real bodies, are carried by demons, so that a mockery may be played upon men, some seeing falsely the bodies of the burdens, others those of the beasts of burden. For a certain man named Praestantius reported that it had happened to his father that he took that poison by means of cheese in his own house, and lay on his bed as if sleeping, yet could by no means be awakened. After several days, however, he said that he had, as it were, awakened, and had recounted as dreams the things he suffered: to wit, that he had been made a nag and had borne the grain-supply among the other pack-animals for the soldiers, which is called the Rhaetian, because it is carried to the Rhaetias.

Quod ita, ut narrauit, factum fuisse compertum est; quae tamen ei sua somnia uidebantur. Indicauit et alius se domi suae per noctem, antequam requiesceret, uidisse uenientem ad se philosophum quendam sibi notissimum sibique exposuisse nonnulla Platonica, quae antea rogatus exponere noluisset. Et cum ab eodem philosopho quaesitum fuisset, cur in domo eius fecerit, quod in domo sua petenti negauerat: "Non feci, inquit, sed me fecisse somniaui." Ac per hoc alteri per imaginem phantasticam exhibitum est uigilanti, quod alter uidit in somnis.

It was ascertained that this had been done just as he recounted; which nevertheless seemed to him to be his own dreams. Another also reported that at night, before he took rest, he had seen coming to him a certain philosopher very well known to him, and that he had expounded to him some Platonic matters which previously, when asked, he had been unwilling to expound. And when the same philosopher was asked why he had done in the man’s house what, when asked in his own house, he had refused, “I did not do it,” he says, “but I dreamed that I had done it.” And thus, to the other, while awake, there was presented through a phantastic image what the other saw in sleep.

Haec ad nos non quibuscumque, qualibus credere putaremus indignum, sed eis referentibus peruenerunt, quos nobis non existimaremus fuisse mentitos. Proinde quod homines dicuntur mandatumque est litteris ab diis uel potius daemonibus Arcadibus in lupos solere conuerti, et quod

These things have come to us not from just anyone, such as we would think it unworthy to believe, but from those reporting whom we would not reckon to have lied to us. Accordingly, that men are said—and it has been consigned to letters—that by the gods, or rather by Arcadian daemons, they are wont to be converted into wolves, and that

Carminibus Circe socios mutauit Vlixi, secundum istum modum mihi uidetur fieri potuisse, quem dixi, si tamen factum est. Diomedeas autem uolucres, quando quidem genus earum per successionem propaginis durare perhibetur, non mutatis hominibus factas, sed subtractis credo fuisse suppositas, sicut cerua pro Iphigenia, regis Agamemnonis filia. Neque enim daemonibus iudicio Dei permissis huius modi praestigiae difficiles esse potuerunt; sed quia illa uirgo postea uiua reperta est, suppositam pro illa esse ceruam facile cognitum est.

By incantations Circe changed the companions of Ulysses; it seems to me to have been able to happen according to that mode which I mentioned, if indeed it happened. But as for the Diomedean birds, since the kind of them is asserted to endure by a succession of progeny, I think they were not made by men being changed, but, the men having been removed, were substituted in their place, as the hind in place of Iphigenia, daughter of King Agamemnon. For neither could prestidigitations of this sort have been difficult for demons, permitted by the judgment of God; but because that maiden was afterwards found alive, it was easily recognized that a hind had been put in her place.

Socii uero Diomedis quia nusquam subito conparuerunt et postea nullo loco apparuerunt, perdentibus eos ultoribus angelis malis, in eas aues, quae pro illis sunt occulte ex aliis locis, ubi est hoc genus auium, ad ea loca perductae ac repente suppositae, creduntur esse conuersi. Quod autem Diomedis templo aquam rostris afferunt et aspergunt, et quod blandiuntur Graecigenis atque alienigenas persequuntur, mirandum non est fieri daemonum instinctu, quorum interest persuadere deum factum esse Diomeden ad decipiendos homines, ut falsos deos cum ueri Dei iniuria multos colant et hominibus mortuis, qui nec cum uiuerent uere uixerunt, templis altaribus, sacrificiis sacerdotibus (quae omnia cum recta sunt non nisi uni Deo uiuo et uero debentur) inseruiant.

The comrades of Diomedes, since they were suddenly nowhere to be found and afterwards appeared in no place, as avenging evil angels were destroying them, are believed to have been converted into those birds which, on their behalf, were secretly brought from other places—where this kind of bird exists—led to those spots and suddenly substituted. But that they bring water with their beaks to the temple of Diomedes and sprinkle it, and that they fawn upon the Greek-born and pursue aliens, it is not a marvel that this happens by the instigation of daemons, whose interest it is to persuade that Diomedes has been made a god, for the deceiving of men, so that many, to the injury of the true God, may worship false gods and be in service to dead men—who not even when they lived truly lived—with temples, altars, sacrifices, [and] priests (all of which, when they are right, are owed to none but the one living and true God).

[XIX] Eo tempore post captam Troiam atque deletam Aeneas cum uiginti nauibus, quibus portabantur reliquiae Troianorum, in Italiam uenit, regnante ibi Latino et apud Athenienses Menestheo, apud Sicyonios Polyphide, apud Assyrios Tautane, apud Hebraeos autem iudex Labdon fuit. Mortuo autem Latino regnauit Aeneas tribus annis, eisdem in supradictis locis manentibus regibus, nisi quod Sicyoniorum iam Pelasgus erat et Hebraeorum iudex Samson; qui cum mirabiliter fortis esset, putatus est Hercules. Sed Aenean, quoniam quando mortuus est non conparuit, deum sibi fecerunt Latini.

[19] At that time, after Troy had been captured and destroyed, Aeneas came into Italy with twenty ships, in which the relics of the Trojans were being carried, Latinus reigning there, and among the Athenians Menestheus, among the Sicyonians Polyphides, among the Assyrians Tautanes, but among the Hebrews the judge was Labdon. But when Latinus died, Aeneas reigned for three years, the same kings remaining in the aforesaid places, except that among the Sicyonians it was now Pelasgus and among the Hebrews the judge was Samson; who, since he was wondrously strong, was supposed to be Hercules. But Aeneas, because when he died he did not appear, the Latins made him a god for themselves.

Sabini etiam regem suum primum Sancum siue, ut aliqui appellant, Sanctum, rettulerunt in deos. Per idem tempus Codrus rex Atheniensium Peloponnensibus eiusdem hostibus ciuitatis se interficiendum ignotus obiecit; et factum est. Hoc modo eum praedicant patriam liberasse.

The Sabines also enrolled their first king Sancus, or, as some call him, Sanctus, among the gods. At the same time Codrus, king of the Athenians, unknown, offered himself to the Peloponnesians, enemies of that same city, to be killed; and so it was done. In this way they proclaim that he freed his fatherland.

Responsum enim acceperant Peloponnenses tum demum se superaturos, si eorum regem non occidissent. Fefellit ergo eos habitu pauperis apparendo et in suam necem per iurgium prouocando. Vnde ait Vergilius:

For the Peloponnesians had received a response of the oracle that only then at last would they overcome, if they did not kill their king. He deceived them, therefore, by appearing in the habit of a pauper and by provoking, through a quarrel, his own death. Whence Vergil says:

Et iurgia Codri. Et hunc Athenienses tamquam deum sacrificiorum honore coluerunt. Quarto Latinorum rege Siluio Aeneae filio, non de Creusa, de qua fuit Ascanius, qui tertius ibi regnauit, sed de Lauinia Latini filia, quem postumum Aeneas dicitur habuisse, Assyriorum autem uicensimo et nono Oneo et Melantho Atheniensium sexto decimo, iudice autem Hebraeorum Heli sacerdote regnum Sicyoniorum consumptum est, quod per annos nongentos quinquaginta et nouem traditur fuisse porrectum.

And the quarrels of Codrus. And him the Athenians honored as a god with the honor of sacrifices. Under the 4th king of the Latins, Silvius, son of Aeneas—not from Creusa, by whom was Ascanius, who reigned there 3rd, but from Lavinia, daughter of Latinus, whom Aeneas is said to have had posthumously—while Oneus was the 29th of the Assyrians and Melanthus the 16th of the Athenians, and Eli the priest was judge of the Hebrews, the kingdom of the Sicyonians was consumed, which is handed down to have been protracted for 959 years.

[XX] Mox eisdem per loca memorata regnantibus Israelitarum regnum finito tempore iudicum a Saule rege sumpsit exordium, quo tempore fuit propheta Samuel. Ab illo igitur tempore hi reges Latinorum esse coeperunt, quos cognominabant Siluios; ab eo quippe, qui filius Aeneae primus dictus est Siluius, ceteris subsecutis et propria nomina inponebantur et hoc non defuit cognomentum; sicut longe postea Caesares cognominati sunt, qui successerunt Caesari Augusto. Reprobato autem Saule, ne quisquam ex eius stirpe regnaret, eoque defuncto Dauid successit in regnum post annos a Saulis imperio quadraginta.

[20] Soon, with those same men ruling through the aforementioned places, the kingdom of the Israelites, the time of the judges having ended, took its beginning from King Saul, at which time the prophet Samuel lived. From that time, therefore, these began to be the kings of the Latins, whom they surnamed the Silvii; indeed from that one who, the son of Aeneas, was first called Silvius, the others who followed were given their own names, and this cognomen also did not fail; just as much later those who succeeded Caesar Augustus were surnamed Caesars. But Saul having been rejected, so that no one of his stock should reign, and he having died, David succeeded to the kingdom after forty years of Saul’s rule.

Tunc Athenienses habere deinde reges post Codri interitum destiterunt et magistratus habere coeperunt administrandae rei publicae. Post Dauid, qui etiam ipse quadraginta regnauit annos, filius eius Salomon rex Israelitarum fuit, qui templum illud nobilissimum Dei Hierosolymitanum condidit. Cuius tempore apud Latinos condita est Alba, ex qua deinceps non Latinorum, sed Albanorum reges appellari, in eodem tamen Latio, coeperunt.

Then the Athenians thereafter ceased to have kings after the death of Codrus, and began to have magistrates for administering the republic. After David, who also himself reigned forty years, his son Solomon was king of the Israelites, who founded that most noble temple of God at Jerusalem. In whose time Alba was founded among the Latins, from which thereafter the kings began to be called not of the Latins but of the Albans, yet in the same Latium.

Salomoni successit filius eius Roboam, sub quo in duo regna populus ille diuisus est, et singulae partes suos singulos reges habere coeperunt.

To Solomon there succeeded his son Rehoboam, under whom that people was divided into two kingdoms, and the several parts began to have their own separate kings.

[XXI] Latium post Aenean, quem deum fecerunt, undecim reges habuit, quorum nullus deus factus est. Auentinus autem, qui duodecimo loco Aenean sequitur, cum esset prostratus in bello et sepultus in eo monte, qui etiam nunc eius nomine nuncupatur, deorum talium, quales sibi faciebant, numero est additus. Alii sane noluerunt eum in proelio scribere occisum, sed non conparuisse dixerunt; nec ex eius uocabulo appellatum montem, sed ex aduentu auium dictum Auentinum.

[21] Latium, after Aeneas—whom they made a god—had eleven kings, none of whom was made a god. Aventinus, however, who follows Aeneas in the twelfth place, when he had been prostrated in war and buried on that mountain, which even now is called by his name, was added to the number of such gods as they made for themselves. Others, to be sure, were unwilling to write him as slain in battle, but said he did not reappear; and that the mountain was not named from his name, but was called Aventine from the advent of birds.

Post hunc non est deus factus in Latio nisi Romulus conditor Romae. Inter istum autem et illum reges reperiuntur duo, quorum primus est, ut eum Vergiliano uersu eloquar:

After this man, no god was made in Latium except Romulus, the founder of Rome. But between this one and that one there are found two kings, of whom the first is, so that I may express him in a Vergilian verse:

Proximus ille Procas, Troianae gloria gentis. Cuius tempore quia iam quodam modo Roma parturiebatur, illud omnium regnorum maximum Assyrium finem tantae diuturnitatis accepit. Ad Medos quippe translatum est post annos ferme mille trecentos quinque, ut etiam Beli, qui Ninum genuit et illic paruo contentus imperio primus rex fuit, tempora computentur.

Next was that Procas, the glory of the Trojan race. In whose time, since Rome was already, as it were, being brought to birth, that greatest of all kingdoms, the Assyrian, came to the end of so great a duration. For it was transferred to the Medes after almost 1,305 years, counting even from the times of Belus, who begot Ninus and there, content with a small dominion, was the first king.

Procas autem regnauit ante Amulium. Porro Amulius fratris sui Numitoris filiam Rheam nomine, quae etiam Ilia uocabatur, Romuli matrem, Vestalem uirginem fecerat, quam uolunt de Marte geminos concepisse, isto modo stuprum eius honorantes uel excusantes, et adhibentes argumentum, quod infantes expositos lupa nutriuerit. Hoc enim genus bestiae ad Martem existimant pertinere, ut uidelicet ideo lupa credatur admouisse ubera paruulis, quia filios domini sui Martis agnouit; quamuis non desint qui dicant, cum expositi uagientes iacerent, a nescio qua primum meretrice fuisse collectos et primas eius suxisse mamillas (meretrices autem lupas uocabant, unde etiam nunc turpia loca earum lupanaria nuncupantur), et eos postea ad Faustulum peruenisse pastorem atque ab eius Acca uxore nutritos.

Procas, moreover, reigned before Amulius. Furthermore, Amulius made his brother Numitor’s daughter, by name Rhea, who was also called Ilia, the mother of Romulus, a Vestal virgin, whom they wish to have conceived twins by Mars, in this way honoring or excusing her stuprum, and adducing as an argument that a she-wolf nourished the exposed infants. For they suppose this kind of beast to pertain to Mars, so that, to wit, the she-wolf is therefore believed to have applied her teats to the little ones, because she recognized the sons of her lord Mars; although there are not lacking those who say that, when they were lying exposed and wailing, they were at first gathered up by I-know-not-what meretrix and sucked her first breasts (but they used to call meretrices “lupae,” whence even now their shameful places are named “lupanaria”), and that afterwards they came to Faustulus the shepherd and were nursed by his wife Acca.

Quamquam si ad arguendum hominem regem, qui eos in aquam proici crudeliter iusserat, eis infantibus, per quos tanta ciuitas condenda fuerat, de aqua diuinitus liberatis per lactantem feram Deus uoluit subuenire, quid mirum est? Amulio successit in regnum Latiare frater eius Numitor, auus Romuli, cuius Numitoris primo anno condita est Roma; ac per hoc cum suo deinceps, id est Romulo, nepote regnauit.

Although, if, for the purpose of arraigning the man—the king who had cruelly ordered them to be cast into the water—God willed to succor those infants, by whom so great a civitas was to be founded, divinely delivered from the water, by means of a lactating wild beast, what is there to marvel at? Upon Amulius, his brother Numitor, the grandfather of Romulus, succeeded to the Latian kingdom, in whose first year Rome was founded; and through this he reigned thereafter with his own grandson, that is, with Romulus.

[XXII] Ne multis morer, condita est ciuitas Roma uelut altera Babylon et uelut prioris filia Babylonis, per quam Deo placuit orbem debellare terrarum et in unam societatem rei publicae legumque perductum longe lateque pacare. Erant enim iam populi ualidi et fortes et armis gentes exercitatae, quae non facile cederent, et quas opus esset ingentibus periculis et uastatione utrimque non parua atque horrendo labore superari. Nam quando regnum Assyriorum totam paene Asiam subiugauit, licet bellando sit factum, non tamen multum asperis et difficilibus bellis fieri potuit, quia rudes adhuc ad resistendum gentes erant nec tam multae uel magnae, si quidem post illud maximum atque uniuersale diluuium, cum in arca Noe octo soli homines euaserunt, anni non multo amplius quam mille transierant, quando Ninus Asiam totam excepta India subiugauit.

[22] Not to linger with many things, the city Rome was founded as, so to speak, another Babylon, and as it were the daughter of the former Babylon, through which it pleased God to war‑down the orb of lands and, once brought into one fellowship of the commonwealth and of laws, to pacify it far and wide. For already there were peoples strong and brave and nations trained in arms, who would not easily yield, and whom it was necessary to overcome by vast dangers and by no small devastation on both sides and by horrendous toil. For when the kingdom of the Assyrians subjugated almost all Asia, although it was done by warring, yet it could not have been accomplished to any great extent by harsh and difficult wars, because the nations were still raw to resist, nor so many or so great—since indeed after that greatest and universal deluge, when in the ark of Noah eight human beings alone escaped, not much more than a thousand years had passed when Ninus subjugated all Asia, India excepted.

Roma uero tot gentes <et> Orientis et Occidentis, quas imperio Romano subditas cernimus, non ea celeritate ac facilitate perdomuit, quoniam paulatim increscendo robustas eas et bellicosas, quaqua uersum dilatabatur, inuenit. Tempore igitur, quo Roma condita est, populus Israel habebat in terra promissionis annos septingentos decem et octo. Ex quibus uiginti septem pertinent ad Iesum Naue, deinde ad tempus iudicum trecenti uiginti nouem.

Rome, however, did not thoroughly subdue so many nations of the Orient and the Occident, which we see subject to the Roman empire, with such swiftness and ease, since, by increasing little by little, it found them robust and warlike wherever it was being extended. Therefore, at the time when Rome was founded, the people of Israel had 718 years in the land of promise. Of these, 27 pertain to Joshua son of Nun, then 329 to the time of the judges.

Ex quo autem reges ibi esse coeperant, anni erant trecenti sexaginta duo. Et rex tunc erat in Iuda, cuius nomen erat Achaz uel, sicut alii conputant, qui ei successit Ezechias, quem quidem constat optimum et piissimum regem Romuli regnasse temporibus. In ea uero Hebraei populi parte, quae appellabatur Israel, regnare coeperat Osee.

From the time, however, that kings had begun to be there, the years were 362. And the king then in Judah was one whose name was Ahaz, or, as others compute, Hezekiah who succeeded him; and it is agreed that he—an excellent and most pious king—reigned in the times of Romulus. But in that part of the Hebrew people which was called Israel, Hoshea had begun to reign.

[XXIII] Eodem tempore nonnulli Sibyllam Erythraeam uaticinatam ferunt. Sibyllas autem Varro prodit plures fuisse, non unam. Haec sane Erythraea Sibylla quaedam de Christo manifesta conscripsit; quod et.iam nos prius in Latina lingua uersibus male Latinis et non stantibus legimus per nescio cuius interpretis imperitiam, sicut post cognouimus.

[23] At the same time some report that the Erythraean Sibyl vaticinated. But Varro puts forth that the Sibyls were several, not one. This Erythraean Sibyl indeed wrote certain manifest things about Christ; which even we formerly read in the Latin tongue, in verses badly Latin and not standing, through the unskillfulness of I‑know‑not‑what interpreter, as we afterward learned.

Nam uir clarissimus Flaccianus, qui etiam proconsul fuit, homo facillimae facundiae multaeque doctrinae, cum de Christo conloqueremur, Graecum nobis codicem protulit, carmina esse dicens Sibyllae Erythraeae, ubi ostendit quodam loco in capitibus uersuum ordinem litterarum ita se habentem, ut haec in eo uerba legerentur: Iesous Chreistos Theou vios soter, quod est Latine, Iesus Christus Dei filius saluator. Hi autem uersus, quorum primae litterae istum sensum, quem diximus, reddunt, sicut eos quidam Latinis et stantibus uersibus est interpretatus, hoc continent:

For a most illustrious man, Flaccianus—who was also proconsul—a man of very facile eloquence and much learning, when we were conversing about Christ, produced for us a Greek codex, saying that the poems were of the Erythraean Sibyl, where he showed in a certain place, in the headings of the verses, the order of letters so arranged that these words were read in it: Iesous Chreistos Theou vios soter, which is, in Latin, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, savior. Now those verses, whose first letters render that sense which we have mentioned, as someone has translated them into Latin verses that are proper and regular, contain this:

Iudicii signum tellus sudore madescet.
E caelo rex adueniet per saecla futurus,
Scilicet ut carnem praesens, ut iudicet orbem.
Vnde Deum cernent incredulus atque fidelis
Celsum cum sanctis aeui iam termino in ipso.

As a sign of Judgment the earth will be drenched with sweat.
From heaven a king will arrive, to be through the ages,
namely, present in flesh, so that he may judge the orb.
Whence both the incredulous and the faithful will behold God
exalted with the saints, at the very end of the age itself.

Sic animae cum carne aderunt, quas iudicat ipse,
Cum iacet incultus densis in uepribus orbis.
Reicient simulacra uiri, cunctam quoque gazam,
Exuret terras ignis pontumque polumque
Inquirens, taetri portas effringet Auerni.
Sanctorum sed enim cunctae lux libera carni
Tradetur, sontes aeterna flamma cremabit.

Thus souls will be present with the flesh, whom he himself judges,
while the world lies untilled in dense brambles.
They will cast away the simulacra (idols) of man, and all the treasure as well,
a fire will burn the lands and both the sea and the sky,
searching, it will break open the gates of foul Avernus.
But indeed to all the saints a free light will be handed over to the flesh,
the guilty an eternal flame will cremate.

Occultos actus retegens tunc quisque loquetur
Secreta, atque Deus reserabit pectora luci.
Tunc erit et luctus, stridebunt dentibus omnes.
Eripitur solis iubar et chorus interit astris.

Unveiling occult acts, then each will speak
The secrets, and God will unbar the hearts to the light.
Then there will be grief as well, all will gnash their teeth.
The radiance of the sun is snatched away, and the chorus perishes with the stars.

Voluetur caelum, lunaris splendor obibit;
Deiciet colles, ualles extollet ab imo.
Non erit in rebus hominum sublime uel altum.
Iam aequantur campis montes et caerula ponti
Omnia cessabunt, tellus confracta peribit:
Sic pariter fontes torrentur fluminaque igni.

The heaven will be rolled, the lunar splendor will pass away;
He will cast down the hills; he will exalt the valleys from the lowest depth.
There will not be in the affairs of men anything sublime or high.
Now the mountains are leveled with the plains, and the sea’s cerulean expanse as well;
All things will cease; the earth, shattered, will perish:
Thus equally the springs and the rivers will be parched by fire.

Sed tuba tum sonitum tristem demittet ab alto
Orbe, gemens facinus miserum uariosque labores,
Tartareumque chaos monstrabit terra dehiscens.
Et coram hic Domino reges sistentur ad unum.

But then the trumpet will send down a sad sound from the high orb,
groaning for the wretched deed and the various labors,
and the earth, yawning, will show Tartarean chaos.
And here before the Lord kings will be set to a man.

Reccidet e caelo ignisque et sulphuris amnis. In his Latinis uersibus de Graeco utcumque translatis ibi non potuit ille sensus occurrere, qui fit, cum litterae, quae sunt in eorum capitibus, conectuntur, ubi Y littera in Graeco posita est, quia non potuerunt Latina uerba inueniri, quae ab eadem littera inciperent et sententiae conuenirent. Hi autem sunt uersus tres, quintus et octauus decimus et nonus decimus.

And from heaven there will fall a river of fire and of sulfur. In these Latin verses, translated from the Greek however it could be, that sense could not present itself which occurs when the letters that are at their heads are connected, at the place where the letter Y is set in Greek, because Latin words could not be found that would begin with the same letter and agree with the sense. These, moreover, are three verses: the 5th, the 18th, and the 19th.

Denique si litteras quae sunt in capitibus omnium uersuum conectentes horum trium quae scriptae sunt non legamus, sed pro eis Y litteram, tamquam in eisdem locis ipsa sit posita, recordemur, exprimitur in quinque uerbis: Iesus Christus Dei filius saluator; sed cum Graece hoc dicitur, non Latine. Et sunt uersus uiginti et septem, qui numerus quadratum ternarium solidum reddit. Tria enim ter ducta fiunt nouem; et ipsa nouem si ter ducantur, ut ex lato in altum figura consurgat, ad uiginti septem perueniunt.

Finally, if we do not read the letters which are in the heads of all the verses, connecting with these three that are written, but, in place of them, let us recall the letter Y, as though it itself were set in the same places, it is expressed in five words: Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior; but when this is said in Greek, not in Latin. And there are twenty-seven verses, which number renders a ternary square solid. For three taken three times become nine; and these nine themselves, if taken three times, so that from breadth into height the figure may arise, they come to twenty-seven.

Horum autem Graecorum quinque uerborum, quae sunt Iesous Chreistos Theou vios soter, quod est Latine Iesus Christus Dei filius saluator, si primas litteras iungas, erit ixous, id est piscis, in quo nomine mystice intellegitur Christus, eo quod in huius mortalitatis abysso uelut in aquarum profunditate uiuus, hoc est sine peccato, esse potuerit.

But of these Greek five words, which are Iesous Chreistos Theou vios soter, which in Latin is Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior, if you join the first letters, it will be ixous, that is, fish, in which name Christ is understood mystically, because in the abyss of this mortality, as it were in the depth of the waters, he was able to live—this is, to be without sin.

Haec autem Sibylla siue Erythraea siue, ut quidam magis credunt, Cumaea ita nihil habet in toto carmine suo, cuius exigua ista particula est, quod ad deorum falsorum siue factorum cultum pertineat, quin immo ita etiam contra eos et contra cultores eorum loquitur, ut in eorum numero deputanda uideatur, qui pertinent ad ciuitatem Dei. Inserit etiam Lactantius operi suo quaedam de Christo uaticinia Sibyllae, quamuis non exprimat cuius. Sed quae ipse singillatim posuit, ego arbitratus sum coniuncta esse ponenda, tamquam unum sit prolixum, quae ille plura commemorauit et breuia.

But this Sibyl, whether Erythraean or, as some more readily believe, Cumaean, has nothing in her whole song—of which this is a slight fragment—that pertains to the cult of false or fabricated gods; nay rather, she even speaks against them and against their worshipers in such a way that she seems to be to be reckoned among the number of those who belong to the City of God. Lactantius also inserts in his work certain vaticinations of the Sibyl about Christ, although he does not state which Sibyl. But the items which he set down singly, I have judged ought to be presented conjoined, as though it were one prolix piece, what he recalled as several and brief.

"In manus <iniquas>, inquit, infidelium postea ueniet; dabunt autem Deo alapas manibus incestis et inpurato ore exspuent uenenatos sputus; dabit uero ad uerbera simpliciter sanctum dorsum. Et colaphos accipiens tacebit, ne quis agnoscat, quod uerbum uel unde uenit, ut inferis loquatur et corona spinea coronetur. Ad cibum autem fel et ad sitim acetum dederunt; inhospitalitatis hanc monstrabunt mensam.

"In the hands <unjust>, he says, of the unfaithful he will come afterward; moreover, they will give God slaps with unchaste hands, and with an unpurified mouth they will spit out venomous spittle; but he will simply give his holy back to the lashes. And, receiving buffets, he will be silent, lest anyone recognize what Word, or whence it came, that he may speak to those below and be crowned with a crown of thorns. But for food they gave gall, and for thirst vinegar; this table will display their inhospitality.

Ipsa enim insipiens tuum Deum non intellexisti, ludentem mortalium mentibus, sed <et> spinis coronasti et horridum fel miscuisti. Templi uero uelum scindetur; et medio die nox erit tenebrosa nimis in tribus horis. Et morte morietur tribus diebus somno suscepto; et tunc ab inferis regressus ad lucem ueniet primus resurrectionis principio reuocatis ostenso." Ista Lactantius carptim per interualla disputationis suae, sicut ea poscere uidebantur, quae probare intenderat, adhibuit testimonia Sibyllina, quae nos nihil interponentes, sed in unam seriem conexa ponentes solis capitibus, si tamen scriptores deinceps ea seruare non neglegant, distinguenda curauimus.

“For you yourself, foolish one, did not understand your God, playing with the minds of mortals, but you crowned with thorns and mixed horrid gall. But the veil of the temple will be rent; and at mid-day there will be night, exceedingly dark, for three hours. And by death he will die, sleep having been taken for three days; and then, having returned from the infernal regions, he will come to the light first, the beginning of the resurrection being shown, with those recalled displayed.” These Sibylline testimonies Lactantius employed piecemeal at intervals in his disputation, just as the things which he intended to prove seemed to require them; whereas we, inserting nothing, but setting them connected in one series with headings only, have taken care to mark them off—provided, however, that subsequent copyists do not neglect to preserve them.

Nonnulli sane Erythraeam Sibyllam non Romuli, sed belli Troiani tempore fuisse scripserunt.

Some indeed have written that the Erythraean Sibyl was not of the time of Romulus, but of the Trojan War.

[XXIV] Eodem Romulo regnante Thales Milesius fuisse perhibetur, unus e septem sapientibus, qui post theologos poetas, in quibus Orpheus maxime omnium nobilitatus est, *sofoi appellati sunt, quod est Latine sapientes. Per idem tempus decem tribus, quae in diuisione populi uocatae sunt Israel, debellatae a Chaldaeis et in eas terras captiuae ductae sunt, remanentibus in Iudaea terra duabus illis tribubus, quae nomine Iudae uocabantur sedemque regni habebant Hierusalem. Mortuum Romulum, cum et ipse non conparuisset, in deos, quod et uulgo notissimum est, rettulere Romani; quod usque adeo fieri iam desierat (nec postea nisi adulando, non errando, factum est temporibus Caesarum), ut Cicero magnis Romuli laudibus tribuat, quod non rudibus et indoctis temporibus, quando facile homines fallebantur, sed iam expolitis et eruditis meruerit hos honores, quamuis nondum efferbuerat ac pullulauerat philosophorum subtilis et acuta loquacitas.

[24] With that same Romulus reigning, Thales the Milesian is reported to have been, one of the seven sages, who, after the theologian poets—in whom Orpheus has been most renowned of all—were called *sofoi, which in Latin is “wise men.” At the same time the ten tribes, which in the division of the people were called Israel, were vanquished by the Chaldaeans and led captive into those lands, while in the land of Judaea those two tribes remained, which were called by the name of Judah and had Jerusalem as the seat of the kingdom. Romulus, when he himself likewise failed to appear, the Romans enrolled among the gods, which is also most widely known among the common people; a thing which by then had so far ceased to be done (nor afterward was it done except by flattering, not by erring, in the times of the Caesars) that Cicero bestows great praises upon Romulus, because he earned these honors not in rude and unlearned times, when men were easily deceived, but already in polished and erudite times, although the subtle and acute loquacity of philosophers had not yet effervesced and sprouted.

Sed etiamsi posteriora tempora deos homines mortuos non instituerunt, tamen ab antiquis institutos colere ut deos et habere non destiterunt; quin etiam simulacris, quae ueteres non habebant, auxerunt uanae atque impiae superstitionis inlecebram, id efficientibus inmundis in eorum corde daemonibus per fallacia quoque oracula decipientibus, ut fabulosa etiam crimina deorum, quae iam urbaniore saeculo non fingebantur, per ludos tamen in eorundem falsorum numinum obsequium turpiter agerentur. Regnauit deinde Numa post Romulum, qui cum illam ciuitatem putauerit deorum profecto falsorum numerositate muniendam, in eandem turbam referri mortuus ipse non meruit, tamquam ita putatus sit caelum multitudine numinum constipasse, ut locum ibi reperire non posset. Hoc regnante Romae et apud Hebraeos initio regni Manasse, a quo impio rege propheta Esaias perhibetur occisus, Samiam fuisse Sibyllam ferunt.

But even if the later times did not institute dead men as gods, nevertheless they did not cease to worship as gods and to hold those instituted by the ancients; nay even, by simulacra, which the ancients did not have, they increased the allurement of vain and impious superstition, unclean demons effecting this in their heart and deceiving also through fallacious oracles, so that even the fabulous crimes of the gods, which in a more urbane age were no longer being fabricated, were nevertheless shamefully performed through plays in service of those same false numina. Then Numa reigned after Romulus, who, since he thought that state must surely be fortified by the multitude of gods—indeed false—did not himself, when dead, deserve to be enrolled into that same crowd, as though he were thought to have crammed heaven with a multitude of numina, such that he could not find a place there. With this man reigning at Rome, and among the Hebrews at the beginning of the reign of Manasseh, by which impious king the prophet Isaiah is said to have been slain, they report that the Sibyl was Samian.

[XXV] Regnante uero apud Hebraeos Sedechia et apud Romanos Tarquinio Prisco, qui successerat Anco Marcio, ductus est captiuus in Babyloniam populus Iudaeorum euersa Hierusalem et templo illo a Salomone constructo. Increpantes enim eos prophetae de iniquitatibus et impietatibus suis haec eis uentura praedixerant, maxime Hieremias, qui etiam numerum definiuit annorum. Eo tempore Pittacus Mitylenaeus, alius e septem sapientibus, fuisse perhibetur.

[25] While Zedekiah was reigning among the Hebrews and Tarquinius Priscus among the Romans, who had succeeded Ancus Marcius, the people of the Jews was led captive into Babylonia, Jerusalem having been overthrown and that temple constructed by Solomon. For the prophets, rebuking them for their iniquities and impieties, had foretold that these things would come upon them, especially Jeremiah, who even defined the number of years. At that time Pittacus of Mytilene, another of the seven sages, is said to have lived.

Et quinque ceteros, qui, ut septem numerentur, Thaleti, quem supra commemorauimus, et huic Pittaco adduntur, eo tempore fuisse scribit Eusebius, quo captiuus Dei populus in Babylonia tenebatur. Hi sunt autem: Solon Atheniensis, Chilon Lacedaemonius, Periandrus Corinthius, Cleobulus Lindius, Bias Prienaeus. Omnes hi, septem appellati sapientes, post poetas theologos claruerunt, quia genere uitae quodam laudabili praestabant hominibus ceteris et morum nonnulla praecepta sententiarum breuitate complexi sunt.

And the other five, who, that they might be counted as seven, are added to Thales—whom we have mentioned above—and to this Pittacus, Eusebius writes were in that time in which the captive people of God was held in Babylonia. These are, moreover: Solon the Athenian, Chilon the Lacedaemonian, Periander the Corinthian, Cleobulus of Lindus, Bias of Priene. All these, called the seven sages, were illustrious after the poet-theologians, because by a certain laudable manner of life they excelled other men, and they embraced some precepts of morals in the brevity of sentences.

Nihil autem monumentorum, quod ad litteras adtinet, posteris reliquerunt, nisi quod Solon quasdam leges Atheniensibus dedisse perhibetur; Thales uero physicus fuit et suorum dogmatum libros reliquit. Eo captiuitatis Iudaicae tempore et Anaximander et Anaximenes et Xenophanes physici claruerunt. Tunc et Pythagoras, ex quo coeperunt appellari philosophi.

However, as regards letters, they left no monuments to posterity, except that Solon is said to have given certain laws to the Athenians; but Thales was a physicist (natural philosopher) and left books of his doctrines. In that time of the Jewish captivity, Anaximander, Anaximenes, and Xenophanes, physicists (natural philosophers), were illustrious. Then too Pythagoras, from whom they began to be called philosophers.

[XXVI] Per idem tempus Cyrus, rex Persarum, qui etiam Chaldaeis et Assyriis imperabat, relaxata aliquanta captiuitate Iudaeorum, quinquaginta milia hominum ex eis ad instaurandum templum regredi fecit. A quibus tantum prima coepta fundamina et altare constructum est. Incursantibus autem hostibus nequaquam progredi aedificando ualuerunt, dilatumque opus est usque ad Darium.

[26] At the same time Cyrus, king of the Persians, who also held command over the Chaldeans and Assyrians, with the captivity of the Jews somewhat relaxed, caused fifty thousand men of them to return to restore the temple. By whom only the first-begun foundations and the altar were constructed. But as the enemies made incursions, they were by no means able to advance in building, and the work was deferred until Darius.

Per idem tempus etiam illa sunt gesta, quae conscripta sunt in libro Iudith; quem sane in canonem scripturarum Iudaei non recepisse dicuntur. Sub Dario ergo rege Persarum impletis septuaginta annis, quos Hieremias propheta praedixerat, reddita,est Iudaeis soluta captiuitate libertas, regnante Romanorum septimo rege Tarquinio. Quo expulso etiam ipsi a regum suorum dominatione liberi esse coeperunt.

At the same time, too, those things were done which are written in the Book of Judith; which indeed the Jews are said not to have received into the canon of the Scriptures. Under Darius, then, king of the Persians, with the seventy years fulfilled which the prophet Jeremiah had foretold, freedom was restored to the Jews, their captivity being loosed, while Tarquinius, the seventh king of the Romans, was reigning. When he was expelled, the Romans themselves also began to be free from the domination of their kings.

Vsque ad hoc tempus prophetas habuit populus Israel; qui cum multi fuerint, paucorum et apud Iudaeos et apud nos canonica scripta retinentur. De quibus me aliqua positurum esse promisi in hoc libro, cum clauderem superiorem, quod iam uideo esse faciendum.

Up to this time the people of Israel had prophets; who, although they were many, the canonical writings of a few are retained both among the Jews and among us. Of these I promised that I would set down some things in this book, when I was closing the previous one, which I now see must be done.

[XXVII] Tempora igitur eorum ut possimus aduertere, in anteriora paululum recurramus. In capite libri Osee prophetae, qui primus in duodecim ponitur, ita scriptum est: Verbum Domini, quod factum est ad Osee in diebus Oziae et Ioatham et Achaz et Ezechiae regum Iuda. Amos quoque diebus regis Oziae prophetasse se scribit; addit etiam Hieroboam regem Israel, qui per eosdem dies fuit.

[27] Therefore, that we may be able to take note of their times, let us return a little to earlier matters. At the head of the book of the prophet Hosea, who is placed first among the Twelve, it is written thus: The word of the Lord that came to Hosea in the days of Uzziah and Jotham and Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah. Amos likewise writes that he prophesied in the days of King Uzziah; he also adds Jeroboam king of Israel, who was in those same days.

Nec non Esaias, filius Amos, siue supradicti prophetae siue, quod magis perhibetur, alterius qui non propheta eodem nomine uocabatur, eosdem reges quattuor, quos posuit Osee, in capite libri sui ponit, quorum diebus se prophetasse praeloquitur. Michaeas etiam eadem suae prophetiae commemorat tempora post dies Oziae. Nam tres qui sequuntur reges nominat, quos et Osee nominauit, Ioatham et Achaz et Ezechian.

Likewise Esaias, son of Amos—whether of the aforesaid prophet or, as is more maintained, of another who was not a prophet but was called by the same name—sets at the head of his book the same four kings whom Osee set, in whose days he prefaces that he prophesied. Michaeas also commemorates the same times of his prophecy after the days of Ozias. For he names the three kings who follow, whom Osee also named: Ioatham and Achaz and Ezechias.

Hi sunt, quos eodem tempore simul prophetasse ex eorum litteris inuenitur. His adiungitur Ionas eodem Ozia rege regnante et Ioel, cum iam regnaret Ioatham, qui successit Oziae. Sed istorum prophetarum duorum tempora in chronicis, non in eorum libris potuimus inuenire, quoniam de suis diebus tacent.

These are those who are found, from their writings, to have prophesied together at the same time. To these is joined Jonah when the same King Uzziah was reigning, and Joel, when Jotham—who succeeded Uzziah—was already reigning. But the times of these two prophets we were able to find in the chronicles, not in their books, since they are silent about their own days.

Tenduntur autem hi dies a rege Latinorum Proca siue superiore Auentino usque ad regem Romulum iam Romanum, uel etiam usque ad regni primordia successoris eius Numae Pompilii (Ezechias quippe rex Iuda eo usque regnauit); ac per hoc per ea tempora isti uelut fontes prophetiae pariter eruperunt, quando regnum defecit Assyrium coepitque Romanum; ut scilicet, quem ad modum regni Assyriorum primo tempore extitit Abraham, cui promissiones apertissimae fierent in eius semine benedictionis omnium gentium, ita occidentalis Babylonis exordio, qua fuerat Christus imperante uenturus, in quo implerentur illa promissa, ora prophetarum non solum loquentium, uerum etiam scribentium in tantae rei futurae testimonium soluerentur. Cum enim prophetae numquam fere defuissent populo Israel, ex quo ibi reges esse coeperunt, in usum tantummodo eorum fuere, non gentium; quando autem scriptura manifestius prophetica condebatur, quae gentibus quandoque prodesset, tunc oportebat inciperet, quando condebatur haec ciuitas, quae gentibus imperaret.

But these days are extended from Proca, king of the Latins, or the earlier Aventinus, up to King Romulus, already Roman, or even up to the beginnings of the reign of his successor Numa Pompilius (for Hezekiah, king of Judah, reigned up to that point); and thus in those times these, like fountains of prophecy, burst forth together, when the Assyrian kingdom failed and the Roman began; to wit, just as at the first time of the kingdom of the Assyrians there existed Abraham, to whom the most explicit promises might be made that in his seed there would be the blessing of all the nations, so, at the exordium of the Western Babylon, under whose imperium Christ was to come, in whom those promises would be fulfilled, the mouths of the prophets were loosed not only speaking but also writing as testimony of so great a thing to come. For although prophets had scarcely ever been lacking to the people of Israel from the time when kings began to exist there, they were for the use of them only, not of the nations; but when a more manifestly prophetic scripture was being composed, which would at some time profit the nations, then it was fitting that it should begin when that city was being founded which would command the nations.

[XXVIII] Osee igitur propheta, quanto profundius quidem loquitur, tanto operosius penetratur. Sed aliquid inde sumendum est et hic ex nostra promissione ponendum. Et erit, inquit, in loco quo dictum est eis: Non populus meus uos, uocabuntur et ipsi filii Dei uiui.

[28] Therefore the prophet Hosea: the more profoundly indeed he speaks, the more laboriously he is penetrated. But something from there must be taken and set down here according to our promise. “And it shall be,” he says, “in the place where it was said to them, ‘Not my people are you,’ they too shall be called sons of the living God.”

Hoc testimonium propheticum de uocatione populi gentium, qui prius non pertinebat ad Deum, etiam apostoli intellexerunt. Et quia ipse quoque populus gentium spiritaliter est in filiis Abrahae ac per hoc recte dicitur Israel, propterea sequitur et dicit: Et congregabuntur filii Iuda et filii Israel in id ipsum, et ponent sibi principatum unum et ascendent a terra. Hoc si adhuc uelimus exponere, eloquii prophetici obtundetur sapor.

This prophetic testimony about the vocation of the people of the nations (the Gentiles), who previously did not pertain to God, the apostles also understood. And because that same people of the nations belongs spiritually among the sons of Abraham and therefore is rightly called Israel, for that reason it follows and says: “And the sons of Judah and the sons of Israel shall be gathered together into the selfsame, and they shall set for themselves one principate, and they shall ascend from the land.” If we should wish to expound this further, the savor of the prophetic eloquence will be blunted.

Recolatur tamen lapis ille angularis et duo parietes, unus ex Iudaeis, alter ex gentibus; ille nomine filiorum Iuda, iste nomine filiorum Israel, eidem uni principatui suo in id ipsum innitentes et ascendentes agnosntur a terra. Istos autem carnaliter Israelitas, qui nunc nolunt credere in Christum, postea credituros, id est filios eorum (nam utique isti in suum locum moriendo transibunt), idem propheta testatur dicens: Quoniam diebus multis sedebunt filii Israel sine rege, sine principe, sine sacrificio, sine altari, sine sacerdotio, sine manifestationibus. quis non uideat nunc sic esse Iudaeos?

Let that cornerstone be recalled, and the two walls: one from the Jews, the other from the Gentiles; that one under the name of the sons of Judah, this one under the name of the sons of Israel, leaning upon the same single principate of their own into that very same thing, and being recognized as ascending from the earth. But that these Israelites according to the flesh, who now are unwilling to believe in Christ, will believe afterward—that is, their sons (for assuredly these will pass, by dying, into their own place)—the same prophet attests, saying: For many days the sons of Israel will sit without a king, without a prince, without sacrifice, without an altar, without a priesthood, without manifestations. Who does not see that the Jews are thus now?

Sed quid adiungat, audiamus. Et postea, inquit, reuertentur filii Israel et inquirent Dominum Deum suum et Dauid regem suum, et stupescent in Domino et in bonis ipsius in nouissimis diebus. Nihil est ista prophetia manifestius, cum Dauid regis nomine significatus intellegitur Christus, quia factus est, sicut dicit apostolus, ex semine Dauid secundum carnem.

But what he adds, let us hear. “And afterwards,” he says, “the sons of Israel will revert and will inquire of the Lord their God and David their king, and they will be astonished at the Lord and at his good things in the last days.” Nothing is more manifest than this prophecy, since under the name of King David Christ is signified and understood, because he was made, as the apostle says, from the seed of David according to the flesh.

Praenuntiauit iste propheta etiam tertio die Christi resurrectionem futuram, sicut eam prophetica altitudine praenuntiari oportebat, ubi ait: Sanabit nos post biduum, in die tertio resurgemus. Secundum hoc enim nobis dicit apostolus: Si resurrexistis cum Christo, quae sursum sunt quaerite. Amos quoque de rebus talibus sic prophetat: Praepara, inquit, te, ut inuoces Deum tuum Israel; quia ecce ego firmans tonitrum et creans spiritum et adnuntians in hominibus Christum suum; et alio loco: In illa die, inquit, resuscitabo tabernaculum Dauid, quod cecidit, et reaedificabo, quae ceciderunt eius, et destructa eius resuscitabo et reaedificabo ea sicut dies saeculi; ita ut exquirant me residui hominum et omnes gentes, in quibus inuocatum est nomen meum super eos, dicit Dominus faciens haec.

This prophet also foretold that the resurrection of Christ would be on the third day, as it ought to be pre-announced with prophetic loftiness, where he says: He will heal us after a two-day period, on the third day we shall rise. According to this, the apostle says to us: If you have risen with Christ, seek the things that are above. Amos likewise prophesies thus about such matters: Prepare, he says, yourself, to call upon your God, O Israel; for behold I am making firm the thunder and creating the spirit and announcing among men his Christ; and in another place: On that day, he says, I will raise up the tabernacle of David which has fallen, and I will rebuild the things of it that have fallen, and its ruins I will raise up and I will rebuild them as the days of the ages; so that the remnant of men may seek me, and all the nations upon whom my name has been invoked over them, says the Lord doing these things.

[XXIX] Esaias propheta non est in libro duodecim prophetarum, qui propterea dicuntur minores, quia sermones eorum sunt breues, in eorum comparatione, qui maiores ideo uocantur, quia prolixa uolumina condiderunt; ex quibus est hic Esaias, quem propter eadem prophetiae tempora subiungo supradictis duobus. Esaias ergo inter illa, quae arguit iniqua et iusta praecepit et peccatori populo mala futura praedixit, etiam de Christo et ecclesia, hoc est de rege et ea quam condidit ciuitate, multo plura quam ceteri prophetauit, ita ut a quibusdam euangelista quam propheta potius diceretur. Sed propter rationem operis terminandi unum de multis hoc loco ponam.

[29] The prophet Isaiah is not in the book of the twelve prophets, who therefore are called minor, because their discourses are brief in comparison with those who are called major, because they composed prolix volumes; among whom is this Isaiah, whom on account of the same times of prophecy I subjoin to the aforesaid two. Isaiah, therefore, among those things—namely, that he reproved unjust things and commanded just things and foretold future evils to a sinful people—also about Christ and the Church, that is, about the King and the city which he founded, prophesied much more than the others, so that by some he would rather be called an evangelist than a prophet. But for the rationale of terminating the work I will set down one out of many in this place.

Ex persona quippe Dei Patris loquens: Ecce, inquit, intelleget puer meus et exaltabitur et glorificabitur ualde. Quem ad modum stupescent super te multi, ita gloria priuabitur ab hominibus species tua, et gloria tua ab hominibus; ita mirabuntur gentes multae super eum et continebunt reges os suum; quoniam quibus non est nuntiatum de illo, uidebunt, et qui non audierunt, intellegent. Domine, quis credidit auditui nostro, et bracchium Domini cui reuelatum est?

Speaking indeed from the person of God the Father: Behold, he says, my child will understand and will be exalted and will be glorified greatly. Just as many will be astonished over you, so your appearance will be deprived of glory among men, and your glory among men; so many nations will marvel over him, and kings will shut their mouth; for those to whom it has not been announced about him shall see, and those who have not heard shall understand. Lord, who has believed our hearing, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

Adnuntiauimus coram illo, ut infans, ut radix in terra sitientis non est species illi neque gloria. Et uidimus eum, et non habebat speciem neque decorem j sed species eius sine honore, deficiens prae omnibus hominibus. Homo in plaga positus et sciens ferre infirmitatem; quoniam auersa est facies eius, inhonoratus est nec magni aestimatus est.

We announced before him, like an infant, like a root in thirsty land; there is no appearance to him nor glory. And we saw him, and he had neither appearance nor comeliness; but his appearance, without honor, deficient beyond all men. A man set in affliction and knowing to bear infirmity; because his face is averted, he was dishonored and not held in great esteem.

Hic peccata nostra portat et pro nobis dolet; et nos existimauimus illum esse in dolore et in plaga et in adflictione. Ipse autem uulneratus est propter iniquitates nostras et infirmatus est propter peccata nostra. Eruditio pacis nostrae in eo; liuore eius nos sanati sumus.

He bears our sins and grieves on behalf of us; and we esteemed him to be in pain and under a blow and in affliction. But he himself was wounded on account of our iniquities and made infirm on account of our sins. The discipline of our peace is in him; by his bruise we have been healed.

Omnes ut oues errauimus, homo a uia sua errauit; et Dominus tradidit illum pro peccatis nostris; et ipse, propter quod adflictus est, non aperuit os. Vt ouis ad immolandum ductus est et ut agnus ante eum, qui se tonderet, sine uoce, sic non aperuit os suum. In humilitate iudicium eius sublatum est. Generationem eius quis enarrabit?

All we like sheep have erred, a man has strayed from his own way; and the Lord delivered him up for our sins; and he, because he was afflicted, did not open his mouth. Like a sheep he was led to be immolated, and like a lamb before him who shears him, without a voice, thus he did not open his mouth. In humiliation his judgment was taken away. His generation—who will declare it?

Quoniam tolletur de terra uita eius. Ab iniquitatibus populi mei ductus est ad mortem. Et dabo malignos pro sepultura eius et diuites pro morte eius.

Because his life will be taken from the earth. By the iniquities of my people he was led to death. And I will give the wicked for his sepulture and the rich for his death.

Quoniam iniquitatem non fecit nec dolum in ore suo; et Dominus uult purgare eum de plaga. Si dederitis pro peccato animam uestram, uidebitis semen longaeuum; et Dominus uult auferre a dolore animam eius, ostendere illi lucem et formare intellectum, iustificare iustum bene seruientem pluribus; et peccata eorum ipse portabit. Propterea ipse hereditabit plures et fortium diuidet spolia, propter quod tradita est ad mortem anima eius, et inter iniquos aestimatus est et ipse peccata multorum portauit, et propter peccata eorum traditus est.

Because he did not do iniquity nor guile in his mouth; and the Lord wills to purge him from the wound. If you give your soul for sin, you will see a long‑lived seed; and the Lord wills to remove his soul from pain, to show him light and to form the intellect, to justify the Just One, well serving many; and he himself will bear their sins. Therefore he himself will inherit many and will divide the spoils of the strong, because his soul was handed over to death, and he was reckoned among the iniquitous, and he himself bore the sins of many, and for their sins he was handed over.

Haec de Christo.

These things about Christ.

Iam uero de ecclesia, quod sequitur, audiamus. Laetare, inquit, sterilis, quae non paris; erumpe et exclama, quae non parturis; quoniam multi filii desertae magos quam eius, quae habet uirum. Dilata locum tabernaculi tui et aulaearum tuarum; fige, noli parcere, prolonga funiculos tuos et palos tuos conforta, adhuc in dextram et sinistram partem extende.

Now indeed concerning the church, let us hear what follows. “Rejoice,” he says, “barren one, who do not bear; burst forth and cry out, you who do not labor; because the children of the desolate are more than those of her who has a husband. Widen the place of your tabernacle and of your curtains; fasten, do not spare; lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes; further stretch out to the right and to the left side.”

Et semen tuum hereditabit gentes, et ciuitates desertas inhabitabis. Ne timeas, quoniam confusa es, neque reuerearis, quia exprobrata es; quoniam confusionem aeternam obliuisceris et opprobrium uiduitatis tuae non eris memor. Quoniam Dominus faciens te, Dominus Sabaoth nomen ei; et qui eruit te, ipse Deus Israel uniuersae terrae uocabitur; et cetera.

And your seed will inherit nations, and you will inhabit deserted cities. Do not fear, for you have been confounded; neither be abashed, because you have been reproached; for you will forget eternal confusion, and you will not be mindful of the opprobrium of your widowhood. For the Lord making you—the Lord Sabaoth is his name; and the one who rescues you, he himself will be called the God of Israel of the whole earth; and the rest.

Verum ista sint satis; et in eis sunt exponenda nonnulla; sed sufficere arbitror quae ita sunt aperta, ut etiam inimici intellegere cogantur inuiti.

But let these things be sufficient; and in them certain points are to be expounded; yet I judge sufficient those which are so open that even enemies are compelled, unwilling, to understand.

[XXX] Michaeas propheta Christum in figura ponens magni cuiusdam montis haec loquitur: Erit in nouissimis diebus manifestus mons Domini, paratus super uertices montium et exaltabitur super colles. Et festinabunt ad eum plebes, et ibunt gentes multae et dicent: Venite, ascendamus in montem Domini et in domum Dei Iacob, et ostendet nobis uiam suam, et ibimus in semitis eius; quia ex Sion procedet lex et uerbum Domini ex Hierusalem. Et iudicabit inter plebes multas, et redarguet gentes potentes usque in longinquum.

[30] Micah the prophet, presenting Christ in figure as a certain great mountain, speaks thus: It shall be in the last days, the mountain of the Lord will be manifest, set above the summits of the mountains and will be exalted above the hills. And the peoples will hasten to it, and many nations will go and will say: Come, let us ascend to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will show us his way, and we will go in his paths; because from Zion the law will go forth and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he will judge between many peoples, and he will rebuke mighty nations even unto the far-off.

Praedicens iste propheta et locum in quo natus est Christus: Et tu, inquit, Bethleem, domus Ephrata, minima es, ut sis in milibus Iuda; ex te mihi prodiet, ut sit in principem Israel; et egressus eius ab initio et ex diebus aeternitatis. Propterea dabit eos usque ad tempus parturientis, pariet, et residui fratres eius conuertentur ad filios Israel. Et stabit et uidebit et pascet gregem suum in uirtute Domini, et in honore nominis Domini Dei sui erunt; quoniam nunc magnificabitur usque ad summum terrae.

Foretelling this, the prophet also the place in which Christ was born: And you, Bethlehem, house of Ephratha, you are the least so as to be among the thousands of Judah; from you there will come forth for me, to be a prince over Israel; and his going forth is from the beginning and from the days of eternity. Therefore he will give them up until the time of her who is in labor; she will bear, and the remaining brothers of him will be converted to the sons of Israel. And he will stand and see and shepherd his flock in the power of the Lord, and in the honor of the name of the Lord his God they shall be; because now he will be magnified up to the summit of the earth.

Ionas autem propheta non tam sermone Christum, quam sua quadam passione prophetauit, profecto apertius, quam si eius mortem et resurrectionem uoce clamaret. Vt quid enim exceptus est uentre beluino et die tertio redditus, nisi ut significaret Christum de profundo inferni die tertio rediturum?

But Jonah the prophet prophesied Christ not so much by speech as by a certain passion of his own, indeed more openly than if he were to cry out with his voice his death and resurrection. For why, in fact, was he received into the belly of the beast and given back on the third day, unless to signify that Christ would return on the third day from the deep of hell?

Ioel omnia, quae prophetat, multis uerbis compellit exponi, ut quae pertinent ad Christum et ecclesiam dilucescant. Vnum tamen, quod etiam apostoli commemorauerunt, quando in congregatos credentes Spiritus sanctus, sicut a Christo promissus fuerat, desuper uenit, non praetermittam. Et erit, inquit, post haec, et effundam de spiritu meo super omnem carnem.

Joel compels all that he prophesies to be expounded in many words, so that the things which pertain to Christ and the church may be elucidated. One thing, however—which even the apostles recalled, when upon the gathered believers the Holy Spirit, as had been promised by Christ, came down from above—I will not pass over. And it shall be, he says, after these things, and I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh.

et prophetabunt filii uestri et filiae uestrae, et seniores uestri somnia somniabunt, et iuuenes uestri uisa uidebunt j et quidem in seruos et ancillas meas in illis diebus effundam de spiri tu meo.

and your sons and your daughters will prophesy, and your elders will dream dreams, and your youths will see visions; and indeed upon my male-servants and maidservants in those days I will pour out of my Spirit.

[XXXI] Tres prophetae de minoribus, Abdias, Naum, Ambacum, nec tempora sua dicunt ipsi, nec in chronicis Eusebii et Hieronymi, quando prophetauerint, inuenitur. Abdias enim positus est quidem ab eis cum Michaea, sed non eo loco, ubi notantur tempora, quando Michaeam prophetasse ex eius litteris constat; quod errore neglegenter describentium labores alienos existimo contigisse; duos uero alios commemoratos in codicibus chronicorum, quos habuimus, non potuimus inuenire. Tamen quia canone continentur, nec ipsi oportet praetereantur a nobis.

[31] Three prophets of the Minor [Prophets], Obadiah, Nahum, Habakkuk, neither state their own times themselves, nor is it found in the chronicles of Eusebius and Jerome when they prophesied. For Obadiah is indeed placed by them with Micah, but not in that place where the times are noted, when from Micah’s writings it is evident that Micah prophesied; which I think befell through the error of negligent transcribers of others’ labors; but the other two, mentioned in the codices of the chronicles which we had, we were not able to find. Nevertheless, because they are contained in the canon, they too ought not to be passed over by us.

Abdias, quantum ad scripturam eius adtinet, omnium breuissimus prophetarum, aduersus Idumaeam loquitur, gentem scilicet Esau, ex duobus geminis filiis Isaac, nepotibus Abrabae, maioris illius reprobati. Porro si Idumaeam modo locutionis, quo intellegitur a parte totum, accipiamus positam esse pro gentibus: possumus de Christo agnoscere, quod ait inter cetera: In monte autem Sion erit salus et erit sanctum. et paulo post in fine ipsius prophetiae: Et ascendent, inquit, resaluati ex monte Sion, ut defendant montem Esau, et erit Domino regnum.

Obadiah, as far as his writing is concerned, the briefest of all the prophets, speaks against Idumea, namely the nation of Esau, from the two twin sons of Isaac, the grandsons of Abraham, the elder of whom was rejected. Moreover, if we take Idumea, by a mode of locution whereby the whole is understood from a part, to be put for the nations, we can recognize concerning Christ what he says among other things: “But on Mount Zion there shall be salvation and it shall be holy.” And a little later at the end of the prophecy itself: “And they shall ascend,” he says, “the saved from Mount Zion, that they may defend the mount of Esau, and the kingdom shall be the Lord’s.”

Apparet quippe id esse completum, cum resaluati ex monte Sion, id est ex Iudaea credentes in Christum, qui praecipue agnoscuntur apostoli, ascenderunt, ut defenderent montem Esau. Quo modo defenderent, nisi per euangelii praedicationem saluos faciendo eos qui crediderunt, ut eruerentur de potestate tenebrarum et transferrentur in regnum Dei? Quod consequenter expressit addendo: Et erit Domino regnum.

It plainly appears that this has been completed, since the saved from Mount Zion—that is, from Judea, believing in Christ, who are especially recognized as the apostles—ascended to defend Mount Esau. In what way would they defend, unless by the preaching of the evangel making safe those who believed, so that they might be rescued from the power of darkness and translated into the kingdom of God? Which he accordingly expressed by adding: “And the kingdom will be the Lord’s.”

Mons enim Sion Iudaeam significat, ubi futura praedicta est salus et sanctum, quod est Christus Iesus. Mons uero Esau Idumaea est, per quam significata est ecclesia gentium, quam defenderunt, sicut exposui, resaluati ex monte Sion, ut esset Domino regnum. Hoc obscurum erat, antequam fieret; sed factum quis non fidelis agnoscat?

For Mount Zion signifies Judaea, where salvation and the Holy One—that is, Christ Jesus—were foretold to be. But the mount of Esau is Idumaea, through which the church of the nations is signified, which those rescued from Mount Zion, as I have expounded, defended, so that there might be a kingdom for the Lord. This was obscure before it came to pass; but, now that it has been done, who that is not unfaithful does not acknowledge it?

Naum uero propheta, immo per illum Deus: Exterminabo, inquit, sculptilia et conflatilia, ponam sepulturam tuam; quia ueloces ecce super montes pedes euangelizantis et adnuntiantis pacem. Celebra, Iuda, dies festos tuos, redde uota tua; quia iam non adicient ultra, ut transeant in uetustatem. Consummatum est, consumptum est, ablatum est.

But Nahum the prophet—nay rather, through him, God: “I will exterminate,” he says, “the sculpted and cast images; I will set your burial-place; because, behold, swift upon the mountains are the feet of one evangelizing and announcing peace. Celebrate, Judah, your feast days, render your vows; because now they will no longer add, so as to pass into antiquity. It is finished, it is consumed, it is taken away.”

Ascendit, qui insufflat in faciem tuam, eripiens te ex tribulatione. quis ascenderit ab inferis et insufflauerit in faciem Iudae, hoc est Iudaeorum discipulorum, Spiritum sanctum, recolat qui meminit euangelium. Ad nouum enim testamentum pertinent, quorum dies festi ita spiritaliter innouantur, ut in uetustatem transire non possint.

He ascended, who breathes upon your face, snatching you from tribulation. Let whoever remembers the Gospel recall who ascended from the lower regions and breathed the Holy Spirit upon the face of Judah—that is, of the disciples who were Jews. For they pertain to the New Testament, whose feast days are thus spiritually renewed that they cannot pass into antiquity.

Porro per euangelium exterminata sculptilia et conflatilia, id est idola deorum falsorum, et obliuioni tamquam sepulturae tradita iam uidemus et hanc etiam in hac re prophetiam completam esse cognoscimus.

Moreover, through the Gospel the graven and molten things—that is, the idols of false gods—have been exterminated and consigned to oblivion as to a sepulture; we now see this, and we recognize that even in this matter the prophecy has been fulfilled.

Ambacum de quo alio quam de Christi aduentu, qui futurus Ambacum de quo alio quam de Christi aduentu, qui futurus fscimus propter hoc testimonium, quod nobis inuiti perhibent eosdem codices habendo atque seruando, per omnes gentes etiam ipsos esse dispersos, quaqua uersum Christi ecclesia dilatatur. Nam prophetia in psalmis, quos legunt etiam, de hac re praemissa est, ubi scriptum est: Deus meus, misericordia eius praeueniet me; Deus meus demonstrauit mihi in inimicis meis, ne occideris eos, ne quando obliuiscantur legem tuam; disperge eos in uirtute tua. Demonstrauit ergo Deus ecclesiae in eius inimicis Iudaeis gratiam misericordiae suae, quoniam, sicut dicit apostolus, delictum illorum salus gentibus; et ideo non eos occidit, id est non in eis perdidit quod sunt Iudaei, quamuis a Romanis fuerint deuicti et oppressi, ne obliti legem Dei ad hoc, de quo agimus, testimonium nihil ualerent.

Habakkuk—about what else than about the advent of Christ, who is to come Habakkuk—about what else than about the advent of Christ, who is to come we know on account of this testimony, which the same codices, by having and preserving them, unwillingly bear to us, that even they themselves are scattered through all the nations, wherever the church of Christ is enlarged. For a prophecy in the Psalms, which they also read, concerning this matter has been set forth beforehand, where it is written: My God, his mercy will go before me; my God has shown me in my enemies: do not kill them, lest at any time they forget your law; scatter them in your might. God therefore has shown to the church, in its enemies the Jews, the grace of his mercy, since, as the Apostle says, their transgression is salvation for the nations; and therefore he did not kill them, that is, he did not destroy in them that they are Jews, although they were conquered and oppressed by the Romans, lest, the law of God forgotten, for this testimony about which we are treating, they should avail nothing.

Ideo parum fuit, ut diceret: Ne occideris eos, ne quando obliuiscantur legem tuam, nisi adderet etiam: Disperge eos; quoniam si cum isto testimonio scripturarum in sua tantummodo terra, non ubique essent, profecto ecclesia, quae ubique est, eos prophetiarum, quae de Christo praemissae sunt, testes in omnibus gentibus habere non posset.

Therefore it was too little that he should say: Do not kill them, lest at any time they forget your law, unless he also added: Scatter them; for if, along with this testimony of the Scriptures, they were only in their own land, not everywhere, surely the Church, which is everywhere, could not have them as witnesses, among all the nations, of the prophecies which were premised concerning Christ.

[XLVII] Quapropter quisquis alienigena, id est non ex Israel progenitus nec ab illo populo in canonem sacrarum litterarum receptus, legitur aliquid prophetasse de Christo, si in nostram notitiam uenit aut uenerit, ad cumulum a nobis commemorari potest; non quo necessarius sit, etiamsi desit, sed quia non Incongrue creditur fuisse et in aliis gentibus homines, quibus hoc mysterium reuelatum est, et qui haec etiam praedicere inpulsi sunt, siue participes eiusdem gratiae fuerint siue expertes, sed per malos angelos docti sint, quos etiam praesentem Christum, quem Iudaei non agnoscebant, scimus fuisse confessos. Nec ipsos Iudaeos existimo audere contendere neminem pertinuisse ad Deum praeter Israelitas, ex quo propago Israel esse coepit, reprobato eius fratre maiore. Populus enim re uera, qui proprie Dei populus diceretur, nullus alius fuit; homines autem quosdam non terrena, sed caelesti societate ad ueros Israelitas supernae ciues patriae pertinentes etiam in aliis gentibus fuisse negare non possunt; quia si negant, facillime conuincuntur de sancto et mirabili uiro Iob, qui nec indigena nec proselytus, id est aduena populi Israel fuit, sed ex gente Idumaea genus ducens, ibi ortus, ibidem mortuus est; qui diuino sic laudatur eloquio, ut, quod ad iustitiam pietatemque adtinet, nullus ei homo suorum temporum coaequetur.

[47] Wherefore whoever is an alien-born, that is, not begotten from Israel nor received by that people into the canon of the sacred letters, is read to have prophesied something about Christ—if it has come or shall come into our knowledge—can be mentioned by us as a cumulus; not because he is necessary, even if he is lacking, but because it is not incongruously believed that in other nations also there were men to whom this mystery was revealed, and who were impelled to foretell these things, whether they were participants of the same grace or were without it, but were taught by evil angels, whom we also know to have confessed the present Christ, whom the Jews did not recognize. Nor do I think that the Jews themselves would dare to contend that no one pertained to God except Israelites, from the time when the lineage of Israel began, his elder brother having been rejected. For a people in truth, who might properly be called the people of God, there was no other; but that certain men, not by earthly but by celestial fellowship, belonging to the true Israelites, citizens of the supernal fatherland, were even in other nations, they cannot deny; because if they deny it, they are very easily refuted by the holy and wondrous man Job, who was neither a native nor a proselyte, that is, a sojourner of the people of Israel, but drawing his lineage from the Idumaean nation, born there, there likewise dead; who is so praised by divine eloquence that, as concerns justice and piety, no man of his times is equaled to him.

Quae tempora eius quamuis non inueniamus in Chronicis, colligimus tamen ex libro eius, quem pro sui merito Israelitae in auctoritatem canonicam receperunt, tertia generatione posteriorem fuisse quam Israel. Diuinitus autem prouisum fuisse non dubito, ut ex hoc uno sciremus etiam per alias gentes esse potuisse, qui secundum Deum uixerunt eique placuerunt, pertinentes ad spiritalem Hierusalem. Quod nemini concessum fuisse credendum est, nisi cui diuinitus reuelatus est unus mediator Dei et hominum, homo Christus Iesus, qui uenturus in carne sic antiquis sanctis praenuntiabatur, quem ad modum nobis uenisse nuntiatus est, ut una eademque per ipsum fides omnes in Dei ciuitatem, Dei domum, Dei templum praedestinatos perducat ad Deum.

Although we do not find his times in the Chronicles, yet we gather from his book, which the Israelites, by reason of its own merit, received into canonical authority, that he was later than Israel by the third generation. Moreover, I do not doubt that it was divinely provided, that from this one we might know that there could also have been among other nations those who lived according to God and pleased Him, belonging to the spiritual Jerusalem. Which is to be believed to have been granted to no one, unless to him to whom the one Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus, was divinely revealed; who, about to come in the flesh, was thus pre-announced to the ancient saints, in the same manner as He has been announced to us to have come, in order that one and the same faith through Him may lead all who are predestined into the City of God, the House of God, the Temple of God, to God.

Sed quaecumque aliorum prophetiae de Dei per Iesum Christum gratia proferuntur, possunt putari a Christianis esse confictae. Ideo nihil est firmius ad conuincendos quoslibet alienos, si de hac re contenderint, nostrosque faciendos, si recte sapuerint, quam ut diuina praedicta de Christo ea proferantur, quae in Iudaeorum codicibus scripta sunt; quibus auulsis de sedibus propriis et propter hoc testimonium toto orbe dispersis Christi usquequaque creuit ecclesia.

But whatever prophecies of others about the grace of God through Jesus Christ are brought forward can be thought to have been fabricated by Christians. Therefore nothing is more firm for convincing any outsiders, if they should contend about this matter, and for making them ours, if they have rightly understood, than that those divine predictions about Christ be produced which are written in the Jews’ codices; and when they, torn from their own seats and on account of this testimony dispersed through the whole world, the church of Christ has grown everywhere.

[XLVIII] Haec domus Dei maioris est gloriae, quam fuerat illa prima lignis et lapidibus ceterisque pretiosis rebus metallisque constructa. Non itaque Aggaei prophetia in templi illius instauratione completa est. Ex quo enim est instauratum, numquam ostenditur habuisse tantam gloriam, quantam habuit tempore Salomonis; immo potius ostenditur primum cessatione prophetiae fuisse domus illius gloriam diminutam, deinde ipsius gentis cladibus tantis usque ad ultimum excidium, quod factum est a Romanis, sicut ea, quae supra sunt commemorata testantur.

[48] This house of God is of greater glory than that former first one which had been constructed of timbers and stones and the other precious things and metals. Therefore the prophecy of Haggai was not completed in the restoration of that temple. For from the time that it was restored, it is never shown to have had so great a glory as it had in the time of Solomon; rather, it is shown that first, by the cessation of prophecy, the glory of that house was diminished, and then by the so great calamities of that very nation, even unto the ultimate destruction which was wrought by the Romans, as the things which have been mentioned above bear witness.

Haec autem domus ad nouum pertinens testamentum tanto utique maioris est gloriae, quanto meliores sunt lapides uiui, quibus credentibus renouatisque construitur. Sed ideo per instaurationem templi illius significata est, quia ipsa renouatio illius aedificii significat eloquio prophetico alterum testamentum, quod appellatur nouum. Quod ergo Deus dixit per memoratum prophetam: Et dabo pacem in loco isto, per significantem locum ille, qui eo significatur, intellegendus est; ut, quia illo loco instaurato significata est ecclesia, quae fuerat aedificanda per Christum, nihil <aliud> accipiatur, quod dictum est: Dabo pacem in loco isto, nisi "dabo pacem in loco, quem significat locus iste". Quoniam omnia significantia uidentur quodam modo earum rerum, quas significant, sustinere personas; sicut dictum est ab apostolo: Petra erat Christus, quoniam petra illa, de qua hoc dictum est, significabat utique Christum.

But this house, pertaining to the New Testament, is assuredly of so much the greater glory, as the living stones are better, by whom, believing and renewed, it is constructed. But for this reason it was signified through the restoration of that temple, because that very renovation of that building signifies, by prophetic eloquence, the other testament, which is called new. What therefore God said through the aforementioned prophet: “And I will give peace in this place,” by the signifying place He is to be understood who is signified by it; so that, since by that place being restored the Church was signified, which was to be built through Christ, nothing <other> is taken as meant by what was said, “I will give peace in this place,” except “I will give peace in the place which this place signifies.” For all things that signify seem in a certain way to bear the persons of the things which they signify; just as it was said by the Apostle: “The Rock was Christ,” since that rock, about which this was said, surely signified Christ.

Maior est itaque gloria domus huius noui testamenti quam domus prioris ueteris testamenti, et tunc apparebit maior, cum dedicabitur. Tunc enim ueniet desideratus cunctis gentibus, sicut legitur in Hebraeo. Nam primus eius aduentus nondum erat desideratus omnibus gentibus.

Greater, therefore, is the glory of the house of this New Testament than of the former house of the Old Testament, and then it will appear greater, when it is dedicated. For then will come the one desired by all the nations, as it is read in Hebrew. For his first advent was not yet desired by all nations.

Non enim quem deberent desiderare sciebant, in quem non crediderant. Tunc etiam secundum septuaginta interpretes (quia et ipse propheticus sensus est) uenient quae electa sunt Domini de cunctis gentibus. Tunc enim uere non uenient nisi electa, de quibus dicit apostolus: Sicut elegit nos in ipso ante mundi constitutionem.

For they did not know whom they ought to desire, in whom they had not believed. Then also, according to the Seventy interpreters (for that too is a prophetic sense), there will come the elect of the Lord from all the nations. For then truly there will come none but the elect, about whom the apostle says: Just as he chose us in him before the constitution of the world.

Ipse quippe architectus, qui dixit: Multi uocati, pauci uero electi, non de his, qui uocati sic uenerunt, ut de conuiuio proicerentur, sed de electis demonstraturus est aedificatam domum, quae nullam.ruinam deinceps formidabit. Nunc autem, quando et hi replent ecclesias, quos tamquam in area uentilatio separabit, non apparet tanta gloria domus huius, quanta tunc apparebit, quando, quisquis ibi erit, semper erit.

For the architect himself, who said: “Many are called, but few indeed are elect,” will show the house built not from those who, though called, so came as to be cast out from the banquet, but from the elect—a house which thereafter will fear no ruin. Now, however, when even those fill the churches whom the winnowing will separate as on the threshing-floor, so great a glory of this house does not appear as then will appear, when whoever will be there will be there forever.

[XLIX] In hoc ergo saeculo maligno, in his diebus malis, ubi per humilitatem praesentem futuram comparat ecclesia celsitudinem et timorum stimulis, dolorum tormentis, laborum molestiis, temptationum periculis eruditur, sola spe gaudens, quando sanum gaudet, multi reprobi miscentur bonis et utrique tamquam in sagenam euangelicam colliguntur et in hoc mundo tamquam in mari utrique inclusi retibus indiscrete natant, donec perueniatur ad litus, ubi mali segregentur a bonis et in bonis tamquam in templo suo sit Deus omnia in omnibus. Proinde uocem nunc agnoscimus eius impleri, qui loquebatur in psalmo atque dicebat: Adnuntiaui et locutus sum, multiplicati sunt super numerum. Hoc fit nunc, ex quo primum per os praecursoris sui Iohannis, deinde per os proprium adnuntiauit et locutus est dicens: Agite paenitentiam, adpropinquauit enim regnum caelorum.

[49] Therefore in this malignant age, in these evil days, where through present humility the Church acquires future loftiness and, by the goads of fears, the torments of pains, the annoyances of labors, the dangers of temptations, is educated, rejoicing in hope alone, when it rejoices soundly, many reprobates are mixed with the good, and both alike are gathered as into the evangelical dragnet; and in this world, as in the sea, both, enclosed in the nets, swim indiscriminately, until the shore is reached, where the evil shall be segregated from the good, and in the good, as in his own temple, God shall be all in all. Accordingly we now recognize that the voice of him is being fulfilled who was speaking in the psalm and was saying: I have announced and spoken; they have been multiplied beyond number. This is happening now, since first through the mouth of his forerunner John, then through his own mouth, he announced and spoke, saying: Repent; for the kingdom of heaven has drawn near.

Elegit discipulos, quos et apostolos nominauit, humiliter natos, inhonoratos, inlitteratos, ut, quidquid magnum essent et facerent, ipse in eis esset et faceret. Habuit inter eos unum, quo malo utens bene et suae passionis impleret dispositum et ecclesiae suae tolerandorum malorum praeberet exemplum. Seminato, quantum per eius oportebat praesentiam corporalem, sancto euangelio passus est, mortuus est, resurrexit, passione ostendens quid sustinere pro ueritate, resurrectione quid sperare in aeternitate debeamus, excepta altitudine sacramenti, qua sanguis eius in remissionem fusus est peccatorum.

He chose disciples, whom also he named apostles, humble-born, dishonored, unlettered, so that whatever great they might be and do, he himself might be and do in them. He had among them one, whose evil, using well, he might fulfill the disposition of his passion and might present to his church an example of evils to be tolerated. The holy evangel having been sown, as much as was fitting through his bodily presence, he suffered, he died, he rose again, by his passion showing what we ought to endure for truth, by his resurrection what we ought to hope for in eternity, the loftiness of the sacrament being excepted, by which his blood was poured out for the remission of sins.

Conuersatus est in terra quadraginta dies cum discipulis suis atque ipsis uidentibus ascendit in caelum et post dies decem misit promissum Spiritum sanctum; cuius uenientis in eos qui crediderant tunc signum erat maximum et maxime necessarium, ut unusquisque eorum linguis omnium gentium loqueretur; ita significans unitatem catholicae ecclesiae per omnes gentes futuram ac sic linguis omnibus locuturam.

He conversed on earth for forty days with his disciples, and with they themselves seeing he ascended into heaven, and after ten days he sent the promised Holy Spirit; of whose coming upon those who had believed the sign then was very great and most necessary, namely that each of them should speak in the tongues of all nations; thus signifying the unity of the catholic church as destined to be through all nations, and so to speak with all tongues.

[L] Deinde secundum illam prophetiam: Ex Sion lex prodiet et uerbum Domini ex Hierusalem, et secundum ipsius Domini Christi praedicta, ubi post resurrectionem stupentibus eum discipulis suis aperuit sensum, ut intellegerent scripturas, et dixit eis, quoniam sic scriptum est, et sic oportebat Christum pati et resurgere a mortuis tertio die et praedicari in nomine eius paenitentiam et remissionem peccatorum per omnes gentes, incipientibus ab Hierusalem, et ubi rursus eis de aduentu eius nouissimo requirentibus respondit atque ait: Non est uestrum scire tempora quae Pater posuit in sua potestate,. sed accipietis uirtutem Spiritus sancti superuenientem in uos, et eritis mihi testes in Hierusalem et in totam Iudaeam et Samariam et usque in fines terrae, primum se ab Hierusalem diffudit ecclesia, et cum in Iudaea atque Samaria plurimi credidissent, et in alias gentes itum est, eis adnuntiantibus euangelium, quos ipse, sicut luminaria, et aptauerat uerbo et accenderat Spiritu sancto. Dixerat enim eis: Nolite timere eos, qui corpus occidunt, animam autem non possunt occidere. qui ut frigidi timore non essent, igne caritatis ardebant.

[L] Then according to that prophecy: From Zion the law shall go forth and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, and according to the Lord Christ’s own predictions, where after the resurrection, while his disciples were astonished at him, he opened their mind, that they might understand the Scriptures, and said to them that thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins be preached in his name through all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem; and where again, when they were inquiring of him about his latest advent, he answered and said: It is not yours to know the times which the Father has set in his own authority,. but you will receive power of the Holy Spirit coming upon you, and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judaea and Samaria and even to the ends of the earth, first the Church spread itself from Jerusalem; and when very many had believed in Judaea and Samaria, it went also into other nations, with those announcing the gospel, whom he himself, like luminaries, had both made apt by the word and had kindled by the Holy Spirit. For he had said to them: Do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul. they, in order that they might not be cold with fear, burned with the fire of charity.

Denique non solum per ipsos, qui eum et ante passionem et post resurrectionem uiderant et audierant, uerum etiam post obitum eorum per posteros eorum inter horrendas persecutiones et uarios cruciatus ac funera martyrum praedicatum est toto orbe euangelium, contestante Deo signis et ostentis et uariis uirtutibus et Spiritus sancti muneribus; ut populi gentium credentes in eum, qui pro eorum redemptione crucifixus est, Christiano amore uenerarentur sanguinem martyrum. quem diabolico furore fuderunt, ipsique reges, quorum legibus uastabatur ecclesia, ei nomini salubriter subderentur, quod de terra crudeliter auferre conati sunt, et falsos deos inciperent persequi, quorum causa cultores Dei ueri fuerant antea persecuti.

Finally, not only through those themselves who had seen and heard him both before the passion and after the resurrection, but even after their death through their successors, amid horrendous persecutions and various tortures and the deaths of martyrs, the evangel was preached through the whole orb, God bearing witness with signs and portents and various powers and gifts of the Holy Spirit; so that the peoples of the nations, believing in him who was crucified for their redemption, with Christian love might venerate the blood of the martyrs, which they had poured out in diabolic frenzy; and the kings themselves, by whose laws the Church was being laid waste, might be healthfully subjected to that name which they tried cruelly to remove from the earth, and they might begin to persecute the false gods, on whose account the worshipers of the true God had previously been persecuted.

[LI] Videns autem diabolus templa daemonum deseri et in nomen liberantis Mediatoris currere genus humanum, haereticos mouit, qui sub uocabulo Christiano doctrinae resisterent Christianae, quasi possent indifferenter sine ulla correptione haberi in ciuitate Dei, sicut ciuitas confusionis indifferenter habuit philosophos inter se diuersa et aduersa sentientes. qui ergo in ecclesia Christi morbidum aliquid prauumque sapiunt, si correpti, ut sanum rectumque sapiant, resistunt contumaciter suaque pestifera et mortifera dogmata emendare nolunt, sed defensare persistunt, haeretici fiunt et foras exeuntes habentur in exercentibus inimicis. Etiam sic quippe ueris illis catholicis membris Christi malo suo prosunt, dum Deus utitur et malis bene et diligentibus eum omnia cooperatur in bonum.

[51] But when the devil saw the temples of the demons being deserted and the human race running into the name of the Liberating Mediator, he stirred up heretics, who under the Christian appellation would resist Christian doctrine, as though they could be held indifferently, without any correction, in the City of God, just as the city of confusion indifferently held philosophers thinking diverse and adverse things among themselves. Therefore those who in the Church of Christ taste something morbid and depraved, if, when corrected so that they may think what is sound and straight, they contumaciously resist and are unwilling to emend their pestiferous and mortiferous dogmas, but persist in defending them, become heretics and, going forth outside, are accounted among the enemies waging war. Yet even thus, indeed, they profit those true catholic members of Christ to their own harm, since God uses even the evil well, and for those who love him all things cooperate unto good.

Inimici enim omnes ecclesiae, quolibet errore caecentur uel malitia deprauentur, si accipiunt potestatem corporaliter affligendi, exercent eius patientiam; si tantummodo male sentiendo aduersantur, exercent eius sapientiam; ut autem etiam inimici diligantur, exercent eius beneuolentiam aut etiam beneficentiam, siue suadibili doctrina cum eis agatur siue terribili disciplina. Ac per hoc diabolus princeps impiae ciuitatis aduersus peregrinantem in hoc mundo ciuitatem Dei uasa propria commouendo nihil ei nocere permittitur, cui procul dubio et rebus prosperis consolatio, ut non frangatur aduersis, et rebus aduersis exercitatio, ut non corrumpatur prosperis, per diuinam prouidentiam procuratur, atque ita temperatur utrumque ab alterutro, ut in psalmo illam uocem non aliunde agnoscamus exortam: Secundum multitudinem dolorum meorum in corde meo consolationes tuae iucundauerunt animam meam. Hinc est et illud apostoli: Spe gaudentes, in tribulatione patientes.

For all enemies of the Church, whether they are blinded by any error or depraved by malice: if they receive power to afflict bodily, they exercise its patience; if they oppose only by thinking ill, they exercise its wisdom; and, in order that even enemies may be loved, they exercise its benevolence or even beneficence, whether one deals with them by persuasive doctrine or by terrible discipline. And thus the devil, prince of the impious city, by stirring his own vessels against the City of God sojourning in this world, is permitted to do it no harm; for to it, without doubt, both in prosperous circumstances consolation, that it may not be broken by adversities, and in adverse circumstances exercise, that it may not be corrupted by prosperities, is provided through divine providence; and in this way each is tempered by the other, so that we recognize that utterance in the psalm as having arisen from no other source: According to the multitude of my sorrows in my heart, your consolations have gladdened my soul. Hence also is that saying of the Apostle: Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation.

Nam et id, quod ait idem doctor: quicumque uolunt in Christo pie uiuere, persecutionem patiuntur, nullis putandum est deesse posse temporibus. quia et cum ab eis, qui foris sunt, non saeuientibus uidetur esse tranquillitas et re uera est plurimumque consolationis adfert, maxime infirmis: non tamen desunt, immo multi sunt intus, qui corda pie uiuentium suis perditis moribus cruciant; quoniam per eos blasphematur Christianum et catholicum nomen; quod quanto est carius eis, qui uolunt pie uiuere in Christo, tanto magis dolent, quod per malos intus positos fit, ut minus, quam piorum mentes desiderant, diligatur. Ipsi quoque haeretici, cum cogitantur habere nomen et sacramenta Christiana et scripturas et professionem, magnum dolorem faciunt in cordibus piorum; quia et multi uolentes esse Christiani propter eorum dissensiones haesitare coguntur et multi maledici etiam in his inueniunt materiam blasphemandi Christianum nomen, quia et ipsi quoquo modo Christiani appellantur.

For also that saying of the same doctor—“whoever wish to live piously in Christ suffer persecution”—is not to be thought able to be lacking at any times. For even when from those who are outside, not raging, there seems to be tranquility, and in very deed there is, and it brings very much consolation, especially to the infirm, nevertheless there are not lacking—indeed many there are—within, who with their depraved morals torture the hearts of those living piously; since through them the Christian and Catholic name is blasphemed, which, the dearer it is to those who wish to live piously in Christ, by so much the more they grieve that through the evil placed within it comes to pass that it is loved less than the minds of the pious desire. The heretics themselves also, when they are reckoned to have the Christian name and sacraments and Scriptures and profession, make great dolor in the hearts of the pious; because both many wishing to be Christians are compelled to hesitate on account of their dissensions, and many slanderers also in these find material for blaspheming the Christian name, since they too in some manner are called Christians.

His atque huius modi prauis moribus et erroribus hominum persecutionem patiuntur, qui uolunt in Christo pie uiuere, etiam nullo infestante neque uexante corpus illorum. Patiuntur quippe hanc persecutionem non in corporibus, sed in cordibus. Vnde illa uox est: Secundum multitudinem dolorum meorum in corde meo.

By these and manners and errors of men of this sort, depraved, they suffer persecution, who want to live piously in Christ, even with no one infesting nor vexing their body. For they suffer this persecution not in bodies, but in hearts. Whence is that voice: “According to the multitude of my dolors in my heart.”

Non enim ait: "In corpore meo." Sed rursus quoniam cogitantur inmutabilia diuina promissa, et quod ait apostolus: Nouit Dominus qui sunt eius (quos enim praesciuit et praedestinauit conformes imaginis filii sui, ex eis perire nullus potest): ideo sequitur in illo psalmo: Consolationes tuae iucundauerunt animam meam. Dolor autem ipse, qui fit in cordibus piorum, quos persequuntur mores Christianorum malorum siue falsorum, prodest dolentibus, quoniam de caritate descendit, qua eos perire nolunt nec impedire aliorum salutem. Denique magnae consolationes fiunt etiam de correctionibus eorum, quae piorum animas tanta iucunditate perfundunt, quantis doloribus de sua perditione cruciauerant.

For he did not say: "In my body." But again, since the immutable divine promises are considered, and what the apostle says: "The Lord knows those who are his" (for those whom he foreknew and predestined conformed to the image of his Son, of these no one can perish): therefore, in that psalm there follows: "Your consolations have gladdened my soul." But the very sorrow that arises in the hearts of the pious, whom the morals of evil or false Christians persecute, profits those who grieve, since it descends from charity, by which they do not wish them to perish nor to impede the salvation of others. Finally, great consolations also arise from their corrections, which suffuse the souls of the pious with as great delight as the pains with which they had tormented them over their perdition.

Sic in hoc saeculo, in his diebus malis non solum a tempore corporalis praesentiae Christi et apostolorum eius, sed ab ipso Abel, quem primum iustum impius frater occidit, et deinceps usque in huius saeculi finem inter persecutiones mundi et consolationes Dei peregrinando procurrit ecclesia.

Thus in this age, in these evil days, not only from the time of the corporeal presence of Christ and of his apostles, but from Abel himself, whom an impious brother first slew, and thereafter up to the end of this age, the Church, peregrinating, runs forward between the persecutions of the world and the consolations of God.

[LII] Proinde ne illud quidem temere puto esse dicendum siue credendum, quod nonnullis uisum est uel uidetur, non amplius ecclesiam passuram persecutiones usque ad tempus Antichristi, quam quot iam passa est, id est decem, ut undecima eademque nouissima sit ab Antichristo. Primam quippe computant a Nerone quae facta est, secundam a Domitiano, a Traiano tertiam, quartam ab Antonino, a Seuero quintam, sextam a Maximino, a Decio septimam, octauam a Valeriano, ab Aureliano nonam, decimam a Diocletiano et Maximiano. Plagas enim Aegyptiorum, quoniam decem fuerunt, antequam exire inde inciperet populus Dei, putant ad hunc intellectum esse referendas, ut nouissima Antichristi persecutio similis uideatur undecimae plagae, qua Aegyptii, dum hostiliter sequerentur Hebraeos, in mari Rubro populo Dei per siccum transeunte perierunt.

[52] Accordingly, I do not think it should be said or believed rashly what has seemed or seems to some: that the Church will suffer no more persecutions up to the time of the Antichrist than as many as it has already suffered, that is, ten, so that the eleventh, and that the last, would be from the Antichrist. For they reckon the first as that which was done by Nero, the second by Domitian, the third by Trajan, the fourth by Antoninus, the fifth by Severus, the sixth by Maximinus, the seventh by Decius, the eighth by Valerian, the ninth by Aurelian, the tenth by Diocletian and Maximian. For they think the plagues of the Egyptians—since they were ten before the people of God began to go out from there—are to be referred to this understanding, so that the final persecution of the Antichrist may appear like an eleventh plague, in which the Egyptians, while as enemies they pursued the Hebrews, perished in the Red Sea, as the people of God passed through on dry ground.

Sed ego illa re gesta in Aegypto istas persecutiones prophetice significatas esse non arbitror; quamuis ab eis, qui hoc putant, exquisite et ingeniose illa singula his singulis comparata uideantur, non prophetico spiritu, sed coniectura mentis humanae, quae aliquando ad uerum peruenit, aliquando fallitur.

But I do not consider that by that deed done in Egypt these persecutions were signified prophetically; although, by those who think this, those particulars seem to have been exquisitely and ingeniously matched, each to each of these particulars, not by a prophetic spirit, but by the conjecture of the human mind, which sometimes arrives at the true, sometimes is mistaken.

Quid enim, qui hoc sentiunt, dicturi sunt de persecutione, qua ipse Dominus crucifixus est? in quo eam numero posituri? Si autem hac excepta existimant computandum, tamquam illae numerandae sint, quae ad corpus pertinent, non qua ipsum caput est appetitum et occisum: quid agent de illa, quae, postea quam Christus ascendit in caelum, Hierosolymis facta est, ubi beatus Stephanus lapidatus est, ubi Iacobus frater Iohannis gladio trucidatus, ubi apostolus Petrus ut occideretur inclusus et per angelum liberatus, ubi fugati atque dispersi de Hierosolymis fratres, ubi Saulus, qui postea Paulus apostolus factus est, uastabat ecclesiam, ubi ipse quoque iam fidem, quam persequebatur, euangelizans, qualia faciebat, est passus, siue per Iudaeam siue per alias gentes, quacumque Christum feruentissimus praedicabat?

What, indeed, are those who think this going to say about the persecution in which the Lord himself was crucified? In what number are they going to place it? But if, with this one excepted, they think the reckoning must be computed, as though those are to be numbered which pertain to the body, not that in which the very head was assailed and slain: what will they do about that which, after Christ ascended into heaven, was done at Jerusalem, where blessed Stephen was stoned, where James the brother of John was butchered by the sword, where the apostle Peter, shut up that he might be killed, was delivered by an angel, where the brothers were put to flight and scattered from Jerusalem, where Saul, who afterwards was made the apostle Paul, was laying waste the church, where he himself also, now evangelizing the faith which he had been persecuting, suffered the very kinds of things he had been doing, whether throughout Judea or among other nations, wherever, in utmost fervor, he was preaching Christ?

Cur ergo eis a Nerone uidetur ordiendum, cum ad Neronis tempora inter atrocissimas persecutiones, de quibus nimis longum est cuncta dicere, ecclesia crescendo peruenerit? Quod si a regibus factas persecutiones in numero existimant esse debere: rex fuit Herodes, qui etiam post ascensum Domini grauissimam fecit. Deinde quid respondent etiam de Iuliano, quem non numerant in decem?

Why therefore does it seem to them that one ought to begin from Nero, since up to the times of Nero the Church, while growing, has come through amid the most atrocious persecutions, of all which it is too long to tell? But if they think that the persecutions wrought by kings ought to be in the number: Herod was a king, who even after the Lord’s Ascension made a most grievous one. Then what do they answer also about Julian, whom they do not number among the ten?

An ipse non est ecclesiam persecutus, qui Christianos liberales litteras docere ac discere uetuit? Sub quo Valentinianus maior, qui post eum tertius imperator fuit, fidei Christianae confessor extitit militiaque priuatus est; ut omittam quae apud Antiochiam facere coeperat, nisi unius fidelissimi et constantissimi iuuenis, qui multis, ut torquerentur, adprehensis per totum diem primus est tortus, inter ungulas cruciatusque psallentis libertatem atque hilaritatem miratus horruisset et in ceteris deformius erubescere timuisset. Postremo nostra memoria Valens, supradicti Valentiniani frater, Arrianus, nonne magna persecutione per Orientis partes catholicam uastauit ecclesiam?

Or did not he himself persecute the church, who forbade Christians to teach and to learn the liberal letters? Under him Valentinian the Elder, who after him was the third emperor, stood forth as a confessor of the Christian faith and was deprived of his military service; to say nothing of what he had begun to do at Antioch, had he not, marveling at the freedom and cheerfulness of one most faithful and most steadfast youth, who, with many seized to be tortured, was the first to be racked through the whole day, singing Psalms amid the claws and torments, shuddered and feared to blush more disgracefully in the rest. Finally, within our memory Valens, the brother of the aforesaid Valentinian, an Arian—did he not lay waste the catholic church through the parts of the Orient by a great persecution?

Quale est autem, non considerare ecclesiam per totum mundum fructificantem atque crescentem posse in aliquibus gentibus persecutionem pati a regibus, et quando in aliis non patitur? Nisi forte non est persecutio computanda, quando rex Gothorum in ipsa Gothia persecutus est Christianos crudelitate mirabili, cum ibi non essent nisi catholici, quorum plurimi martyrio coronati sunt, sicut a quibusdam fratribus, qui tunc illic pueri fuerant et se ista uidisse incunctanter recordabantur, audiuimus? quid modo in Perside?

What sort of thing is it, moreover, not to consider that the church, fructifying and growing throughout the whole world, can in some nations suffer persecution from kings, and at the same time in others does not suffer? Unless perhaps it is not to be reckoned persecution, when the king of the Goths in Gothia itself persecuted Christians with astonishing cruelty, when there were none there except Catholics, very many of whom were crowned with martyrdom, as we have heard from certain brethren who at that time had been boys there and unhesitatingly remembered that they had seen these things? What now in Persia?

Nonne ita in Christianos ferbuit persecutio (si tamen iam quieuit), ut fugientes inde nonnulli usque ad Romana oppida peruenerint? Haec atque huius modi mihi cogitanti non uidetur esse definiendus numerus persecutionum, quibus exerceri oportet ecclesiam. Sed rursus adfirmare aliquas futuras a regibus praeter illam nouissimam, de qua nullus ambigit Christianus, non minoris est temeritatis.

Did not persecution so seethe against Christians (if indeed it has now grown quiet) that some fleeing from there have come even as far as Roman towns? These things and things of this sort occurring to me, it does not seem that the number of persecutions by which the church ought to be exercised is to be defined. But, on the other hand, to affirm that some will be future from kings, besides that last one about which no Christian is in doubt, is of no less temerity.

Itaque hoc in medio relinquimus neutram partem quaestionis huius astruentes siue destruentes, sed tantummodo ab adfirmandi quodlibet horum audaci praesumptione reuocantes.

Therefore we leave this in the middle, neither establishing nor destroying either part of this question, but only calling back from the audacious presumption of affirming whatever of these.

[LIII] Illam sane nouissimam persecutionem, quae ab Antichristo futura est, praesentia sua extinguet ipse Iesus. Sic enim scriptum est, quod eum interficiet spiritu oris sui et euacuabit inluminatione praesentiae suae. Hic quaeri solet: Quando istud erit?

[53] That truly most recent persecution, which is to be from the Antichrist, Jesus himself will extinguish by his presence. For thus it is written, that he will slay him by the spirit of his mouth and will evacuate by the illumination of his presence. Here it is wont to be asked: When will that be?

Inportune omnino. Si enim hoc nobis nosse prodesset, a quo melius quam ab ipso Deo magistro interrogantibus discipulis diceretur? Non enim siluerunt inde apud eum, sed a praesente quaesierunt dicentes: Domine, si hoc tempore repraesentabis regnum Israel?

Altogether inopportunely. For if it were profitable for us to know this, by whom better than by God himself the Teacher would it be said to the disciples asking? For they did not keep silence about it with him, but asked of the one present, saying: Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?

At ille: Non est, inquit, uestrum scire tempora, quae Pater posuit in sua potestate. Non utique illi de hora uel die uel anno, sed de tempore interrogauerant, quando istud accepere responsum. Frustra igitur annos, qui remanent huic saeculo, computare ac definire conamur, cum hoc scire non esse nostrum ex ore Veritatis audiamus; quos tamen alii quadringentos, alii quingentos, alii etiam mille ab ascensione Domini usque ad eius ultimum aduentum compleri posse dixerunt.

But he: It is not, he says, yours to know the times which the Father has set in his own power. Surely they had not asked about the hour or the day or the year, but about the time, when they received that answer. In vain, therefore, do we attempt to compute and define the years which remain to this age, since we hear from the mouth of Truth that to know this is not ours; which years nevertheless some said could amount to 400, others 500, others even 1000 from the Ascension of the Lord up to his final Advent.

Quem ad modum autem quisque eorum astruat opinionem suam, longum est demonstrare et non necessarium. Coniecturis quippe utuntur humanis, non ab eis aliquid certum de scripturae canonicae auctoritate profertur. Omnium uero de hac re calculantium digitos resoluit et quiescere iubet ille, qui dicit: Non est uestrum scire tempora, quae Pater posuit in sua potestate.

But as to the manner in which each of them buttresses his own opinion, it is long to demonstrate and not necessary. For they employ human conjectures; nothing certain is brought forward by them from the authority of canonical Scripture. Truly, he loosens the fingers of all who are calculating about this matter and bids them be at rest, the one who says: It is not yours to know the times which the Father has set in his own power.

Sed haec quia euangelica sententia est, mirum non est non ea repressos fuisse deorum multorum falsorumque cultores, quominus fingerent daemonum responsis, quos tamquam deos colunt, definitum esse quanto tempore mansura esset religio Christiana. Cum enim uiderent nec tot tantisque persecutionibus eam potuisse consumi, sed his potius mira incrementa sumpsisse, excogitauerunt nescio quos uersus Graecos tamquam consulenti cuidam diuino oraculo effusos, ubi Christum quidem ab huius tamquam sacrilegii crimine faciunt innocentem, Petrum autem maleficia fecisse subiungunt, ut coleretur Christi nomen per trecentos sexaginta quinque annos, deinde completo memorato numero annorum sine mora sumeret finem. O hominum corda doctorum!

But since this is an evangelical sentiment, it is no wonder that the worshipers of many false gods were not restrained by it from inventing, on the basis of the responses of demons (whom they worship as gods), that it had been defined how long the Christian religion would abide. For when they saw that it could not be consumed by so many and so great persecutions, but had rather taken marvelous increments by these, they contrived I-know-not-what Greek verses, as if poured forth by a divine oracle to a certain inquirer, wherein they indeed make Christ innocent of the charge of this sacrilege, but add that Peter did malefices, so that the name of Christ might be worshiped for 365 years, then, the aforementioned number of years being completed, without delay it would take its end. O hearts of learned men!

O ingenia litterata digna credere ista de Christo, quae credere non uultis in Christum, quod eius discipulus Petrus ab eo magicas artes non didicerit, sed, ipso innocente, tamen eius maleficus fuerit nomenque illius quam suum coli maluerit magicis artibus suis, magnis laboribus et periculis suis, postremo etiam effusione sanguinis sui! Si Petrus maleficus fecit, ut Christum sic diligeret mundus, quid fecit innocens Christus, ut eum sic diligeret Petrus? Respondeant igitur ipsi sibi et si possunt intellegant illa superna gratia factum esse, ut propter aeternam uitam Christum diligeret mundus, qua gratia factum est, ut et propter aeternam uitam ab illo accipiendam et usque ad temporariam mortem pro illo patiendam Christum diligeret Petrus.

O literate ingenia, fit to believe such things about Christ which you are unwilling to believe in Christ: namely, that his disciple Peter did not learn magical arts from him, but, he himself being innocent, nevertheless would have been his sorcerer, and by his own magical arts, his great labors and perils, and finally even by the effusion of his own blood, preferred that that one’s name rather than his own be venerated! If Peter, as a sorcerer, brought it about that the world loved Christ so, what did the innocent Christ do, that Peter should love him so? Let them therefore answer themselves, and, if they can, let them understand that it was done by that supernal grace, that for the sake of eternal life the world should love Christ; by which grace it was brought to pass that Peter too, for the sake of eternal life to be received from him, and even unto a temporal death to be suffered for him, should love Christ.

Deinde isti dii qui sunt, qui possunt ista praedicere nec possunt auertere, ita succumbentes uni malefico et uni sceleri magico, quo puer, ut dicunt, anniculus occisus et dilaniatus et ritu nefario sepultus est, ut sectam sibi aduersariam tam prolixo tempore conualescere, tot tantarumque persecutionum horrendas crudelitates non resistendo, sed patiendo superare et ad suorum simulacrorum templorum, sacrorum oraculorum euersionem peruenire permitterent? Quis postremo est deus, non noster utique, sed ipsorum, qui uel inlectus tanto scelere uel inpulsus est ista praestare? Non enim alicui daemoni, sed deo dicunt illi uersus haec Petrum arte magica definisse.

Then who are these gods, who can predict these things and cannot avert them, thus succumbing to a single malefactor and a single magical crime, by which a boy, as they say, one year old, was killed and torn to pieces and buried with a nefarious rite, so that they allowed a sect adverse to themselves to grow strong for so long a time, to overcome the horrendous cruelties of so many and so great persecutions not by resisting but by suffering, and to arrive at the overthrow of the temples of their simulacra (images), their sacred rites and oracles? Who, finally, is the god—not ours, to be sure, but theirs—who, either enticed by so great a crime or impelled by it, has granted these things? For those verses say that Peter by magical art ordained these things, and they attribute it not to any demon, but to a god.

Talem deum habent, qui Christum non habent.

Such a god do they have, who do not have Christ.

[LIV] Haec atque huius modi multa colligerem, si nondum annus ipse transisset, quem diuinatio ficta promisit et decepta uanitas credidit. Cum uero, ex quo nominis Christi cultus per eius in carne praesentiam et per apostolos institutus est, ante aliquot annos anni trecenti sexaginta quinque completi sunt, quid aliud quaerimus, unde ista falsitas refellatur? Vt enim in Christi natiuitate huius rei non ponamus initium, quia infans et puer discipulos non habebat, tamen quando habere coepit, procul dubio tunc innotuit per eius corporalem praesentiam doctrina et religio Christiana, id est, postea quam in fluuio Iordane ministerio Iohannis est baptizatus.

[54] I would collect these and many things of this sort, if not yet that very year had passed which feigned divination promised and deceived vanity believed. But since, from the time when the worship of the name of Christ was instituted through his presence in the flesh and through the apostles, three hundred sixty-five years were completed some years ago, what else do we seek, whence this falsehood may be refuted? For let us not set the beginning of this matter at Christ’s nativity, because as an infant and boy he did not have disciples; yet when he began to have them, without doubt then the Christian doctrine and religion became known through his bodily presence—that is, after he was baptized in the river Jordan by the ministry of John.

Propter hoc enim de illo prophetia illa praecesserat: Dominabitur a mari usque ad mare et a flumine usque ad terminos orbis terrae. Sed quoniam, priusquam passus esset et resurrexisset a mortuis, nondum fides omnibus fuerat definita (in resurrectione quippe Christi definita est, nam sic apostolus Paulus Atheniensibus loquitur dicens: Iam nunc adnuntiat hominibus omnes ubique agere paenitentiam, eo quod statuit diem iudicare orbem in aequitate in uiro quo definiuit fidem omnibus resuscitans illum a mortuis): melius in hac quaestione soluenda inde initium sumimus; praesertim quia tunc datus est etiam Spiritus sanctus, sicut eum dari post resurrectionem Christi oportebat in ea ciuitate, ex qua debuit incipere lex secunda, hoc est testamentum nouum. Prima enim fuit ex monte Sina per Moysen, quod testamentum uocatur uetus.

For on account of this, that prophecy went before concerning him: He will rule from sea unto sea and from the river unto the limits of the orb of the earth. But since, before he had suffered and had risen from the dead, faith had not yet been defined for all (for indeed in the resurrection of Christ it was defined, for thus the apostle Paul speaks to the Athenians, saying: Now already he announces to men that all everywhere are to do repentance, because he has appointed a day to judge the world in equity by the man in whom he defined faith for all, raising him from the dead), it is better, for solving this question, that we take the beginning from that point; especially because then the Holy Spirit also was given, as it behooved him to be given after the resurrection of Christ, in that city from which the second law ought to begin, that is, the New Testament. For the first was from Mount Sinai through Moses, which testament is called the Old.

De hac autem, quae per Christum danda erat, praedictum est: Ex Sion lex prodiet et uerbum Domini ex Hierusalem. Vnde et ipse per omnes gentes dixit praedicari oportere in nomine suo paenitentiam, sed tamen incipientibus ab Hierusalem. Ibi ergo exorsus est huius nominis cultus, ut in Iesum Christum, qui crucifixus fuerat et resurrexerat, crederetur.

But concerning this which was to be given through Christ, it was foretold: From Zion the law shall go forth and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. Whence also he himself said that repentance in his name ought to be preached through all the nations, yet beginning from Jerusalem. There, therefore, the worship of this name took its beginning, so that belief might be placed in Jesus Christ, who had been crucified and had risen again.

Ibi haec fides tam insignibus initiis incanduit, ut aliquot hominum milia in Christi nomen mirabili alacritate conuersa uenditis suis rebus, ut egenis distribuerentur, proposito sancto et ardentissima caritate ad paupertatem uoluntariam peruenirent atque inter frementes et sanguinem sitientes Iudaeos se usque ad mortem pro ueritate certare non armata potentia, sed potentiore patientia praepararent. Hoc si nullis magicis artibus factum est, cur credere dubitant eadem uirtute diuina per totum mundum id fieri potuisse, qua hoc factum est? Si autem ut Hierosolymis sic ad cultum nominis Christi accenderetur tanta hominum multitudo, quae illum in cruce uel fixerat prensum uel riserat fixum, iam maleficium illud fecerat Petrus, ex ipso anno quaerendum est, quando trecenti sexaginta quinque completi sint.

There this faith, with such distinguished beginnings, incandesced, so that several thousands of people, converted to the name of Christ with marvelous alacrity, their goods sold so that they might be distributed to the needy, with a holy purpose and with most ardent charity came to voluntary poverty, and, amid Jews raging and thirsting for blood, prepared themselves to contend unto death for the truth, not with armed potency, but with more powerful patience. If this was done by no magical arts, why do they hesitate to believe that by the same divine virtue it could have been brought to pass through the whole world by which this was done? But if, as at Jerusalem, such a multitude of men was thus kindled to the cult of the name of Christ—men who had either nailed him to the cross when apprehended, or had laughed him to scorn when nailed—then Peter had already done that “sorcery”; it must be inquired from that very year when 365 are completed.

Mortuus est ergo Christus duobus Geminis consulibus octauum Kalendas Aprilis. Resurrexit tertio die, sicut apostoli suis etiam sensibus probauerunt. Deinde post quadraginta dies ascendit in caelum; post decem dies, id est quinquagensimo post suam resurrectionem die, misit Spiritum sanctum.

Christ therefore died, with the two Gemini as consuls, on the eighth day before the Kalends of April. He rose on the third day, as the apostles proved by their own senses. Then after forty days he ascended into heaven; after ten days, that is, on the fiftieth day after his resurrection, he sent the Holy Spirit.

Tunc tria milia hominum apostolis eum praedicantibus crediderunt. Tunc itaque nominis illius cultus exorsus est, sicut nos credimus et ueritas habet, efficacia Spiritus sancti; sicut autem finxit uanitas impia uel putauit, magicis artibus Petri. Paulo post etiam signo mirabili facto, quando ad uerbum ipsius Petri quidam mendicus ab utero matris ita claudus, ut ab aliis portaretur et ad portam templi, ubi stipem peteret, poneretur, in nomine Iesu Christi saluus exiluit, quinque hominum milia crediderunt; ac deinde aliis atque aliis accessibus credentium creuit ecclesia.

Then three thousand men believed while the apostles were proclaiming him. Then, therefore, the cult of that name began, as we believe and as truth holds, by the efficacy of the Holy Spirit; but, as impious vanity feigned or supposed, by Peter’s magical arts. A little later, moreover, when a miraculous sign was wrought—when at the word of Peter himself a certain beggar, lame from his mother’s womb to such a degree that he was carried by others and set at the gate of the temple where he might ask alms—sprang up healed in the name of Jesus Christ, five thousand men believed; and thereafter, by other and still other accessions of believers, the church grew.

Ac per hoc colligitur etiam dies, ex quo annus ipse sumpsit initium, scilicet quando missus est Spiritus sanctus, id est per Idus Maias. Numeratis proinde consulibus trecenti sexaginta quinque anni reperiuntur impleti per easdem Idus consulatu Honorii et Eutychiani. Porro sequenti anno, consule Malio Theodoro, quando iam secundum illud oraculum daemonum aut figmentum hominum nulla esse debuit religio Christiana, quid per alias terrarum partes forsitan factum sit, non fuit necesse perquirere; interim, quod scimus, in ciuitate notissima et eminentissima Carthagine Africae Gaudentius et Iouius comites imperatoris Honorii quarto decimo Kalendas Aprilis falsorum deorum templa euerterunt et simulacra fregerunt.

And through this is gathered also the day from which the year itself took its beginning, namely when the Holy Spirit was sent, that is, on the Ides of May. The consuls therefore being counted, 365 years are found to have been completed up to those same Ides in the consulship of Honorius and Eutychianus. Furthermore, in the following year, with Mallius Theodorus as consul, when already according to that oracle of the demons or figment of men there ought to have been no Christian religion, what perhaps was done in other parts of the earth it was not necessary to inquire; meanwhile, what we know is that in the most well-known and most eminent city, Carthage of Africa, Gaudentius and Jovius, counts of the emperor Honorius, on the 14th day before the Kalends of April (March 19), overturned the temples of the false gods and shattered the simulacra.

Ex quo usque ad hoc tempus per triginta ferme annos quis non uideat quantum creuerit cultus nominis Christi, praesertim postea quam multi eorum Christiani facti sunt, qui tamquam uera illa diuinatione reuocabantur a fide eamque completo eodem numero annorum inanem ridendamque uiderunt? Nos ergo, qui sumus uocamurque Christiani, non in Petrum credimus, sed in quem credidit Petrus; Petri de Christo aedificati sermonibus, non carminibus uenenati; nec decepti maleficiis, sed beneficiis eius adiuti. Ille Petri magister Christus in doctrina, quae ad uitam ducit aeternam, ipse est magister et noster.

From then up to this time, for nearly thirty years, who does not see how greatly the cult of the name of Christ has grown—especially after many of those became Christians who had been being called back from the faith as if by that true divination, and, when the same number of years was completed, saw it empty and laughable? We therefore, who are and are called Christians, do not believe in Peter, but in the One in whom Peter believed; built up by Peter’s sermons about Christ, not envenomed by chants; nor deceived by malefic arts, but aided by his benefits. That teacher of Peter—Christ—in the doctrine which leads to eternal life, is himself our teacher as well.

Sed aliquando iam concludamus hunc librum, hoc usque disserentes et quantum satis uisum est demonstrantes, quisnam sit duarum ciuitatum, caelestis atque terrenae, ab initio usque in finem permixtarum mortalis excursus; quarum illa, quae terrena est; fecit sibi quos uoluit uel undecumque uel etiam ex hominibus falsos deos, quibus sacrificando seruiret; illa autem, quae caelestis peregrinatur in terra, falsos deos non facit, sed a uero Deo ipsa fit, cuius uerum sacrificium ipsa sit. Ambae tamen temporalibus uel bonis pariter utuntur uel malis pariter affliguntur, diuersa fide, diuersa spe, diuerso amore, donec ultimo iudicio separentur, et percipiat unaquaeque suum finem, cuius nullus est finis; de quibus ambarum finibus deinceps disserendum est.

But let us now at last conclude this book, discoursing thus far and showing, as much as seemed sufficient, what the mortal course is of the two cities, heavenly and earthly, mingled together from the beginning to the end; of which that which is earthly made for itself false gods, whom it wished, from wherever it would, or even out of men, to whom, by sacrificing, it might serve; but that which is heavenly sojourns upon earth, does not make false gods, but is itself made by the true God, whose true sacrifice it itself is. Both, nevertheless, in temporal things either alike make use of goods or alike are afflicted by evils, with different faith, different hope, different love, until by the final judgment they are separated, and each may receive its end, of which there is no end; about which ends of both it is to be treated hereafter.