Augustine: DE CIVITATE DEI

[Pr] Quoniam constat omnium rerum optandarum plenitudinem esse felicitatem, quae non est dea, sed donum Dei, et ideo nullum deum colendum esse ab hominibus, nisi qui potest eos facere felices (unde sit illa dea esset, sola colenda merito diceretur): iam consequenter uideamus, qua causa Deus, qui potest et illa bona dare, quae habere possunt etiam non boni ac per hoc etiam non felices, Romanum imperium tam magnum tamque diuturnum esse uoluerit. Quia enim hoc deorum falsorum illa quam colebant multitudo non fecit, et multa iam diximus, et ubi uisum fuerit oportunum esse dicemus.

[Pr] Since it is agreed that the plenitude of all things to be desired is felicity, which is not a goddess, but a gift of God, and therefore no god ought to be worshipped by human beings, except the one who can make them happy (whence, if that were a goddess, she alone would deservedly be said to be worshipped): now, consequently, let us see for what cause God, who can also give those goods which even the not-good, and therefore also the not-happy, can have, willed the Roman empire to be so great and so long-lasting. For this the multitude of false gods which they worshipped did not do; and many things we have already said, and we shall say where it shall seem opportune.

[I] Causa ergo magnitudinis imperii Romani nec fortuita est nec fatalis secundum eorum sententiam siue opinionem, qui ea dicunt esse fortuita, quae uel nullas causas habent uel non ex aliquo rationabili ordine uenientes, et ea fatalia, quae praeter Dei et hominum uoluntatem cuiusdam ordinis necessitate contingunt. Prorsus diuina prouidentia regna constituuntur humana. Quae si propterea quisquam fato tribuit, quia ipsam Dei uoluntatem uel potestatem fati nomine appellat, sententiam teneat, linguam corrigat.

[1] Therefore the cause of the greatness of the Roman empire is neither fortuitous nor fatal according to the judgment or opinion of those who say that things are called fortuitous which either have no causes or do not come from some rational order, and called fatal those which, beyond the will of God and of men, occur by the necessity of a certain order. Altogether by divine providence human kingdoms are constituted. If anyone on that account attributes these to fate, because he designates the very will or power of God by the name of fate, let him keep the opinion, correct the tongue.

Cur enim non hoc primum dicit, quod postea dicturus est, cum ab illo quisquam quaesierit quid dixerit fatum? Nam, id homines quando audiunt, usitata loquendi consuetudine non intellegunt nisi uim positionis siderum, qualis est quando quis nascitur siue concipitur; quod aliqui alienant a Dei uoluntate, aliqui ex illa etiam hoc pendere confirmant. Sed illi, qui sine Dei uoluntate decernere opinantur sidera quid agamus uel quid bonorum habeamus malorumue patiamur, ab auribus omnium repellendi sunt, non solum eorum qui ueram religionem tenent sed <et> qui deorum qualiumcumque, licet falsorum, uolunt esse cultores.

For why does he not say this first, which he is going to say afterwards, when someone should have asked him what he meant by “fate”? For, when men hear that, by the customary usage of speech they understand nothing except the force of the position of the stars, such as it is when someone is born or conceived; which some estrange from the will of God, others affirm that even this depends on it. But those who suppose that the stars decree, without the will of God, what we do or what goods we have or what evils we suffer, ought to be driven from the ears of all, not only of those who hold the true religion but <et> of those who wish to be worshipers of gods of whatever sort, although false.

Haec enim opinio quid agit aliud, nisi ut nullus omnino colatur aut rogetur Deus? Contra quos modo nobis disputatio non est instituta, sed contra hos qui pro defensione eorum, quos deos putant, Christianae religioni aduersantur. Illi uero, qui positionem stellarum quodam modo decernentium qualis quisque sit et quid ei proueniat boni quidue mali accidat ex Dei uoluntate suspendunt, si easdem stellas putant habere hanc potestatem traditam sibi a summa illius potestate, ut uolentes ista decernant: magnam caelo faciunt iniuriam, in cuius uelut clarissimo senatu ac splendidissima curia opinantur scelera facienda decerni, qualia si aliqua terrena ciuitas decreuisset, genere humano decernente fuerat euertenda.

For what does this opinion do other than that no God at all be worshiped or besought? Our disputation, however, is not now instituted against those men, but against these who, in defense of those whom they suppose to be gods, are adversaries to the Christian religion. Yet those who suspend from the will of God the position of the stars, which in a certain manner decree what each person is and what good may come to him or what evil may befall him—if they think these same stars have this power handed down to them by that Supreme Power, so that, willing, they decree these things—they do great injury to heaven, in whose as-it-were most illustrious senate and most splendid curia they suppose crimes-to-be-done are decreed, such that, if some earthly city had decreed them, it would have had to be overturned by the judgment of the human race.

Quale deinde iudicium de hominum factis Deo relinquitur, quibus caelestis necessitas adhibetur, cum dominus ille sit et siderum et hominum? Aut si non dicunt stellas, accepta quidem potestate a summo Deo, arbitrio suo ista decernere, sed in talibus necessitatibus ingerendis illius omnino iussa complere: itane de ipso Deo sentiendum est, quod indignissimum uisum est de stellarum uoluntate sentire? Quod si dicuntur stellae significare potius ista quam facere, ut quasi locutio quaedam sit illa positio praedicens futura, non agens (non enim mediocriter doctorum hominum fuit ista sententia): non quidem ita solent loqui mathematici, ut uerbi gratia dicant: "Mars ita positus homicidam significat", sed: "homicidam facit"; ueruntamen ut concedamus non eos ut debent loqui et a philosophis accipere oportere sermonis regulam ad ea praenuntianda, quae in siderum positione reperire se putant: quid fit, quod nihil umquam dicere potuerunt, cur in uita geminorum, in actionibus, in euentis, in professionibus, artibus, honoribus ceterisque rebus ad humanam uitam pertinentibus atque in ipsa morte sit plerumque tanta diuersitas, ut similiores eis sint, quantum ad haec adtinet, multi extranei quam ipsi inter se gemini perexiguo temporis interuallo in nascendo separati, in conceptu autem per unum concubitum uno etiam momento seminati?

Then what judgment concerning the deeds of human beings is left to God, upon whom a celestial necessity is imposed, since He is lord both of the stars and of men? Or if they do not say that the stars, having indeed received power from the Most High God, determine these things by their own arbitrium, but, in thrusting on such necessities, altogether carry out His commands: is this how we ought to think about God Himself, which seemed most unworthy to think about the will of the stars? But if the stars are said rather to signify these things than to do them, so that that configuration is, as it were, a certain discourse foretelling the future, not acting (for this opinion was by no means that of men ill-taught): the mathematicians are not, indeed, wont so to speak, so as, for example, to say, "Mars, so placed, signifies a murderer," but, "he makes a murderer"; nevertheless, granting that they do not speak as they ought, and that they ought to adopt from the philosophers the rule of speech for the things which they suppose they find pre-announced in the position of the stars: what about this—that they have never been able to say why in the life of twins, in their actions, in their events, in their professions, arts, honors, and the other things pertaining to human life, and in death itself, there is for the most part so great a diversity that, as regards these matters, many outsiders are more like to them than the twins themselves are to each other, separated at birth by a very scant interval of time, but in conception sown in one and the same moment by a single intercourse?

[II] Cicero dicit Hippocratem, nobilissimum medicum, scriptum reliquisse, quosdam fratres, cum simul aegrotare coepissent et eorum morbus eodem tempore ingrauesceret, eodem leuaretur, geminos suspicatum; quos Posidonius Stoicus, multum astrologiae deditus, eadem constitutione astrorum natos eademque conceptos solebat asserere. Ita quod medicus pertinere credebat ad simillimam temperiem ualetudinis, hoc philosophus astrologus ad uim constitutionemque siderum, quae fuerat quo tempore concepti natique sunt. In hac causa multo est acceptabilior et de proximo credibilior coniectura medicinalis, quoniam parentes ut erant corpore adfecti, dum concumberent, ita primordia conceptorum adfici potuerunt, ut consecutis ex materno corpore prioribus incrementis paris ualetudinis nascerentur; deinde in una domo eisdem alimentis nutriti, ubi aerem et loci positionem et uim aquarum plurimum ualere ad corpus uel bene uel male accipiendum medicina testatur, eisdem etiam exercitationibus adsuefacti tam similia corpora gererent, ut etiam ad aegrotandum uno tempore eisdemque causis similiter mouerentur.

[2] Cicero says that Hippocrates, a most noble physician, left it written that certain brothers, when they had begun to be ill at the same time and their disease grew more grave at the same time, were alleviated at the same time, suspecting them to be twins; whom Posidonius the Stoic, much devoted to astrology, used to assert were born under the same constitution of the stars and conceived under the same. Thus what the physician believed to pertain to a most similar temperament of health, the philosopher-astrologer referred to the force and constitution of the heavenly bodies, which it was at the time when they were conceived and born. In this matter the medical conjecture is much more acceptable and more credible from what is proximate, since the parents, as they were affected in body while they were lying together, could thus have had the first beginnings of the conceived affected, so that, once the earlier increments from the maternal body had been obtained, they would be born with an equal condition of health; then, nourished in one house on the same foods—where medicine testifies that the air and the position of the place and the force of the waters avail very much for the body’s receiving either well or ill—and accustomed also to the same exercises, they would bear bodies so similar that they would even be moved to fall ill at one time and by the same causes in a similar way.

Constitutionem uero caeli ac siderum, quae fuit quando concepti siue nati sunt, uelle trahere ad istam aegrotandi parilitatem, cum tam multa diuersissimi generis diuersissimorum effectuum et euentorum eodem tempore in unius regionis terra eidem caelo subdita potuerint concipi et nasci, nescio cuius sit insolentiae. Nos autem nouimus geminos non solum actus et peregrinationes habere diuersas, uerum etiam dispares aegritudines perpeti. De qua re facillimam, quantum mihi uidetur, rationem redderet Hippocrates, diuersis alimentis et exercitationibus, quae non de corporis temperatione, sed de animi uoluntate ueniunt, dissimiles eis accidere potuisse ualetudines.

But to want to drag the constitution of the sky and of the stars, which was when they were conceived or born, to that parity in falling ill—when so many things of the most diverse kind, with the most diverse effects and events, could at the same time in the land of a single region subjected to the same sky be conceived and be born—smacks of I-know-not-what insolence. We, however, know that twins have not only diverse acts and journeys, but even endure unequal sicknesses. On which matter Hippocrates would, so far as it seems to me, render the very easiest rationale: that by diverse foods and exercises—which come not from the body’s temperament, but from the will of the mind—dissimilar conditions of health could have befallen them.

Porro autem Posidonius uel quilibet fatalium siderum assertor mirum si potest hic inuenire quid dicat, si nolit imperitorum mentibus in eis quas nesciunt rebus inludere. Quod enim conantur efficere de interuallo exiguo temporis, quod inter se gemini dum nascerentur habuerunt, propter caeli particulam, ubi ponitur horae notatio, quem horoscopum uocant: aut non tantum ualet, quanta inuenitur in geminorum uoluntatibus actibus moribus casibusque diuersitas, aut plus etiam ualet, quam est geminorum uel humilitas generis eadem uel nobilitas, cuius maximam diuersitatem non nisi in hora, qua quisque nascitur, ponunt. Ac per hoc si tam celeriter alter post alterum nascitur, ut eadem pars horoscopi maneat, paria cuncta quaero, quae in nullis possunt geminis inueniri; si autem sequentis tarditas horoscopum mutat, parentes diuersos quaero, quos gemini habere non possunt.

Moreover, Posidonius, or any asserter of fatal stars, would be hard put to find here what to say, if he is unwilling to sport with the minds of the unskilled in matters they do not know. For what they try to effect from the scant interval of time which the twins had between themselves while they were being born, on account of the small portion of the sky where the notation of the hour is set, which they call the horoscope: either does not avail as much as the diversity found in twins’ wills, acts, manners, and chances; or even avails more than the twins’ same lowness of birth or nobility, whose greatest diversity they place in nothing but the hour in which each one is born. And therefore, if one is born after the other so quickly that the same part of the horoscope remains, I demand equalities in all things—which in no twins can be found; but if the slowness of the second changes the horoscope, I demand different parents—which twins cannot have.

[III] Frustra itaque adfertur nobile illud commentum de figuli rota, quod respondisse ferunt Nigidium hac quaestione turbatum, unde et Figulus appellatus est. Dum enim rotam figuli ui quanta potuit intorsisset, currente illa bis numero de atramento tamquam uno eius loco summa celeritate percussit; deinde inuenta sunt signa, quae fixerat, desistente motu, non paruo interuallo in rotae illius extremitate distantia. "Sic, inquit, in tanta rapacitate caeli, etiamsi alter post alterum tanta celeritate nascatur, quanta rotam bis ipse percussi, in caeli spatio plurimum est: hinc sunt, inquit, quaecumque dissimillima perhibentur in moribus casibusque geminorum." Hoc figmentum fragilius est quam uasa, quae illa rotatione finguntur.

[III] Therefore in vain is that noble contrivance about the potter’s wheel brought forward, which they report Nigidius, perturbed by this question, to have replied with, whence also he was called Figulus (“Potter”). For when he had spun the potter’s wheel with as much force as he could, while it was running he struck it twice in number with ink, as though in one and the same place of it, with the greatest speed; then, when the motion ceased, the marks which he had fixed were found at the rim of that wheel separated by no small interval. “Thus,” he says, “in such rapacity of the sky, even if one after another is born with as great speed as I myself struck the wheel twice, there is a very great difference in the expanse of heaven: from this,” he says, “come whatever things are alleged most dissimilar in the characters and fortunes of twins.” This figment is more fragile than the vessels which are fashioned by that rotation.

Nam si tam multum in caelo interest, quod constellationibus conprehendi non potest, ut alteri geminorum hereditas obueniat, alteri non obueniat: cur audent ceteris, qui gemini non sunt, cum inspexerint eorum constellationes, talia pronuntiare, quae ad illud secretum pertinent, quod nemo potest conprehendere et momentis adnotare nascentium? Si autem propterea talia dicunt in aliorum genituris, quia haec ad productiora spatia temporum pertinent; momenta uero illa partium minutarum, quae inter se gemini possunt habere nascentes, rebus minimis tribuuntur, de qualibus mathematici non solent consuli (quis enim consulat quando sedeat, quando deambulet, quando uel quid prandeat?): numquid ista dicimus, quando in moribus operibus casibusque geminorum plurima plurimumque diuersa monstramus?

For if there is so much difference in the sky—which cannot be comprehended by constellations—that to one of the twins the inheritance comes, to the other it does not come: why do they dare, for the others who are not twins, when they have inspected their constellations, to pronounce such things as pertain to that secret which no one can comprehend and note down in the moments of the nascent? But if for this reason they say such things in the nativities of others, because these pertain to more protracted spans of time; whereas those moments of minute parts, which twins being born can have between themselves, are assigned to the least matters, about which the “mathematicians” (i.e., astrologers) are not wont to be consulted (for who would consult as to when he should sit, when he should walk about, when even what he should eat for lunch?): are we speaking of these things, when in the morals, works, and fortunes of twins we show very many things, and very greatly diverse?

[IV] Nati sunt duo gemini antiqua patrum memoria (ut de insignibus loquar) sic alter post alterum, ut posterior plantam prioris teneret. Tanta in eorum uita fuerunt moribusque diuersa, tanta in actibus disparilitas, tanta in parentum amore dissimilitudo, ut etiam inimicos eos inter se faceret ipsa distantia. Numquid hoc dicitur, quia uno ambulante alius sedebat, et alio dormiente alius uigilabat, et alio loquente tacebat alius; quae pertinent ad illas minutias, quae non possunt ab eis conprehendi, qui constitutionem siderum, qua quisque nascitur, scribunt, unde mathematici consulantur?

[4] Two twins were born, in the ancient memory of the fathers (to speak of notable cases), in such a way, one after the other, that the latter was holding the heel of the former. So great in their life were differences of character, so great a disparity in deeds, so great a dissimilarity in the love of their parents, that that very distance even made them enemies to each other. Is this said because, while the one was walking, the other was sitting, and while the one was sleeping, the other was keeping vigil, and while the one was speaking, the other was silent—things which pertain to those minutiae that cannot be comprehended by those who write down the constitution of the stars under which each person is born, on the basis of which the mathematicians (astrologers) are consulted?

Vnus duxit mercennariam seruitutem, alius non seruiuit; unus a matre diligebatur, alius non diligebatur; unus honorem, qui magnus apud eos habebatur, amisit, alter indeptus est. Quid de uxoribus, quid de filiis, quid de rebus, quanta diuersitas! Si ergo haec ad illas pertinent minutias temporum, quae inter se habent gemini, et constellationibus non adscribuntur: quare aliorum constellationibus inspectis ista dicuntur?

One undertook mercenary servitude, another did not serve; one was loved by his mother, another was not loved; one lost an honor which was held great among them, the other obtained it. What of wives, what of sons, what of affairs—how great the diversity! If therefore these things pertain to those minutiae of times which twins have between themselves, and are not ascribed to constellations: why, when the constellations of others have been inspected, are these things said?

Si autem ideo dicuntur, quia non ad minuta inconprehensibilia, sed ad temporum spatia pertinent, quae obseruari notarique possunt: quid hic agit rota illa figuli, nisi ut homines luteum cor habentes in gyrum mittantur, ne mathematicorum uaniloquia conuincantur?

But if, however, they are said for this reason, because they pertain not to minute incomprehensibles, but to spans of time which can be observed and noted: what is that potter’s wheel doing here, except that men having a clay heart are sent into a spin, lest the vain loquacity of the mathematicians be refuted?

[V] Quid idem ipsi, quorum morbum, quod eodem tempore grauior leuiorque apparebat amborum, medicinaliter inspiciens Hippocrates geminos suspicatus est, nonne satis istos redarguunt, qui uolunt sideribus dare, quod de corporum simili temperatione ueniebat? Cur enim similiter eodemque tempore, non alter prior, alter posterior aegrotabant, sicut nati fuerant, quia utique simul nasci ambo non poterant? Aut si nihil momenti adtulit, ut diuersis temporibus aegrotarent, quod diuersis temporibus nati sunt: quare tempus in nascendo diuersum ad aliarum rerum diuersitates ualere contendunt?

[5] What of those same persons, whom Hippocrates, medically inspecting their disease—because at the same time it appeared more severe and milder in both—suspected to be twins; do they not sufficiently refute those who wish to ascribe to the stars what was coming from the similar temperament of their bodies? For why were they ailing similarly and at the same time, and not one earlier, the other later, as they had been born, since assuredly both could not be born at the same time? Or if the fact that they were born at different times contributed nothing of moment toward their ailing at different times, why do they contend that a differing time in being born avails for diversities in other matters?

cur potuerunt diuersis temporibus peregrinari, diuersis temporibus ducere uxores, diuersis temporibus filios procreare et multa alia, propterea quia diuersis temporibus nati sunt, et non potuerunt eadem causa diuersis etiam temporibus aegrotare? Si enim dispar nascendi mora mutauit horoscopum et disparilitatem intulit ceteris rebus: cur illud in aegritudinibus mansit, quod habebat in temporis aequalitate conceptus? Aut si fata ualetudinis in conceptu sunt, aliarum uero rerum in ortu esse dicuntur, non deberent inspectis natalium constellationibus de ualetudine aliquid dicere, quando eis inspicienda conceptionalis hora non datur.

why were they able at diverse times to peregrinate, at diverse times to lead wives (marry), at diverse times to procreate sons and many other things, on the ground that they were born at diverse times, and were they not able for the same cause also to be ill at diverse times? For if an unequal delay of being born changed the horoscope and introduced disparity into the other matters: why did that remain in illnesses which conception had in the equality of time? Or if the fates of health are in conception, while those of other things are said to be in birth, they ought not, with the natal constellations inspected, to say anything about health, since the hour of conception to be inspected is not granted to them.

Si autem ideo praenuntiant aegritudines non inspecto conceptionis horoscopo, quia indicant eas momenta nascentium: quo modo dicerent cuilibet eorum geminorum ex natiuitatis hora, quando aegrotaturus esset, cum et alter, qui non habebat eandem horam natiuitatis, necesse haberet pariter aegrotare? Deinde quaero: si tanta distantia est temporis in natiuitate germinorum, ut per hanc oporteat eis constellatines fieri diuersas propter diuersum horoscopum et ob hoc diuersos omnes cardines, ubi tanta uis ponitur, ut hinc etiam diuersa sint fata: unde hoc accidere potuit, cum eorum conceptus diuersum tempus habere non possit? Aut si duorum uno momento temporis conceptorum potuerunt esse ad nascendum fata disparia, cur non et duorum uno momento temporis natorum possint esse ad uiuendum atque moriendum fata disparia?

But if therefore they foretell illnesses without the horoscope of conception having been inspected, because the moments of those being born indicate them: how would they say to either of those twins, from the hour of nativity, when he would be about to be sick, since the other, who did not have the same hour of nativity, would of necessity have to be sick at the same time? Then I ask: if there is so great a distance of time in the birth of twins that on account of this it is necessary that different constellations be made for them because of a different horoscope and, on that account, all the cardinal points different—where so great a force is posited that from this also the fates are different—whence could this have happened, since their conception cannot have a different time? Or if for two conceived in one single moment of time there could be disparate fates with respect to being born, why could there not also, for two born in one single moment of time, be disparate fates with respect to living and dying?

Nam si unum momentum, quo ambo concepti sunt, non impediuit, ut alter prior, alter posterior nasceretur: cur uno momento si duo nascantur, impedit aliquid, ut alter prior, alter posterior moriatur? Si conceptio momenti unius diuersos casus in utero geminos habere permittit, cur natiuitas momenti unius non etiam quoslibet duos in terra diuersos casus habere permittat, ac sic omnis huius artis uel potius uanitatis commenta tollantur? Quid est hoc, cur uno tempore, momento uno, sub una eademque caeli positione concepti diuersa habent fata, quae illos perducant ad diuersarum horarum natiuitatem, et uno momento temporis sub una eademque caeli positione de duabus matribus duo pariter nati diuersa fata habere non possint, quae illos perducant ad diuersam uiuendi uel moriendi necessitatem?

For if the one moment in which both were conceived did not impede that the one be born prior and the other posterior, why, if two are born in one moment, does anything impede that the one die prior and the other posterior? If a conception of one moment permits twins in the womb to have diverse fortunes, why does a birth of one moment not also permit any two upon earth to have diverse fortunes, and thus the contrivances of this whole art, or rather vanity, be removed? What is this, that at one time, in one moment, under one and the same position of the sky, those conceived have diverse fates which lead them to a nativity of different hours, and that in one moment of time under one and the same position of the sky two born together from two mothers cannot have diverse fates which would lead them to a different necessity of living or of dying?

An concepti nondum habent fata, quae nisi nascantur habere non poterunt? Quid est ergo quod dicunt, si hora conceptionalis inueniatur, multa ab istis dici posse diuinius? Vnde etiam illud a nonnullis praedicatur, quod quidam sapiens horam elegit, qua cum uxore concumberet, unde filium mirabilem gigneret.

Or is it that those conceived do not yet have fates, which they will not be able to have unless they are born? What, then, is this which they say: that, if the conceptional hour is found, many things can be said by these men more divinely? Whence also that is proclaimed by some, that a certain wise man chose the hour in which he would lie with his wife, so as to engender a marvelous son.

Vnde postremo et hoc est, quod de illis pariter aegrotantibus geminis Posidonius magnus astrologus idemque philosophus respondebat, ideo fieri, quod eodem tempore fuissent nati eodemque concepti. Nam utique propter hoc addebat conceptionem, ne diceretur ei non ad liquidum eodem tempore potuisse nasci, quos constabat omnino eodem tempore fuisse conceptos; ut hoc, quod similiter simulque aegrotabant, non daret de proximo pari corporis temperamento, sed eandem quoque ualetudinis parilitatem sidereis nexibus alligaret. Si igitur in conceptu tanta uis est ad aequalitatem fatorum, non debuerunt nascendo eadem fata mutari.

Whence, finally, this too is the case: about twins who were ailing alike, Posidonius, a great astrologer and likewise philosopher, used to answer that it happened for this reason, because they had been born at the same time and conceived at the same time. For indeed for this reason he added the conception, lest it be said to him that those who were agreed to have been altogether conceived at the same time could not have been born precisely at the same time; so that he might not assign the fact that they were sick in like manner and together to the proximate cause of an equal temperament of body, but might also bind that same parity of health to sidereal bonds. If therefore in conception there is so great a force toward an equality of fates, the same fates ought not to have been changed by being born.

Aut si propterea mutantur fata geminorum quia temporibus diuersis nascuntur, cur non potius intellegamus iam fuisse mutata, ut diuersis temporibus nascerentur? Itane non mutat fata natiuitatis uoluntas uiuentium, cum mutet fata conceptionis ordo nascentium?

Or if for this reason the fates of twins are changed, because they are born at different times, why do we not rather understand that they had already been changed, so that they would be born at different times? Is it so that the will of the living does not change the fates of nativity, while the order of those being born changes the fates of conception?

[VI] Quamquam et in ipsis geminorum conceptibus, ubi certe amborum eadem momenta sunt temporum, unde fit ut sub eadem constellatione fatali alter concipiatur masculus, altera femina? Nouimus geminos diuersi sexus, ambo adhuc uiuunt, ambo aetate adhuc uigent; quorum cum sint inter se similes corporum species, quantum in diuerso sexu potest, instituto tamen et proposito uitae ita sunt dispares, ut praeter actus, quos necesse est a uirilibus distare femineos (quod ille in officio comitis militat et a sua domo paene semper peregrinatur, illa de solo patrio et de rure proprio non recedit), insuper (quod est incredibilius, si astralia fata credantur; non autem mirum, si uoluntates hominum et Dei munera cogitentur) ille coniugatus, illa uirgo sacra est; ille numerosam prolem genuit, illa nec nupsit. At enim plurimum uis horoscopi ualet.

[6] Although even in the very conceptions of twins, where surely the moments of time are the same for both, how does it come to pass that under the same fatal constellation the one is conceived male, the other female? We know twins of different sex; both are still alive, both still vigorous in age; whose forms of body are similar to each other, as far as is possible in a different sex, yet in the institute and purpose of life they are so unlike, that, besides the acts which of necessity are feminine and differ from the masculine (namely, that he serves as a soldier on the staff of a count and almost always travels far from his own home, she does not depart from her paternal soil and her own countryside), moreover (which is more incredible, if astral fates be believed; yet not a marvel, if the wills of men and the gifts of God be considered) he is married, she is a sacred virgin; he has begotten a numerous progeny, she has not married. But indeed the force of the horoscope avails very much.

Hoc quam nihil sit, iam satis disserui. Sed qualecumque sit, in ortu ualere dicunt; numquid et in conceptu? ubi et unum concubitum esse manifestum est, et tanta naturae uis est, ut, cum conceperit femina, deinde alterum concipere omnino non possit; unde necesse est eadem esse in geminis momenta conceptus.

How this amounts to nothing, I have already sufficiently argued. But whatever it may be, they say it avails at birth; does it also at conception? where both it is manifest that there is one act of intercourse, and so great is the force of nature, that, when a woman has conceived, thereafter she is altogether unable to conceive another; whence it is necessary that in twins the moments of conception are the same.

An forte quia diuerso horoscopo nati sunt, aut ille in masculum, dum nascerentur, aut illa in feminam commutata est? Cum igitur non usquequaque absurde dici posset ad solas corporum differentias adflatus quosdam ualere sidereos, sicut in solaribus accessibus et decessibus uidemus etiam ipsius anni tempora uariari et lunaribus incrementis atque detrimentis augeri et minui quaedam genera rerum, sicut echinos et conchas et mirabiles aestus oceani; non autem et animi uoluntates positionibus siderum subdi: nunc isti, cum etiam nostros actus inde religare conantur, admonent ut quaeramus, unde ne in ipsis quidem corporibus eis possit ratio ista constare. Quid enim tam ad corpus pertinens quam corporis sexus?

Or perhaps because they were born under a different horoscope, either he was changed into a male, while they were being born, or she into a female? Since, then, it could not be altogether absurd to say that certain sidereal breaths avail for the differences of bodies alone, just as in the solar advances and recessions we see even the very seasons of the year vary, and by lunar increases and diminutions certain kinds of things are augmented and diminished, such as sea urchins and shells and the marvelous tides of the ocean; but that the wills of the mind are not subjected to the positions of the stars: now these men, since they even try to bind our actions to that, admonish us to inquire whence it is that not even in the very bodies can that rationale hold for them. For what pertains to the body so much as the sex of the body?

et tamen sub eadem positione siderum diuersi sexus gemini concipi potuerunt. Vnde quid insipientius dici aut credi potest, quam siderum positionem, quae ad horam conceptionis eadem ambobus fuit, facere non potuisse, ut, cum quo habebat eandem constellationem, sexum diuersum a fratre non haberet; et positionem siderum, quae fuit ad horam nascentium, facere potuisse, ut ab eo tam multum uirginali sanctitate distaret?

and yet under the same position of the stars twins of different sex could be conceived. Whence what could be said or believed more insipient than that the position of the stars, which at the hour of conception was the same for both, could not have prevented the one who had the same constellation as the other from having a sex different from his brother; and that the position of the stars which was at the hour of their being born could have been able to bring it about that one should be so far distant from the other in virginal sanctity?

[VII] Iam illud quis ferat, quod in eligendis diebus noua quaedam suis actibus fata moliuntur? Non erat uidelicet ille ita natus, ut haberet admirabilem filium, sed ita potius, ut contemptibilem gigneret, et ideo uir doctus elegit horam qua misceretur uxori. Fecit ergo fatum, quod non habebat, et ex ipsius facto coepit esse fatale, quod in eius natiuitate non fuerat.

[VII] Now who could bear this, that in choosing days they contrive certain new fates for their acts? He was, plainly, not so born as to have an admirable son, but rather so as to beget a contemptible one, and therefore a learned man chose the hour at which he would be commingled with his wife. He therefore made a fate which he did not have, and from his own deed that began to be “fated” which had not been in his nativity.

O stultitiam singularem! Eligitur dies ut ducatur uxor; credo propterea, quia potest in diem non bonum, nisi eligatur, incurri et infeliciter duci. Vbi est ergo quod nascenti iam sidera decreuerunt?

O singular stupidity! A day is chosen for a wife to be taken in marriage; I suppose for this reason—that one might otherwise, unless it be selected, run into a not good day and be led unhappily. Where, then, is what the stars have already decreed for the newborn?

An potest homo, quod ei iam constitutum est, diei electione mutare, et quod ipse in eligendo die constituerit, non poterit ab alia potestate mutari? Deinde si soli homines, non autem omnia quae sub caelo sunt, constellationibus subiacent, cur aliter eligunt dies accommodatos ponendis uitibus uel arboribus uel segetibus, alios dies pecoribus uel domandis uel admittendis maribus, quibus equarum uel boum fetentur armenta, et cetera huius modi? Si autem propterea ualent ad has res dies electi, quia terrenis omnibus corporibus siue animantibus secundum diuersitates temporalium momentorum siderum positio dominatur: considerent quam innumerabilia sub uno temporis puncto uel nascantur uel oriantur uel inchoentur, et tam diuersos exitus habeat, ut istas obseruationes cuiuis puero ridendas esse persuadeant.

Can a man, by the selection of a day, change what has already been constituted for him; and will that which he himself has constituted by choosing a day not be able to be changed by another power? Then if only human beings, and not all things that are under the sky, are subject to constellations, why do they choose different days suited for planting vines or trees or crops, other days for livestock either for taming or for admitting males, by which the herds of mares or cattle may be impregnated, and other things of this sort? But if for this reason the chosen days avail for these matters, because the position of the stars dominates all terrestrial bodies or animate beings according to the diversities of temporal moments, let them consider how innumerable things under one point of time either are born or arise or are begun, and how they have such diverse outcomes, that they would persuade anyone, even a boy, that these observations are laughable.

Quis enim est tam excors, ut audeat dicere omnes arbores, omnes herbas, omnes bestias serpentes aues pisces uermiculos momenta nascendi singillatim habere diuersa? Solent tamen homines ad temptandam peritiam mathematicorum adferre ad eos constellationes mutorum animalium, quorum ortus propter hanc explorationem domi suae diligenter obseruant, eosque mathematicos praeferunt ceteris, qui constellationibus inspectis dicunt non esse hominem natum, sed pecus. Audent etiam dicere quale pecus, utrum aptum lanitio, an uectationi, an aratro, an custodiae domus.

For who is so witless as to dare to say that all trees, all herbs, all beasts—serpents, birds, fishes, little worms—have moments of being born each singly different? Yet men are wont, in order to tempt the expertise of the mathematicians, to bring to them the constellations of mute animals, whose births, for this exploration, they diligently observe at their own house; and they prefer those mathematicians to the others who, the constellations inspected, say that it is not a man that has been born, but a beast. They even dare to say what kind of beast—whether fit for wool-bearing, or for conveyance, or for the plough, or for the guarding of the house.

Nam et ad canina fata temptantur et cum magnis admirantium clamoribus ista respondent. Sic desipiunt homines, ut existiment, cum homo nascitur, ceteros rerum ortus ita inhiberi, ut cum illo sub eadem caeli plaga nec musca nascatur. Nam si hanc admiserint, procedit ratiocinatio, quae gradatim accessibus modicis eos a muscis ad camelos elephantosque perducat.

For they are even put to the test about canine fates, and amid great shouts of the admiring they give answers to these. Thus men play the fool, as to suppose that, when a man is born, the other births of things are so inhibited that under the same quarter of the sky with him not even a fly is born. For if they grant this, the ratiocination proceeds, which by gradual, modest increments would lead them from flies to camels and elephants.

Nec illud uolunt aduertere, quod electo ad seminandum agrum die tam multa grana in terram simul ueniunt, simul germinant, exorta segete simul herbescunt pubescunt flauescunt, et tamen inde spicas ceteris coaeuas atque, ut ita dixerim, congerminales alias robigo interimit, alias aues depopulantur, alias homines auellunt. Quo modo istis alias constellationes fuisse dicturi sunt, quas tam diuersos exitus habere conspiciunt? An eos paenitebit his rebus dies eligere easque ad caeleste negabunt pertinere decretum, et solos sideribus subdent homines, quibus solis in terra Deus dedit liberas uoluntates?

Nor do they wish to observe this: that, when a day has been chosen for sowing a field, so many grains come into the earth at the same time, sprout at the same time, with the crop arisen they at the same time grow leafy, come to maturity, turn golden; and yet of ears coeval and, so to speak, co-germinal, some blight destroys, some birds depopulate, some men pluck away. How will they say that different constellations belonged to these, for which they behold such diverse outcomes? Or will they be sorry to choose days for these matters and deny that they pertain to the celestial decree, and subject to the stars humans alone, to whom alone on earth God has given free wills?

His omnibus consideratis non inmerito creditur, cum astrologi mirabiliter multa uera respondent, occulto instinctu fieri spirituum non bonorum, quorum cura est has falsas et noxias opiniones de astralibus fatis inserere humanis mentibus atque firmare, non horoscopi notati et inspecti aliqua arte, quae nulla est.

With all these things considered, it is not without merit believed that, when astrologers marvelously answer many true things, it is done by the hidden instigation of not-good spirits, whose concern is to insert into and to strengthen in human minds these false and noxious opinions about astral fates, and not by horoscopes marked and inspected by some art—which is none.

[VIII] Qui uero non astrorum constitutionem, sicuti est cum quidque concipitur uel nascitur uel inchoatur, sed omnium conexionem seriemque causarum, qua fit omne quod fit, fati nomine appellant: non multum cum eis de uerbi controuersia laborandum atque certandum est, quando quidem ipsum causarum ordinem et quandam conexionem Dei summi tribuunt uoluntati et potestati, qui optime et ueracissime creditur et cuncta scire antequam fiant et nihil inordinatum relinquere; a quo sunt omnes potestates, quamuis ab illo non sint omnium uoluntates. Ipsam itaque praecipue Dei summi uoluntatem, cuius potestas insuperabiliter per cuncta porrigitur, eos appellare fatum sic probatur. Annaei Senecae sunt, nisi fallor, hi uersus:

[8] But those who call by the name of fate not the constitution of the stars, as it is when anything is conceived or is born or is inchoated, but the connection and series of all causes, by which everything that happens is done: there is not much need to labor and contend with them about a verbal controversy, since indeed they attribute that very order of causes and a certain connection to the will and power of the highest God, who is most rightly and most truly believed both to know all things before they come to be and to leave nothing unordered; from whom are all powers, although from him are not the wills of all. Therefore it is thus proved that they especially call fate the very will of the highest God, whose power is extended insuperably through all things. These verses are, unless I am mistaken, by Annaeus Seneca:

Duc, summe pater altique dominator poli,
Quocumque placuit, nulla parendi mora est.
Adsum impiger: fac nolle, comitabor gemens
Malusque patiar, facere quod licuit bono.

Lead, highest Father and ruler of the high sky,
whithersoever it has pleased, there is no delay in obeying.
I am here, energetic; make me unwilling, I will accompany, groaning,
and, a bad man, I shall suffer to do what was permitted to the good.

Ducunt uolentem fata, nolentem trahunt. Nempe euidentissime hoc ultimo uersu ea fata appellauit, quam supra dixerat summi patris uoluntatem; cui paratum se oboedire dicit, ut uolens ducatur, ne nolens trahatur; quoniam scilicet

The fates lead the willing, they drag the unwilling. Indeed, most evidently by this last verse he called “those fates” what above he had said was the will of the highest Father; to which he says he is prepared to obey, that he may be led willing, lest, unwilling, he be dragged; since, of course

Ducunt uolentem fata, nolentem trahunt. Illi quoque uersus Homerici huic sententiae suffragantur, quos Cicero in Latinum uertit:

The fates lead the willing, they drag the unwilling. Those Homeric verses likewise lend their suffrage to this sentiment, which Cicero translated into Latin:

Tales sunt hominum mentes, quali pater ipse

Such are the minds of men, as the father himself

Iuppiter auctiferas lustrauit lumine terras. Nec in hac quaestione auctoritatem haberet poetica senttia; sed quoniam Stoicos dicit uim fati asserentes istos ex Homero uersus solere usurpare, non de illius poetae, sed de istorum philosophorum opinione tractatur, cum per istos uersus, quos disputationi adhibent quam de fato habent, quid sentiant esse fatum apertissime declaratur, quoniam Iouem appellant, quem summum deum putant, a quo conexionem dicunt pendere fatorum.

Jupiter has illumined with light the increase-bearing lands. Nor would a poetic sentiment have authority in this question; but since he says that the Stoics, asserting the force of fate, are accustomed to employ these verses from Homer, the discussion is conducted not about that poet’s view, but about the opinion of those philosophers, since through those verses, which they apply to the disputation they have concerning fate, what they think fate to be is most plainly declared—inasmuch as they name Jupiter, whom they consider the highest god, on whom they say the connection (concatenation) of the fates depends.

[IX] Hos Cicero ita redarguere nititur, ut non existimet aliquid se aduersus eos ualere, nisi auferat diuinationem. Quam sic conatur auferre, ut neget esse scientiam futurorum, eamque omnibus uiribus nullam esse omnino contendat, uel in homine uel in deo, nullamque rerum praedictionem. Ita et Dei praescientiam negat et omnem prophetiam luce clariorem conatur euertere uanis argumentationibus et opponendo sibi quaedam oracula, quae facile possunt refelli; quae tamen nec ipsa conuincit.

[9] Cicero strives to refute these men in such a way that he does not think he can prevail against them unless he removes divination. He tries to remove it thus: by denying that there is a science of future things, and with all his forces contends that it is absolutely none at all, either in man or in God, and that there is no prediction of things. Thus he denies even the prescience of God and tries to overturn all prophecy, clearer than light, by vain argumentations and by setting in opposition to himself certain oracles, which can easily be refuted; which, however, he does not even confute.

In his autem mathematicorum coniecturis refutandis eius regnat oratio, quia uere tales sunt, ut se ipsae destruant et refellant. Multo sunt autem tolerabiliores, qui uel siderea fata constituunt, quam iste qui tollit praescientiam futurorum. Nam et confiteri esse Deum et negare praescium futurorum apertissima insania est.

But in refuting these conjectures of the mathematici (astrologers) his discourse reigns, because truly they are such as to destroy and refute themselves. Much more tolerable, moreover, are those who even establish sidereal fates than that man who abolishes the prescience of future things. For both to confess that God exists and to deny Him prescient of future things is most manifest insanity.

Quod et ipse cum uideret, etiam illud temptauit quod scriptum est: Dixit insipiens in corde suo: Non est Deus; sed non ex sua persona. Vidit enim quam esset inuidiosum et molestum, ideoque Cottam fecit disputantem de hac re aduersus Stoicos in libris de deorum natura et pro Lucilio Balbo, cui Stoicorum partes defendendas dedit, maluit ferre sententiam quam pro Cotta, qui nullam diuinam naturam esse contendit. In libris uero de diuinatione ex se ipso apertissime oppugnat praescientiam futurorum.

And when he himself saw this, he even attempted that which is written: “The fool said in his heart: There is no God”; but not in his own person. For he saw how invidious and troublesome it was, and therefore he made Cotta dispute on this matter against the Stoics in the books On the Nature of the Gods; and he preferred to deliver the judgment in favor of Lucilius Balbus, to whom he had given the Stoic side to be defended, rather than for Cotta, who contends that there is no divine nature at all. But in the books On Divination he, from himself, most openly assails the prescience of things to come.

Hoc autem totum facere uidetur, ne fatum esse consentiat et perdat liberam uoluntatem. Putat enim concessa scientia futurorum ita esse consequens fatum, ut negari omnino non possit. Sed quoquo modo se habeant tortuosissimae concertationes et disputationes philosophorum, nos ut confitemur summum et uerum Deum, ita uoluntatem summamque potestatem ac praescientiam eius confitemur; nec timemus ne ideo non uoluntate faciamus, quod uoluntate facimus, quia id nos facturos ille praesciuit, cuius praescientia falli non potest; quod Cicero timuit, ut oppugnaret praescientiam, et Stoici, ut non omnia necessitate fieri dicerent, quamuis omnia fato fieri contenderent.

He seems to do all this lest he consent that there is fate and lose free will. For he thinks that, once the science of future things is conceded, fate is so consequent that it cannot at all be denied. But however the most tortuous contestations and disputations of philosophers may stand, just as we confess the highest and true God, so we confess His will and supreme power and prescience; nor do we fear lest therefore we should not act by will in what we act by will, because He foreknew that we would do it, whose prescience cannot be deceived—something which Cicero feared, so as to attack prescience, and the Stoics, so that they might say not all things are done by necessity, although they contended that all things are done by fate.

Quid est ergo, quod Cicero timuit in praescientia futurorum, ut eam labefactare disputatione detestabili niteretur? Videlicet quia, si praescita sunt omnia futura, hoc ordine uenient, quo uentura esse praescita sunt; et si hoc ordine uenient, certus est ordo rerum praescienti Deo; et si certus est ordo rerum, certus est ordo causarum; non enim fieri aliquid potest, quod non aliqua efficiens causa praecesserit; si autem certus est ordo causarum, quo fit omne quod fit, fato, inquit, fiunt omnia quae fiunt. Quod si ita est, nihil est in nostra potestate nullumque est arbitrium uoluntatis; quod si concedimus, inquit, omnis humana uita subuertitur, frustra leges dantur, frustra obiurgationes laudes, uituperationes exhortationes adhibentur, neque ulla iustitia bonis praemia et malis supplicia constituta sunt.

What, then, was it that Cicero feared in the prescience of future things, that he strove to undermine it by a detestable disputation? Evidently this: that, if all future things are foreknown, they will come in that order in which they have been foreknown to be going to come; and if they will come in this order, the order of things is certain to the God who foreknows; and if the order of things is certain, the order of causes is certain—for nothing can come to be which some efficient cause has not preceded; but if the order of causes is certain, by which everything that comes to be is made, “by fate,” he says, “all things that are done are done.” But if this is so, nothing is in our power and there is no choice of will; but if we concede this, he says, the whole human life is subverted, laws are given in vain, in vain are rebukes, praises, censures, exhortations applied, nor is any justice established by which rewards are appointed for the good and punishments for the wicked.

Haec ergo ne consequantur indigna et absurda et perniciosa rebus humanis, non uult esse praescientiam futurorum; atque in has angustias coartat animum religiosum, ut unum eligat e duobus, aut esse aliquid in nostra uoluntate, aut esse praescientiam futurorum, quoniam utrumque arbitratur esse non posse, sed si alterum confirmabitur, alterum tolli; si elegerimus praescientiam futurorum, tolli uoluntatis arbitrium; si elegerimus uoluntatis arbitrium, tolli praescientiam futurorum. Ipse itaque ut uir magnus et doctus et uitae humanae plurimum ac peritissime consulens ex his duobus elegit liberum uoluntatis arbitrium; quod ut confirmaretur, negauit praescientiam futurorum atque ita, dum uult facere liberos, fecit sacrilegos. Religiosus autem animus utrumque eligit, utrumque confitetur et fide pietatis utrumque confirmat.

Therefore, lest these things—unworthy, absurd, and pernicious to human affairs—follow, he does not wish there to be prescience of future things; and he squeezes the religious mind into these straits, that it should choose one of two: either that there be something in our will, or that there be prescience of future things, since he judges that both cannot be, but that, if the one is confirmed, the other is removed; if we choose the prescience of future things, the arbitrium of the will is taken away; if we choose the arbitrium of the will, the prescience of future things is taken away. He himself, therefore, as a great and learned man and one consulting very much and most expertly for human life, chose from these two the free arbitrium of the will; and, in order that this might be confirmed, he denied the prescience of future things—and thus, while he wills to make men free, he made them sacrilegious. But the religious mind chooses both, confesses both, and by the faith of piety confirms both.

Quo modo? inquit; nam si est praescientia futurorum, sequentur illa omnia, quae conexa sunt, donec eo perueniatur, ut nihil sit in nostra uoluntate. Porro si est aliquid in nostra uoluntate, eisdem recursis gradibus eo peruenitur, ut non sit praescientia futurorum.

“How so?” he says; “for if there is prescience of future things, all those things which are connected will follow, until one comes to the point that nothing is in our will. But further, if there is something in our will, by the same steps run back one comes to the point that there is no prescience of future things.”

Nam per illa omnia sic recurritur: si est uoluntatis arbitrium, non omnia fato fiunt; si non omnia fato fiunt, non est omnium certus ordo causarum; si certus causarum ordo non est, nec rerum certus est ordo praescienti Deo, quae fieri non possunt, nisi praecedentibus et efficientibus causis; si rerum ordo praescienti Deo certus non est, non omnia sic ueniunt, ut ea uentura praesciuit; porro si non omnia sic ueniunt, ut ab illo uentura praescita sunt, non est, inquit, in Deo praescientia omnium futurorum.

For through all those steps the return is made thus: if there is free choice of the will, not all things happen by fate; if not all things happen by fate, there is not a certain order of causes of all things; if a certain order of causes is not, neither is there to the God who foreknows a certain order of things—things which cannot come to be except by preceding and efficient causes; if the order of things is not certain to the God who foreknows, not all things come so as he foreknew they would come; furthermore, if not all things come thus as by him they were foreknown as going to come, there is, he says, not in God a prescience of all future things.

Nos aduersus istos sacrilegos ausus atque impios et Deum dicimus omnia scire antequam fiant, et uoluntate nos facere, quidquid a nobis non nisi uolentibus fieri sentimus et nouimus. Omnia uero fato fieri non dicimus, immo nulla fieri fato dicimus; quoniam fati nomen ubi solet a loquentibus poni, id est in constitutione siderum cum quisque conceptus aut natus est, quoniam res ipsa inaniter asseritur, nihil ualere monstramus. Ordinem autem causarum, ubi uoluntas Dei plurimum potest, neque negamus, neque fati uocabulo nuncupamus, nisi forte ut fatum a fando dictum intellegamus, id est a loquendo; non enim abnuere possumus esse scriptum in litteris sanctis: Semel locutus est Deus, duo haec audiui, quoniam potestas Dei est, et tibi, Domine, misericordia, qui reddis unicuique secundum opera eius.

We, against those sacrilegious ventures and impious men, both say that God knows all things before they come to be, and that by will we do whatever we feel and know is done by us only when we are willing. Yet we do not say that all things are done by fate; rather, we say that nothing is done by fate; since the name of fate, where it is wont to be set by speakers—namely, in the constitution of the stars when each person is conceived or born—since the thing itself is asserted vainly, we demonstrate to avail nothing. But the order of causes, wherein the will of God has the most power, we neither deny nor denominate by the vocabulary of fate, unless perhaps we understand fate to be said from fando, that is, from speaking; for we cannot refuse that it is written in the holy letters: Once God has spoken, these two things I have heard: that power is God’s, and to you, O Lord, is mercy, you who render to each according to his works.

Quod enim dictum est: Semel locutus est, intellegitur "inmobiliter", haoc est incommutabiliter, "est locus", sicut nouit incommutabiliter omnia quae futura sunt et quae ipse facturus est. Hac itaque ratione possemus a fando fatum appellare, nisi hoc nomen iam in alia re soleret intellegi, quo corda hominum nolumus inclinari. Non est autem consequens, ut, si Deo certus est omnium ordo causarum, ideo nihil sit in nostrae uoluntatis arbitrio.

For what has been said, “He has spoken once,” is understood “immovably,” that is, incommutably, “there is a place,” just as he knows incommutably all things that are to be and that he himself is going to do. Therefore by this reasoning we could call fate from “speaking” (fando), unless this name is now wont to be understood in another matter, toward which we do not wish the hearts of men to be inclined. Nor does it follow, however, that if the order of all causes is certain to God, therefore nothing is in the free choice of our will.

Et ipsae quippe nostrae uoluntates in causarum ordine sunt, qui certus est Deo eiusque praescientia continetur, quoniam et humanae uoluntates humanorum operum causae sunt; atque ita, qui omnes rerum causas praesciuit, profecto in eis causis etiam nostras uoluntates ignorare non potuit, quas nostrorum operum causas esse praesciuit.

And indeed our own wills themselves are in the order of causes, which is certain to God and is contained by his prescience, since human wills too are causes of human works; and thus, he who foreknew all the causes of things assuredly could not be ignorant, among those causes, even of our wills, which he foreknew to be causes of our works.

Nam et illud, quod idem Cicero concedit, nihil fieri si causa efficiens non praecedat, satis est ad eum in hac quaestione redarguendum. Quid enim eum adiuuat, quod dicit nihil quidem fieri sine causa, sed non omnem causam esse fatalem, quia est causa fortuita, est naturalis, est uoluntaria? Sufficit, quia omne, quod fit, non nisi causa praecedente fieri confitetur.

For even that point, which the same Cicero concedes—that nothing happens if an efficient cause does not precede—is sufficient for refuting him in this question. For how does it help him that he says indeed nothing happens without a cause, but not every cause is fatal, because there is a fortuitous cause, there is a natural one, there is a voluntary one? It suffices, because he confesses that everything which happens comes to be only with a preceding cause.

Nos enim eas causas, quae dicuntur fortuitae, unde etiam fortuna nomen accepit, non esse dicimus nullas, sed latentes, easque tribuimus uel Dei ueri uel quorumlibet spirituum uoluntati, ipsasque naturales nequaquam ab illius uoluntate seiungimus, qui est auctor omnis conditorque naturae. Iam uero causae uoluntariae aut Dei sunt aut angelorum aut hominum aut quorumque animalium, si tamen uoluntates appellandae sunt animarum rationis expertium motus illi, quibus aliqua faciunt secundum naturam suam, cum quid uel adpetunt uel euitant. Angelorum autem uoluntates dico seu bonorum, quos angelos Dei dicimus, seu malorum, quos angelos diaboli uel etiam daemones appellamus: sic et hominum, et bonorum scilicet et malorum.

For we, indeed, say that those causes which are called fortuitous—whence Fortune also took her name—are not nonexistent, but hidden, and we attribute them to the will either of the true God or of whatever spirits; and the natural causes themselves we by no means sever from the will of Him who is the author and founder of all nature. Moreover, voluntary causes are either of God, or of angels, or of men, or of whatever animals—if, however, those motions of souls devoid of reason are to be called “wills,” by which they do certain things according to their nature, when they either appetite or avoid something. As for the wills of angels, I mean both of the good, whom we call angels of God, and of the evil, whom we call angels of the devil or also demons; so too of men, namely both of the good and of the evil.

Ac per hoc colligitur non esse causas efficientes omnium quae fiunt nisi uoluntarias, ilius naturae scilicet, quae spiritus uitae est. Nam et aer iste seu uentus dicitur spiritus; sed quoniam corpus est, non est spiritus uitae. Spiritus ergo uitae, qui uiuificat omnia creatorque est omnis corporis et omnis creati spiritus, ipse est Deus, spiritus utique non creatus.

And through this it is inferred that there are no efficient causes of all things that come to be except voluntary ones, of that nature, namely, which is the spirit of life. For even this air or wind is called “spirit”; but since it is a body, it is not the spirit of life. Therefore the spirit of life, who vivifies all things and is the creator of every body and of every created spirit, he himself is God, assuredly an uncreated spirit.

In eius uoluntate summa potestas est, quae creatorum spirituum bonas uoluntates adiuuat, malas iudicat, omnes ordinat et quibusdam tribuit potestate, quibus dam non tribuit. Sicut enim omnium naturarum creator est, ita omnium potestatum dator, non uoluntatum. Malae quippe uoluntates ab illo non sunt, quoniam contra naturam sunt, quae ab illo est.

In his will is the supreme power, which aids the good wills of created spirits, judges the evil, ordains all, and to some grants power, to some does not grant. For as he is the creator of all natures, so he is the giver of all powers, not of wills. For evil wills are not from him, since they are contrary to the nature which is from him.

Corpora igitur magis subiacent uoluntatibus, quaedam nostris, id est omnium animantium mortalium et magis hominum quam bestiarum; quaedam uero angelorum; sed omnia maxime Dei uoluntati subdita sunt, cui etiam uoluntates omnes subiciuntur, quia non habent potestatem nisi quam ille concedit. Causa itaque rerum, quae facit nec fit, Deus est; aliae uero causae et faciunt et fiunt, sicut sunt omnes creati spiritus, maxime rationales. Corporales autem causae, quae magis fiunt quam faciunt, non sunt inter causas efficientes adnumerandae, quoniam hoc possunt ,quod ex ipsis faciunt sprituum uoluntates.

Bodies therefore are more subject to wills: some to ours, that is, of all mortal animate beings, and more of humans than of beasts; some indeed to the angels; but all are most of all subjected to the will of God, to whom even all wills are subjected, because they have no power except that which he grants. Therefore the cause of things, which causes and is not made, is God; but other causes both make and are made, such as all created spirits, especially the rational. But corporeal causes, which are more made than making, are not to be reckoned among efficient causes, since they can only what the wills of spirits produce out of them.

Quo modo igitur ordo causarum, qui praescienti certus est Deo, id efficit, ut nihil sit in nostra uoluntate, cum in ipso causarum ordine magnum habeant locum nostrae uolutnates? Contendat ergo Cicero cum eis, qui hunc causarum ordinem dicunt esse fatalem uel potius ipsum fati nomine appellant, quod nos abhorremus praecipue propter uocabulum, quod non in re uera consueruit intellegi. Quod uero negat ordinem omnium causarum esse certissimum et Dei praescientiae notissimum, plus eum quam Stoici detestamur.

How, then, does the order of causes, which is certain to the prescient God, bring it about that there is nothing in our will, when in that very order of causes our wills have a great place? Let Cicero, therefore, contend with those who say that this order of causes is fatal, or rather call it by the name of fate, which we abhor especially on account of the term, which is not accustomed to be understood in its true sense. But the one who denies that the order of all causes is most certain and most well known to the prescience of God, him we detest more than the Stoics.

Aut enim esse Deum negat, quod quidem inducta alterius persona in libris de deorum natura facere molitus est; aut si esse confitetur Deum, quem negat praescium futurorum, etiam sic nihil dicit aliud, quam quod ille dixit insipiens in corde suo: Non est Deus. Qui enim non est raescius omnium futurorum, non est utique Deus. Quapropter et uoluntates nostrae tantum ualent, quantum Deus eas ualere uoluit atque praesciuit; et ideo quidquid ualent, certissime ualent, et quod facturae sunt, ipsae omnino facturae sunt, quia ualituras atque facturas ille praesciuit, cuius praescientia falli non potest.

Either he denies that God exists—which indeed, with the person of another introduced, he attempted to do in the books On the Nature of the Gods—or, if he confesses that God exists, while denying Him to be prescient of future things, even so he says nothing other than what that fool said in his heart: There is no God. For he who is not prescient of all future things is not, to be sure, God. Wherefore our wills avail only so much as God willed and foreknew them to avail; and therefore whatever they avail, they most certainly avail; and what they are going to do, they themselves altogether are going to do, because He foreknew them as about to avail and about to do, whose foreknowledge cannot be deceived.

Quapropter si mihi fati nomen alicui rei adhibendum placeret, magis dicerem fatum esse infirmioris potentioris uoluntatem, qui eum habet in potestate, quam illo causarum ordine, quem non usitato, sed suo more Stoici fatum appellant, arbitrium nostrae uoluntatis auferri.

Wherefore, if it should please me to apply the name of fate to any thing, I would rather say that the fate of the weaker is the will of the stronger, who has him in his power, than that by that order of causes, which the Stoics, not in the customary but in their own fashion, call “fate,” the arbitrium of our will be taken away.

[X] Vnde nec illa necessitas formidanda est, quam formidando Stoici laborauerunt causas rerum ita distinguere, ut quasdam subtraherent necessitati, quasdam subderent, atque in his, quas esse sub necessitate noluerunt, posuerunt etiam nostras uoluntates, ne uidelicet non essent liberae, si subderentur necessitati. Si enim necessitas nostra illa dicenda est, quae non est in nostra potestate, sed etiamsi nolimus efficit quod potest, sicut est necessitas mortis: manifestum est uoluntates nostras, quibus recte uel perperam uiuitur, sub tali necessitate non esse. Multa enim facimus, quae si nollemus, non utique faceremus.

[X] Whence neither is that necessity to be dreaded, which, by dreading, the Stoics labored to distinguish the causes of things in such a way that they would subtract some from necessity and subject some to it; and among those which they did not wish to be under necessity, they placed even our wills, lest, namely, they should not be free if they were subjected to necessity. For if our necessity is to be called that which is not in our power, but even if we are unwilling effects what it can, as is the necessity of death, it is manifest that our wills, by which one lives rightly or wrongly, are not under such a necessity. For we do many things which, if we were unwilling, we certainly would not do.

Quo primitus pertinet ipsum uelle; nam si uolumus, est, si nolumus, non est; non enim uellemus, si nollemus. Si autem illa definitur esse necessitas, secundum quam dicimus necesse esse ut ita sit aliquid uel ita fiat, nescio cur eam timeamus, ne nobis libertatem auferat uoluntatis. Neque enim et uitam Dei et praescientiam Dei sub necessitate ponimus, si dicamus necesse esse Deum semper uiuere et cuncta praescire; sicut nec potestas eius minuitur, cum dicitur mori fallique non posse.

To which in the first place pertains the willing itself; for if we will, it is; if we do not will, it is not; for we would not will, if we were unwilling. But if that is defined to be necessity, according to which we say it is necessary that something be thus or thus come to be, I do not know why we should fear it, lest it take from us the freedom of the will. For neither do we place both the life of God and the prescience of God under necessity, if we say it is necessary that God live always and foreknow all things; just as neither is His power diminished, when He is said to be unable to die and to be deceived.

Sic enim hoc non potest, ut potius, si posset, minoris esset utique potestatis. Recte quippe omnipotens dicitur, qui tamen mori et falli non potest. Dicitur enim omnipotens faciendo quod uult, non patiendo quod non uult; quod ei si accideret, nequaquam esset omnipotens.

For indeed he cannot do this, since rather, if he could, he would assuredly be of lesser power. Rightly, to be sure, he is called omnipotent, who nevertheless cannot die or be deceived. For he is called omnipotent by doing what he wills, not by suffering what he does not will; if that were to befall him, he would by no means be omnipotent.

Vnde propterea quaedam non potest, quia omnipotens est. Sic etiam cum dicimus necesse esse, ut, cum uolumus, libero uelimus arbitrio: et uerum procul dubio dicimus, et non ideo ipsum liberum arbitrium necessitati subicimus, quae adimit libertatem. Sunt igitur nostrae uoluntates et ipsae faciunt, quidquid uolendo facimus, quod non fieret, si nollemus.

Whence, for that reason, there are certain things he cannot do, because he is omnipotent. Thus also, when we say it is necessary that, when we will, we should will by free arbitrium (free will): both beyond doubt we speak true, and not for that reason do we subject free arbitrium itself to necessity, which takes away liberty. Therefore our wills exist, and they themselves do whatever we do by willing, which would not be done if we were unwilling.

Quidquid autem aliorum hominum uoluntate nolens quisque patitur, etiam sic uoluntas ualet, etsi non illius, tamen hominis uoluntas; sed potestas Dei. (Nam si uoluntas tantum esset nec posset quod uellet, potentiore uoluntate impediretur; nec sic tamen uoluntas nisi uoluntas esset, nec alterius, sed eius esset qui uellet, etsi non posset implere quod uellet.) Vnde quidquid praeter suam uoluntatem patitur homo, non debet tribuere humanis uel angelicis uel cuiusquam creati spiritus uoluntatibus, sed eius potius, qui dat potestatem uolentibus.

Whatever, however, anyone suffers unwillingly by the will of other men, even so will has efficacy—if not his own, yet a human will; but the power is God’s. (For if it were will only and could not do what it would, it would be impeded by a more powerful will; nor even thus would it be will unless it were will, nor would it belong to another, but it would be his who willed, even if he could not fulfill what he willed.) Whence whatever a man suffers contrary to his own will, he ought not to attribute to human or angelic wills, or to the wills of any created spirit, but rather to His who gives power to those willing.

Non ergo propterea nihil est in nostra uoluntate, quia Deus praesciuit quid futurum esset in nostra uoluntate. Non enim, qui hoc praesciuit, nihil praesciuit. Porro si ille, qui praesciuit quid futurum esset in nostra uoluntate, non utique nihil, sed aliquid praesciuit: profecto et illo praesciente est aliquid in nostra uoluntate.

Therefore, not on that account is there nothing in our will, because God foreknew what would be in our will. For he who foreknew this did not foreknow nothing. Moreover, if he who foreknew what would be in our will foreknew not nothing but something, assuredly, even with him foreknowing, there is something in our will.

Quocirca nullo modo cogimur aut retenta praescientia Dei tollere uoluntatis arbitrium aut retento uoluntatis arbitrio Deum (quod nefas est) negare praescium futurorum; sed utrumque amplectimur, utrumque fideliter et ueraciter confitemur; illud, ut bene credamus; hoc, ut bene uiuamus. Male autem uiuitur, si de Deo non bene creditur. Vnde absit a nobis eius negare praescientiam, ut libere uelimus, quo adiuuante sumus liberi uel erimus.

Wherefore in no way are we compelled either, with the prescience of God retained, to abolish the free choice of the will, or, with the free choice of the will retained, to deny God (which is impious) as prescient of things to come; but we embrace both, we confess both faithfully and truthfully; the former, that we may believe well; the latter, that we may live well. But one lives badly if one does not believe well about God. Wherefore let it be far from us to deny His prescience, that we may will freely, by whose assistance we are or shall be free.

Proinde non frustra sunt leges obiurgationes exhortationes laudes et uituperationes, quia et ipsas futuras esse praesciuit, et ualent plurimum, quantum eas ualituras esse praesciuit, et preces ualent ad ea impetranda, quae se precantibus concessurum esse praesciuit, et iuste praemia bonis factis et peccatis supplicia constituta sunt. Neque enim ideo <non> peccat homo, quia Deus illum peccaturum esse praesciuit; immo ideo non dubitatur ipsum peccare, cum peccat, quia ille, cuius praescientia falli non potest, non fatum, non fortunam, non aliquid aliud, sed ipsum peccaturum esse praesciuit. Qui si nolit, utique non peccat; sed si peccare noluerit, etiam hoc ille praesciuit.

Therefore laws, objurgations, exhortations, praises and vituperations are not in vain, because he also foreknew that these too would exist, and they avail very much, as much as he foreknew they would avail; and prayers avail for obtaining those things which he foreknew that he would grant to those who pray; and rewards for good deeds and punishments for sins have been justly established. For it is not for this reason that a man does not sin, because God foreknew that he would sin; rather, for this very reason it is not doubted that he sins, when he sins, because he whose foreknowledge cannot be deceived foreknew—not fate, not fortune, not something else, but that he himself would sin. Who, if he is unwilling, assuredly does not sin; but if he is unwilling to sin, this too he foreknew.

[XI] Deus itaque summus et uerum cum Verbo suo et Spiritu sancto, quae tria unum sunt, Deus unus omnipotens, creator et factor omnis animae atque omnis corporis, cuius sunt participatione felices, quicumque sunt ueritate, non uanitate felices, qui fecit hominem rationale animal ex anima et corpore, qui eum peccantem nec inpunitum esse permisit nec sine misericordia dereliquit; qui bonis et malis essentiam etiam cum lapidibus, uitam seminalem etiam cum arboribus, uitam sensualem etiam cum pecoribus, uitam intellectualem cum solis angelis dedit; a quo est omnis modus omnis species omnis ordo; a quo est mensura numerus pondus; a quo est quidquid naturaliter est, cuiuscumque generis est, cuiuslibet aestimationis est; a quo sunt semina formarum formae seminum motus seminum atque formarum; qui dedit et carni originem pulchritudinem ualetudinem, propagationis fecunditatem membroroum dispositionem salutem concordiae; qui et animae inrationali dedit memoriam sensum adpetitum, rationali autem insuper mentem intellegentiam uoluntatem; qui non solum caelum et terram, enc solum angelum et hominem, sed nec exigui et contemptibilis animantis uiscera nec auis pinnullam, nec herbae flosculum nec arboris folium sine suarum partium conuenientia et quadam ueluti pace dereliquit: nullo modo est credendus regna hominum eorumque dominationes et seruitutes a suae prouidentiae legibus alienas esse uoluisse.

[11] God therefore most high and true, with his Word and the Holy Spirit, which three are one, one omnipotent God, creator and maker of every soul and every body, by participation in whom are happy all who are happy by truth, not by vanity; who made man a rational animal out of soul and body; who, when he sinned, permitted him neither to be unpunished nor left him without mercy; who to good and bad alike gave essence, even as to stones; seminal life, even as to trees; sensual life, even as to cattle; intellectual life to angels alone; from whom is every mode, every species, every order; from whom are measure, number, weight; from whom is whatever naturally is, of whatever kind it is, of whatever valuation it is; from whom are the seeds of forms, the forms of seeds, the motions of seeds and of forms; who gave also to the flesh origin, beauty, health, the fecundity of propagation, the disposition of members, the health of concord; who gave to the irrational soul memory, sense, appetite, but to the rational, moreover, mind, intelligence, will; who not only did not leave heaven and earth, nor only angel and man, but not even the entrails of a small and contemptible living creature, nor a bird’s little feather, nor a little flower of a herb nor a tree’s leaf without the congruence of their parts and a certain as-it-were peace: in no way is he to be believed to have willed that the kingdoms of men and their dominations and servitudes be alien from the laws of his providence.

[XII] Proinde uideamus, quos Romanorum mores et quam ob causam Deus uerus ad augendum imperium adiuuare dignatus est, in cuius potestate sunt etiam regna terrena. Quod ut absolutius disserere possemus, ad hoc pertinentem et superiorem librum conscripsimus, quod in hac re potestas nulla sit eorum deorum, quos etiam rebus nugatoriis colendos putarunt, et praesentis uoluminis partes superiores, quas huc usque perduximus, de fati quaestione tollenda, ne quisquam, cui iam persuasum esset non illorum deorum cultu Romanum imperium propagatum atque seruatum, nescio cui fato potius id tribueret quam Dei summi potentissimae uoluntati. Veteres igitur primique Romani, quantum eorum docet et commendat historia, quamuis ut aliae gentes excepta una populi Hebraeorum deos falsos colerent et non Deo uictimas, sed daemoniis immolarent, tamen "laudis auidi, pecuiniae liberales erant, gloriam ingentem, diuitias honestas uolebant"; hanc ardentissime dilexerunt, propter hanc uiuere uoluerunt, pro hac emori non dubitauerunt; ceteras cupiditates huius unius ingenti cupiditate presserunt.

[12] Accordingly, let us see which Roman mores and for what cause the true God deigned to aid for the augmenting of the imperium, in whose power are even earthly kingdoms. And that we might be able to discourse of this more completely, we composed both the preceding book pertaining to this—namely, that in this matter there is no power of those gods whom they thought worthy to be worshiped even in nugatory affairs—and the earlier parts of the present volume, which we have carried thus far, for removing the question of fate, lest anyone, to whom it had already been persuaded that the Roman imperium was propagated and preserved not by the cult of those gods, should rather attribute it to some I-know-not-what fate than to the most potent will of the supreme God. Therefore the ancients and earliest Romans, so far as their history teaches and commends them, although, like other nations except the one people of the Hebrews, they worshiped false gods and immolated victims not to God but to demons, yet “were avid of praise, liberal with money; they wanted immense glory, honorable riches”; this they loved most ardently, for this they wished to live, for this they did not hesitate to die; the other desires they pressed down by the immense desire for this one.

Ipsam denique patriam suam, quoniam seruire uidebatur inglorius, dominari uero atque imperare gloriosum, prius omni studio liberam, deinde dominam esse concupiuerunt. Hinc est quod regalem dominationem non ferentes "annua imperia binosque imperatores sibi fecerunt, qui consules appellati sunt a consulendo, non reges aut domini a regnando atque dominando"; cum et reges utique a regendo dicti melius uideantur, ut regnum a regibus, reges autem, ut dictum est, a regendo; sed fastus regius non disciplina putata est regentis uel beniuolentia consulentis, sed superbia dominantis. Expulso itaque rege Tarquinio et consulibus institutis secutum est, quod idem auctor in Romanorum laudibus posuit, quod "ciuitas incredibile memoratu est adepta libertate quantum breui creuerit; tanta cupido gloriae incesserat." Ista ergo laudis auiditas et cupido gloriae multa illa miranda fecit, laudabilia scilicet atque gloriosa secundum hominum existimationem.

Their very fatherland itself, since to serve seemed inglorious, while to lord it and to command seemed glorious, they longed with all zeal that it should first be free, and then be mistress. Hence it is that, not bearing royal domination, “they made for themselves annual commands and a pair of commanders, who were called consuls from consulting, not kings or lords from ruling and dominating”; although indeed kings would seem better said to be from ruling, as a kingdom from kings, and kings, as said, from ruling; but royal haughtiness was not thought to be the discipline of one guiding or the benevolence of one consulting, but the pride of one dominating. Therefore, with King Tarquin expelled and consuls established, there followed what the same author set down in praise of the Romans, that “the state, it is incredible to relate, upon obtaining liberty, grew so much in a short time; so great a lust for glory had set in.” This, then, greed for praise and desire of glory produced those many marvelous deeds—praiseworthy and glorious, to be sure, according to the estimation of men.

Laudat idem Sallustius temporibus suis magnos et praeclaros uiros, Marcum Catonem et Gaium Caesarem, dicens quod diu illa res publica non habuit quemquam uirtute magnum, sed sua memoria fuisse illos duos ingenti uirtute, diuersis moribus. In laudibus autem Caesaris posuit, quod sibi magnum imperium, exercitum, bellum mouum exoptabat, ubi uirtus enitescere posset. Ita fiebat in uotis uirorum uirtute magnorum, ut excitaret in bellum miseras gentes et flagello agitaret Bellona sanguineo, ut esset ubi uirtus eorum enitesceret.

The same Sallust likewise praises, in his own times, great and preeminent men, Marcus Cato and Gaius Caesar, saying that for a long time that commonwealth did not have anyone great in virtue, but that in his own memory those two existed with vast virtue, though of diverse morals. And in the praises of Caesar he set down that he longed for a great command (imperium), an army, a new war, where virtue might shine forth. Thus it came about in the vows of men great in virtue that wretched peoples were stirred to war and Bellona drove them with her sanguineous scourge, so that there might be a place where their virtue could shine forth.

Hoc illa profecto laudis auiditas et gloriae cupido faciebat. Amore itaque primitus libertatis, post etiam dominationis et cupiditate laudis et gloriae multa magna fecerunt. Reddit eis utriusque rei testimonium etiam poeta insignis illorum; inde quippe ait:

This indeed was being wrought by that avidity for praise and cupidity for glory. Therefore, by love at first of liberty, afterwards also of domination, and by the cupidity of praise and glory, they accomplished many great things. A distinguished poet of theirs too renders to them testimony of both matters; for from there, indeed, he says:

Nec non Tarquinium eiectum Porsenna iubebat
Accipere ingentique urbem obsidione premebat;

And likewise Porsenna was ordering them to accept the expelled Tarquin,
and he was pressing the city with a huge siege;

Aeneadae in ferrum pro libertate ruebant. Tunc itaque magnum illis fuit aut fortiter <e> mori aut liberos uiuere. Sed cum esset adepta libertas, tanta cupido gloriae incesserat, ut parum esset sola libertas, nisi et dominatio quereretur, dum pro magno habetur, quod uelut loquente Ioue idem poeta dicit:

The Aeneads were rushing into the steel for liberty. Then, therefore, it was something great for them either to die bravely or to live free. But when liberty had been obtained, so great a desire of glory had set in that mere liberty was too little, unless dominion also were sought, while that is held as something great, which, as the same poet says, as if with Jove speaking:

Quin aspera Iuno,
Quae mare nunc terrasque metu caelumque fatigat,
Consilia in melius referet mecumque fouebit
Romanos rerum dominos gentemque togatam.
Sic placitum. Veniet lustris labentibus aetas,
Cum domus Assaraci Phthiam clarasque Mycenas

Nay, harsh Juno,
who now wearies the sea and lands and sky with fear,
will amend her counsels and, with me, will favor
the Romans, lords of the world, and the toga-clad race.
Thus it has been decreed. An age will come, as the lustrums glide by,
when the house of Assaracus shall reach Phthia and bright Mycenae

Seruitio premet ac uictis dominabitur Argis. Quae quidem Vergilius Iouem inducens tamquam futura praedicentem ipse iam facta recolebat cernebatque praesentia; uerum propterea commemorare illa uolui, ut ostenderem dominationem post libertatem sic habuisseRomanos, ut in eorum magnis laudibus poneretur. Hinc est et illud eiusdem poetae, quod, cum artibus aliarum gentium eas ipsas proprias Romanorum artes regnandi atque imperandi et subiugandi ac debellandi populos anteponeret, ait:

He will press with servitude and will dominate conquered Argos. Which things indeed Vergil, introducing Jove as though foretelling the future, he himself was recalling as already done and was discerning as present; but for that reason I wished to commemorate those things, to show that domination after liberty the Romans thus had, that it was placed among their great praises. Hence also is that saying of the same poet, who, when he preferred to the arts of other nations those very arts proper to the Romans, of reigning and commanding and subjugating and debellating peoples, said:

Excudent alii apirantia mollius aera,
Cedo equidem, uiuos ducent de marmore uultus,
Orabunt causas melius caelique meats
Describent radio et surgentia sidera dicent:
Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento
(Hae tibi erunt artes) pacique inponere mores,
Parcere subiectis et debellare superbos.

Others will hammer out breathing bronzes more delicately,
I yield indeed; they will draw living faces from marble,
they will plead causes better, and the courses of the sky
they will trace with the rod and will tell the rising stars:
you, Roman, remember to rule peoples with imperium
(These will be your arts), and to impose mores upon peace,
to spare the subjected and to war down the proud.

Has artes illi tanto peritius exercebant, quanto minus se uoluptatibus dabant et eneruationi animi et corporis in concupiscendis et augendis diuitiis et per illas moribus corrumpendis, rapiendo miseris ciuibus, largiendo scaenicis turpibus. Vnde qui tales iam morum labe superabant atque abundabant, quando scribebat ista Sallustius canebatque Vergilius, non illis artibus ad honores et gloriam, sed dolis atque fallaciis ambiebant. Vnde idem dicit: "Sed primo magis ambitio quam auaritia animos hominum exercebat, quod tamen uitium propius uirtutem erat.

Those arts they exercised the more expertly, the less they gave themselves to pleasures and to the enervation of mind and body in concupiscing and augmenting riches and, through them, in corrupting morals—by plundering wretched citizens, by lavishing largesse upon base stage-players. Whence those who already were surpassing and abounding in such a stain of morals, when Sallust was writing these things and Vergil was singing, were canvassing not by those arts for honors and glory, but by tricks and fallacies. Whence the same man says: "But at first ambition rather than avarice exercised the minds of men, which vice, however, was nearer to virtue."

Nam gloriam honorem imperium bonus et ignauus aeque sibi exoptant; sed ille, inquit, uera uia nititur, huic quia bonae artes desunt, dolis atque fallaciis contendit." Hae sunt illae bonae artes, per uirtutem scilicet, non per fallacem ambitionem ad honorem et gloriam et imperium peruenire; quae tamen bonus et ignauus aeque sibi exoptant; sed ille, id est bonus, uera uia nititur. Via uirtus est, qua nititur tamquam ad possessionis finem, id est ad gloriam honorem imperium. Hoc insitum habuisse Romanos etiam deorum apud illos aedes indicant, quas coniunctissimas consituerunt, Virtutis et Honoris, pro diis habentes quae dantur a Deo.

For glory, honor, imperium the good man and the sluggard alike desire for themselves; but he, he says, strives by the true way, while this one, because good arts are lacking, struggles by tricks and deceits." These are those good arts, namely, to arrive by virtue, not by fallacious ambition, at honor and glory and imperium; which, however, the good man and the sluggard alike desire for themselves; but he—that is, the good man—strives by the true way. The way is virtue, by which he strives as toward the end of possession, that is, toward glory, honor, imperium. That the Romans had this implanted, even the temples of the gods among them indicate, which they set up most closely conjoined, of Virtue and of Honor, holding as gods the things which are given by God.

Vnde intellegi potest quem finem uolebant esse uirtutis et quo eam referebant qui boni erant, ad honorem scilicet; nam mali nec habebant eam, quamuis honorem habere cuperent, quem malis artibus conabantur adipisci, id est dolis atque fallaciis.

Whence it can be understood what end they wished virtue to have and to what they referred it, those who were good—namely, to honor; for the wicked did not have it, although they desired to have honor, which they tried to acquire by evil arts, that is, by wiles and fallacies.

Melius laudatus est Cato. De illo quippe ait: "Quo minus petebat gloriam, eo illum magis sequebatur." Quando quidem gloria est, cuius illi cupiditate flagrabant, iudicium hominum bene de hominibus opinantium; et ideo melior est uirtus, quae humano testimonio contenta non est nisi conscientiae suae. Vnde dicit apostolus: Nam gloria nostra haec est: testimonium conscientiae nostrae; et alio loco: Opus autem suum probet unusquisque, et tunc in semet ipso tantum gloriam habebit et non in altero.

Cato was better praised. Of him indeed he says: "The less he sought glory, the more it followed him." Since indeed glory—of which they were aflame with cupidity—is the judgment of men opining well about men; and therefore virtue is better, which is not content with human testimony except with that of its own conscience. Whence the apostle says: For this is our glory: the testimony of our conscience; and in another place: But let each one prove his own work, and then he will have glory in himself alone and not in another.

Gloriam ergo et honorem et imperium, quae sibi exoptabant et quo bonis artibus peruenire nitebantur boni, non debet sequi uirtus, sed ipsa uirtutem. Neque enim est uera uirtus, nisi quae ad eum finem tendit, ubi est bonum hominis, quo melius non est. Vnde et honores, quos petiuit Cato, petere non debuit, sed eos ciuitas ob eius uirtutem non petenti dare.

Therefore glory and honor and command, which they wished for themselves and which the good were striving to attain by good arts, ought not virtue to follow, but they themselves ought to follow virtue. For it is not true virtue, unless it tends toward that end where the good of man is, than which there is nothing better. Whence also the honors that Cato petitioned he ought not to have petitioned, but the state, on account of his virtue, ought to give them to him when he was not petitioning.

Sed cum illa memoria duo Romani essent uirtute magni, Caesar et Cato, longe uirtus Catonis ueritati uidetur propinquior fuisse quam Caesaris. Proinde qualis esset illo tempore ciuitas et antea qualis fuisset, uideamus in ipsa sententia Catonis: "Nolite, inquit, existimare maiores nostros armis rem publicam ex parua magnam fecisse. Si ita esset, multo pulcherrimam eam nos haberemus.

But since at that time there were two Romans great in virtue, Caesar and Cato, the virtue of Cato seems to have been far nearer to truth than Caesar’s. Accordingly, what the commonwealth was at that time and what it had been before, let us see in Cato’s own sentence: "Do not, he says, suppose that our ancestors made the republic from small to great by arms. If it were so, we would by far have it most beautiful."

Quippe sociorum atque ciuium, praeterea armorum et equorum maior copia nobis quam illis est. Sed alia fuere quae illos magnos fecerunt, quae nobis nulla sunt: domi industria, foris iustum imperium, animus in consuelendo liber, neque delicto neque libidini obnoxius. Pro his nos habemus luxuriam atque auaritiam, publice egestatem, priuatim opulentiam; laudamus diuitias, sequimur inertiam; inter bonos et malos discrimen nullum; omnia uirtutis praemia ambitio possidet.

Indeed of allies and citizens, and besides of arms and of horses, we have a greater abundance than they. But there were other things which made them great, which for us are none: at home industry, abroad a just imperium, a mind free in counsel, subject neither to crime nor to lust. In place of these we have luxury and avarice, public penury, private opulence; we laud riches, we follow inertia; there is no discrimination between good and bad; ambition possesses all the prizes of virtue.

Neque mirum: ubi uos separatim sibi quisque consilium capitis, ubi domi uoluptatibus, hic pecuniae aut gratiae seruitis, eo fit ut impetus fiat in uacuam rem publicam."

Nor is it a marvel: when you each take counsel separately for yourselves, when at home you serve pleasures, here you serve money or favor, it thus comes about that an attack is made upon a vacant republic."

Qui audit haec Catonis uerba siue Sallustii, putat, quales laudantur Romani ueteres, omnes eos tales tunc fuisse uel plures. Non ita est; alioquin uera non essent, quae ipse item scribit, ea quae commemoraui in secundo libro huius operis, ubi dicit, iniurias ualidiorum et ob eas discessionem plebis a patribus aliasque dissensiones domi fuisse iam inde a principio, neque amplius aequo et modesto iure, actum quam expulsis regibus, quamdiu metus a Tarquinio fuit, donec bellum graue, quod propter ipsum cum Etruria susceptum fuerat, finiretur; postea uero seruili imperio patres exercuisse plebem, regio more uerberasse, agro pepulisse et ceteris expertibus solos egisse in imperio; quarum discordiarum, dum illi dominari uellent, illi seruire nollent, finem fuisse bello Punico secundo, quia rursus grauis metus coepit urguere atque ab illis perturbationibus alia maiore cura cohibere animos inquietos et ad concordiam reuocare ciuilem. Sed per quosdam paucos, qui pro suo modo boni erant, magna administrabantur atque illis toleratis ac temperatis malis paucorum bonorum prouidentia res illa crescebat; sicut idem historicus dicit multa sibi legenti et audienti, quae populus Romanus domi militiaeque, mari atque terra praeclara facinora fecerit, libuisse adtendere quae res maxime tanta negotia sustinuisset; quoniam sciebat saepenumero parua manu cum magnis legionibus hostium contendisse Romanos, cognouerat paruis copiis bella gesta cum opulentis regibus; sibique multa agitanti constare dixit, paucorum ciuium egregiam uirtutem cuncta patrauisse, eoque factum ut diuitias paupertas, multitudinem paucitas superaret.

Whoever hears these words of Cato or of Sallust thinks that, such as the ancient Romans are praised, all of them were such then, or even more so. Not so; otherwise those things which he himself likewise writes would not be true—those which I have recalled in the second book of this work—where he says that the injuries of the stronger, and on account of these the secession of the plebs from the fathers and other dissensions at home, existed already from the beginning; nor was there any longer dealing by equal and moderate law than after the expulsion of the kings, as long as there was fear from Tarquin, until the grave war, which on account of him had been undertaken with Etruria, was brought to an end. Afterward, indeed, the fathers exercised over the plebs a servile dominion, flogged them in royal fashion, drove them from the land, and, with the rest excluded, managed the imperium alone; of which discords—while those wished to dominate and these were unwilling to serve—the end was the Second Punic War, because again a grave fear began to press and, by another greater care, to restrain minds from those perturbations and to recall the civil spirit to concord. But through certain few who were good according to their measure, great things were administered, and, those evils being tolerated and tempered, by the providence of a few good men that commonwealth grew; just as the same historian says that, reading and hearing many things—what splendid exploits the Roman people accomplished at home and in military service, by sea and by land—it pleased him to attend to what factors had especially sustained such great enterprises; since he knew that very often the Romans with a small band contended against the great legions of enemies, he had learned that with small forces wars were waged against opulent kings; and, turning many things over with himself, he said it stood firm that the outstanding virtue of a few citizens achieved everything, and thus it came about that poverty overcame riches, and fewness the multitude.

"Sed postquam luxu atque desidia, inquit, ciuitas corrupta est, rursus res publica magnitudine sui imperatorum atque magistratuum uitia sustentabat." Paucorum igitur uirtus ad gloriam honorem imperium uera uia, id est ipsa uirtute, nitentium etiam a Catone laudata est. Hinc erat domi industria, quam commemorauit Cato, ut aerarium esset opulentum, tenues res priuatae. Vnde corruptis moribus uitium e contrario posuit, publice egestatem, priuatim opulentiam.

"But after by luxury and sloth," he says, "the state was corrupted, again the republic, by the magnitude of itself, was sustaining the vices of the generals and the magistrates." Therefore the virtue of a few, striving toward glory, honor, and imperium by the true way—that is, by virtue itself—was even praised by Cato. Hence there was at home the industry which Cato commemorated, so that the treasury was opulent, and private resources slender. Whence, with morals corrupted, he set the contrary vice: publicly, destitution; privately, opulence.

[XIII] Quam ob rem cum diu fuissent regna Orientis inlustria, uoluit Deus et Occidentale fieri, quod tempore esset posterius, sed imperii latitudine et magnitudine inlustrius, idque talibus potissimum concessit hominibus ad domanda grauia mala multarum gentium, qui causa honoris laudis et gloriae consuleuerunt patriae, in qua ipsam gloriam requirebant, salutemque eius saluti suae praeponere non dubitauerunt, pro isto uno uitio, id est amore laudis, pecuniae cupiditatem et multa alia uitia conprimentes. Nam sanius uidet, qui et amorem laudis uitium esse cognoscit, quod necpoetam fugit Horatium, qui ait:

[13] Wherefore, since for a long time the kingdoms of the Orient had been illustrious, God willed that the Occidental also should become so, which in time was later, but in the latitude and magnitude of its empire more illustrious; and He granted it especially to such men for the subduing of the grave evils of many nations, who for the sake of honor, praise, and glory were wont to take counsel for their fatherland, in which they were seeking that very glory, and did not hesitate to prefer its safety to their own, compressing, for this one vice—that is, the love of praise—the cupidity of money and many other vices. For he sees more sanely who also recognizes that the love of praise is a vice, which did not escape the poet Horace, who says:

Laudis amore tumes: sunt certa piacula, quae te

You swell with love of praise: there are certain expiations, which you

Ter pure lecto potuerunt recreare libello. Idemque in carmine lyrico ad reprimendam dominandi libidinem ita cecinit:

Read cleanly thrice, the little book could refresh them. And the same man, in a lyric song, to repress the lust for dominating, sang thus:

Latius regnes auidum domando
Spiritum. quam si Libyam remotis
Gradibus iungas et uterque Poenus

You would reign more broadly by taming the avid
Spirit. than if you were to join Libya with remote
steps and both Punic peoples

Seruiat uni. Verum tamen qui libidines turpiores fide pietatis impetrato Spiritu sancto et amore intellegibilis pulchritudinis non refrenant, melius saltem cupiditate humanae laudis et gloriae non quidem iam sancti, sed minus turpes sunt. Etiam Tullius hinc dissimulare non potuit in eisdem libris quod de re publica scripsit, ubi loquitur de instituendo principe ciuitatis, quem dicit alendum esse gloria, et consequenter commemorat maiores suos multa mira atque praeclara gloriae cupiditate fecisse.

Let it serve one. Nevertheless, those who do not rein in more foul lusts by the faith of piety, with the Holy Spirit obtained and by the love of intelligible beauty, are better at least by the cupidity of human praise and glory—indeed not yet holy, but less turpid. Tullius also could not dissimulate this in those same books which he wrote on the Republic, where he speaks about instituting a chief of the city, whom he says must be nourished by glory, and consequently he commemorates that his ancestors did many wondrous and preeminent things from cupidity for glory.

Huic igitur uitio non solum non resistebant, uerum etiam id excitandum et accendendum esse censebant, putantes hoc utile esse rei publicae. Quamquam nec in ipsis philosophiae libris Tullius ab hac peste dissimulet, ubi eam luce clarius confitetur. Cum enim de studiis talibus loqueretur, quae utique sectanda sunt fine ueri boni, non uentositate laudis humanae, hanc intulit uniuersalem generalemque sententiam: "Honos alit artes, omnesque accenduntur ad studia gloria iacentque ea semper, quae apud quosque improbantur."

Therefore to this vice they not only did not resist, but even deemed that it should be stirred up and set ablaze, thinking this to be useful to the commonwealth. Yet not even in his philosophical books themselves does Tullius dissimulate this plague, where he confesses it more clearly than light. For when he was speaking about pursuits of such a sort, which assuredly are to be followed for the end of the true good, not for the windiness of human praise, he introduced this universal and general maxim: "Honor nourishes the arts, and all are kindled to studies by glory, and those things always lie low which are disapproved among any people."

[XIV] Huic igitur cupiditati melius resistitur sine dubitatione quam ceditur. Tanto enim quisque est Deo similior, quanto et ab hac inmunditia mundior. Quae in hac uita etsi non funditus eradicatur ex corde, quia etiam bene proficientes animos temptare non cessat: saltem cupiditas gloriae superetur dilectione iustitiae, ut, si alicubi iacent quae apud quosque improbantur, si bona, si recta sunt, etiam ipse amor humanae laudis erubescat et cedat amori ueritatis.

[14] To this cupidity, therefore, it is better without doubt to resist than to yield. For each person is the more similar to God, the cleaner he is also from this immundity. Which, in this life, even if it is not eradicated from the heart root and branch, since it does not cease to tempt even souls making good progress: at least let the cupidity of glory be overcome by the love of justice, so that, if anywhere there lie things which among some are disapproved, if they are good, if they are right, even the love itself of human praise may blush and give way to the love of truth.

Tam enim est hoc uitium inimicum piae fidei, si maior in corde sit cupiditas gloriae quam Dei timor uel amor, ut Dominus diceret: Quo modo potestis credere gloriam ab inuicem expectantes et gloriam quae a solo Deo est non quaerentes? Item de quibusdam, qui in eum crediderant et uerebantur palam confiteri, ait euangelista: Dilexerunt gloriam hominum magis quam Dei. Quod sancti apostoli non fecerunt; qui cum in his locis praedicarent Christi nomen, ubi non solum improbabatur (sicut ille ait: Iacentque ea semper, quae apud quosque improbantur), uerum etiam summae detestationis habebatur, tenentes quod audierant a bono magistro eodemque medico mentium: Si quis me negauerit coram hominibus, negabo eum coram patre meo, qui in caelis est, uel coram angelis Dei, inter maledicta et opprobria, inter grauissimas persecutiones crudelesque poenas non sunt deterriti a praedicatione salutis humanae tanto fremitu offensionis humanae.

For this vice is so inimical to pious faith—if in the heart the desire for glory is greater than the fear or love of God—that the Lord said: How can you believe, expecting glory from one another and not seeking the glory that is from God alone? Likewise, concerning certain persons who had believed in him and were afraid to confess openly, the Evangelist says: They loved the glory of men more than that of God. This the holy apostles did not do; who, when they were preaching the name of Christ in those places where it was not only disapproved (as he said: And they always lie low, which among certain people are disapproved), but even held in the highest detestation, holding fast what they had heard from the good teacher and likewise the physician of minds: If anyone denies me before men, I will deny him before my Father who is in the heavens, or before the angels of God, amid curses and reproaches, amid most grievous persecutions and cruel punishments, were not deterred from the preaching of human salvation by so great a roar of human offense.

Et quod eos diuina facientes atque dicentes diuineque uiuentes debellatis quodam modo cordibus duris atque introducta pace iustitiae ingens in ecclesia Christi gloria consecuta est: non in ea tamquam in suae uirtutis fine quieuerunt, sed eam quoque ipsam ad Dei gloriam referentes, cuius gratia tales erant, isto quoque fomite eos, quibus consulebant, ad amorem illius, a quo et ipsi tales fierent, accendebant. Namque ne propter humanam gloriam boni essent, docuerat eos magister illorum dicens: Cauete facere iustitiam uestram coram hominibus, ut uideamini ab eis; alioquin mercedem non habebitis apud patrem uestrum, qui in caelis est. Sed rursus ne hoc peruerse intellegentes hominibus placere metuerent minusque prodessent latendo, quod boni sunt, demonstrans quo fine innotescere deberent: Luceant, inquit, opera uestra coram hominibus, ut uideant bona facta uestra et glorificent patrem uestrum, qui in caelis est.

And that, as they were doing and saying divine things and living divinely, with hard hearts in a certain manner subdued and the peace of justice introduced, a vast glory was attained in the church of Christ: they did not rest in it as though in the end of their own virtue, but referring that very glory also to the glory of God, by whose grace they were such, with this fuel too they kindled those for whom they were caring to the love of Him, by whom they themselves also were made such. For indeed, lest they should be good on account of human glory, their master had taught them, saying: Beware of doing your righteousness before men, in order to be seen by them; otherwise you will not have a reward with your Father who is in the heavens. But again, lest by understanding this perversely they should fear to please men and be less beneficial by hiding that they are good, showing to what end they ought to become known: Let your works shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father who is in the heavens.

Non ergo ut uideamini ab eis, id est hac intentione, ut eos ad uos conuerti uelitis, quia non per uos aliquid estis; sed ut glorificent patrem uestrum, qui in caelis est, ad quem conuersi fiant quod estis. Hos secuti sunt martyres, qui Scaeuolas et Curtios et Decios non sibi inferendo poenas, sed inlatas ferendo et uirtute uera, quoniam uera pietate, et innumerabili multitudine superarunt. Sed cum illi essent in ciuitate terrena, quibus propositus erat omnium pro illa officiorum finis incolumitas eius et regnum non in caelo, sed interra; non in uita aeterna, sed in decessione morientium et successione moriturorum: quid aliud amarent quam gloriam, qua uolebant etiam post mortem tamquam uiuere in ore laudantium?

Not, therefore, in order to be seen by them, that is, with this intention, that you should wish them to be converted to you, since you are not anything through yourselves; but that they may glorify your Father who is in heaven, to whom, being converted, they may become what you are. These the martyrs followed, who surpassed the Scaevolas and Curtii and Decii not by inflicting punishments upon themselves, but by bearing those inflicted, and by true virtue, since by true piety, and by an innumerable multitude. But since those men were in the earthly city, for whom the end of all duties proposed on its behalf was its safety, and a kingdom not in heaven but on earth; not in eternal life, but in the decease of the dying and the succession of those about to die: what else should they love than glory, by which they wished even after death, as it were, to live in the mouths of those praising?

[XV] Quibus ergo non erat daturus Deus uitam aeternam cum sanctis angelis suis in sua ciuitate caelesti, ad cuius societatem pietas uera perducit quae non exhibet seruitutem religionis, quam *latreian Graeci uocant, nisi uni uero Deo, si neque hanc eis terrenam gloriam excellentissimi imperii concederet: non redderetur merces bonis artibus eorum, id est uirtutibus, quibus ad tantam gloriam peruenire nitebantur. De talibus enim, qui propter hoc boni aliquid facere uidentur, ut glorificentur ab hominibus, etiam Dominus ait: Amen dico uobis, perceperunt mercedem suam. Sic et isti priuatas res suas pro re communi, hoc est re publica, et pro eius aerario contempserunt, auaritiae restiterunt, consuluerunt patriae consilio libero, neque delicto secundum suas leges neque libidini obnoxii; his omnibus artibus tamquam uera uia nisi sunt ad honores imperium gloriam; honorati sunt in omnibus fere gentibus, imperii sui leges inposuerunt multis gentibus, hodieque litteris et historia gloriosi sunt paene in omnibus gentibus: non est quod de summi et ueri Dei iustitia conquerantur; perceperunt mercedem suam.

[15] Therefore, to those to whom God was not going to give eternal life with his holy angels in his own heavenly city—into whose society true pietas leads, which does not render the servitude of religion, which the Greeks call *latreian*, except to the one true God—if he were not to grant to them even this earthly glory of a most excellent imperium, the wage would not be rendered to their good arts, that is, virtues, by which they strove to arrive at so great a glory. For of such as these, who seem to do some good for this reason, that they may be glorified by men, the Lord also says: Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. So also these men despised their private goods for the common thing, that is, the republic, and for its treasury; they resisted avarice; they took counsel for the fatherland with free counsel; they were subject neither to offense according to their own laws nor to lust; by all these arts, as by a true way, they made their way to honors, imperium, glory; they were honored among almost all nations, they imposed the laws of their imperium upon many nations, and even today by letters and by history they are glorious in almost all nations: there is nothing about the justice of the highest and true God for them to complain of; they have received their reward.

[XVI] Merces autem sanctorum longe alia est etiam hic opprobria sustinentium pro ueritate Dei, quae mundi huius dilectoribus odiosa est. Illa ciuitas sempiterna est; ibi nullus oritur, quia nullus moritur; ibi est uera et plena felicitas, non dea, sed donum Dei; inde fidei pignus accepimus, quandiu peregrinantes eius pulchritudini suspiramus; ibi non oritur sol super bonos et malos, sed sol iustitiae solos protegit bonos; ibi non erit magna industria ditare publicum aerarium priuatis rebus angustis, ubi thensaurus communis est ueritatis. Proinde non solum ut talis merces talibus hominibus redderetur Romanum imperium ad humanam gloriam dilatatum est; uerum etiam ut ciues aeternae illius ciuitatis, quamdiu hic peregrinantur, diligenter et sobrie illa intueantur exempla et uideant quanta dilectio debeatur supernae patriae propter uitam aeternam, si tantum a suis ciuibus terrena dilecta est propter hominum gloriam.

[16] But the reward of the saints is far other, even of those here enduring reproaches for the truth of God, which is hateful to the lovers of this world. That city is everlasting; there no one is born, because no one dies; there is true and full felicity—not a goddess, but a gift of God; thence we have received the pledge of faith, so long as, as pilgrims, we sigh for its beauty; there the sun does not rise upon good and evil, but the Sun of righteousness protects only the good; there there will not be great industry to enrich the public treasury from straitened private resources, where the common treasury is Truth. Accordingly, not only in order that such a reward might be rendered to such men was the Roman empire enlarged unto human glory; but also in order that the citizens of that eternal city, so long as they are sojourning here, might diligently and soberly look upon those examples and see how great a love is owed to the supernal fatherland on account of eternal life, if the earthly fatherland has been so much loved by its own citizens on account of the glory of men.

[XVII] Quantum enim pertinet ad hanc uitam mortalium, quae paucis diebus ducitur et finitur, quid interest sub cuius imperio uiuat homo moriturus, si illi qui imperant ad impia et iniqua non cogant? Aut uero aliquid nocuerunt Romani gentibus, quibus subiugatis inposuerunt leges suas, nisi quia id factum est ingenti strage bellorum? Quod si concorditer fieret, id ipsum fieret meliore successu; sed nulla esset gloria triumphantium.

[17] So far as pertains to this life of mortals, which is led for a few days and is brought to an end, what does it matter under whose imperium a man destined to die lives, if those who command do not compel to impious and iniquitous things? Or truly did the Romans do any harm to the nations upon whom, once subjugated, they imposed their laws, except that this was accomplished with an immense slaughter of wars? Which, if it were done in concord, that very thing would be done with better success; but there would be no glory of the triumphant.

Neque enim et Romani non uiuebant sub legibus suis, quas ceteris inponebant. Hoc si fieret sine Marte et Bellona, ut nec Victoria locum haberet, nemine uincente ubi nemo pugnauerat: nonne Romanis et ceteris gentibus una esset eademque condicio? praesertim si mox fieret, quod postea gratissime atque humanissime factum est, ut omnes ad Romanum imperium pertinentes societatem acciperent ciuitatis et Romani ciues essent, ac sic esset omnium, quod erat ante paucorum; tantum quod plebs illa, quae suos agros non haberet, de publico uiueret; qui pastus eius per bonos administratores rei publicae gratius a concordibus praestaretur quam uictis extorqueretur.

For the Romans too lived under their own laws, which they were imposing upon the others. If this were done without Mars and Bellona, so that Victory would have no place—no one conquering where no one had fought—would not one and the same condition belong to the Romans and to the other nations? especially if there were done at once that which afterward was done most gratefully and most humanely: that all who pertained to the Roman empire should receive the fellowship of citizenship and be Roman citizens, and thus there should be of all what before was of a few; only that the plebs, who had no fields of their own, should live from the public; whose maintenance would be provided through good administrators of the commonwealth more agreeably by those in concord than be extorted from the vanquished.

Nam quid intersit ad incolumitatem bonosque mores, ipsas certe hominum dignitates, quod alii uicerunt, alii uicti sunt, omnino non uideo, praeter illum gloriae humanae inanissimum fastum, in quo perceperunt mercedem suam, qui eius ingenti cupidine arserunt et ardentia bella gesserunt. Numquid enim illorum agri tributa non soluunt? Numquid eis licet discere, quod aliis non licet?

For what difference it makes to safety and good morals, indeed to the very dignities of men, that some have conquered and others have been conquered, I do not see at all, except for that most empty vainglory of human glory, in which those have received their reward who burned with vast cupidity for it and waged burning wars. Do not their fields pay tribute? Is it permitted to them to learn what is not permitted to others?

Numquid non multi senatores sunt in aliis terris, qui Romam ne facie quidem norunt? Tolle iactantiam, et omnes homines quid sunt nisi homines? Quod si peruersitas saeculi admitteret, ut honoratiores essent quique meliores: nec sic pro magno haberi debuit honor humanus, quia nullius est ponderis fumus.

Are there not many senators in other lands who do not know Rome not even by sight? Take away boasting, and what are all men if not men? But if the perversity of the age were to allow that those who are better be the more honored: not even thus ought human honor to be held as something great, since smoke is of no weight.

Sed utamur etiam in his rebus beneficio Domini Dei nostri; consideremus quanta contempserint, quae pertulerint, quas cupiditates subegerint pro humana gloria, qui eam tamquam mercedem talium uirtutum accipere meruerunt, et ualeat nobis etiam hoc ad opprimendam superbiam, ut, cum illa ciuitas, in qua nobis regnare promissum est, tantum ab hac distet, quantum distat caelum a terra, q temporali laetitia uita aeterna, ab inanibus laudibus solida gloria, a societate mortalium societas angelorum, a lumine solis et lunae lumen eius qui solem fecit et lunam, nihil sibi magnum fecisse uideantur tantae patriae ciues, si pro illa adipiscenda fecerint boni operis aliquid uel mala aliqua sustinuerint, cum illi pro hac terrena iam adepta tanta fecerint, tanta perpessi sint, praesertim quia remissio peccatorum, quae ciues ad aeternam colligit patriam, habet aliquid, cui per umbram quandam simile fuit asylum illud Romuleum, quo multitudinem, qua illa ciuitas conderetur, quorumlibet delictorum congregauit inpunitas.

But let us use also in these matters the beneficence of the Lord our God; let us consider how much they despised, what they endured, what cupidities they subdued for human glory, who merited to receive it as the wage of such virtues; and let this also avail us for the crushing of pride: that, since that City in which it has been promised to us to reign is as far distant from this one as heaven from earth, as eternal life from temporal joy, as solid glory from empty praises, as the society of angels from the society of mortals, as the light of him who made the sun and the moon from the light of the sun and the moon, the citizens of so great a fatherland may seem to themselves to have done nothing great, if for attaining it they shall have done some work of good or shall have endured some evils, whereas those men, for this earthly one already obtained, have done so great things and have suffered so great things; especially because the remission of sins, which gathers citizens to the eternal fatherland, has something to which, by a kind of shadow, that Romulean asylum was similar, whereby impunity of whatever delicts gathered together the multitude by which that city would be founded.

[XVIII] Quid ergo magnum est pro illa aeterna caelestique patria cuncta saeculi huius quamlibet iucunda blandimenta contemnere, si pro hac temporali atque terrena filios Brutus potuit et occidere, quod illa facere neminem cogit? Sed certe difficilius est filios interimere, quam quod pro ista faciendum est, ea, quae filiis congreganda uidebantur atque seruanda, uel donare pauperibus uel, si existat temptatio, quae id pro fide atque iustitia fieri compellat, amittere. Felices enim uel nos uel filios nostros non diuitiae terrenae faciunt aut nobis uiuentibus amittendae aut nobis mortuis a quibus nescimus uel forte a quibus nolumus possidendae; sed Deus felices facit, qui est mentium uera opulentia.

[18] What, then, is great, for that eternal and celestial fatherland, in contemning all the blandishments of this age, however pleasant, if for this temporal and terrestrial one Brutus could even kill his sons—a thing which that other compels no one to do? But surely it is more difficult to slay sons than what must be done for that one: to give to the poor the things that seemed to be gathered and kept for the sons, or, if there arise a temptation which compels this to be done for faith and justice, to lose them. For neither we nor our sons are made happy by earthly riches—either to be lost while we are living, or, when we are dead, to be possessed by those we do not know or perhaps by those we do not wish—but God makes us happy, who is the true opulence of minds.

Bruto autem, quia filios occidit, infelicitatis perhibet testimonium etiam poeta laudator. Ait enim:

But as for Brutus, because he killed his sons, even the praising poet bears testimony of infelicity. For he says:

Natosque pater noua bella mouentes
Ad poenam pulchra pro libertate uocabit

And the father will call his sons, setting new wars in motion,
to punishment for fair liberty

Infelix, utcumque ferent ea facta minores. Sed uersu sequenti consolatus est infelicem:

Ill‑fated, however posterity may bear those deeds. But in the following verse he consoled the ill‑fated one:

Vincit amor patriae laudumque inmensa cupido. Haec sunt duo illa, libertas et cupiditas laudis humanae, quae ad facta compulit miranda Romanos. Si ergo pro libertate moriturorum et cupiditate laudum, quae a mortalibus expetuntur, occidi filii a patre potuerunt: quid magnum est, si pro uera libertate, quae nos ab iniquitatis et mortis et diaboli dominatu liberos facit, nec cupiditate humanarum laudum, sed caritate liberandorum hominum, non a Tarquinio rege, sed a daemonibus et daemonum principe, non filii occiduntur, sed Christi pauperes inter filios computantur?

The love of fatherland and the immense cupidity of praises prevail. These are those two things—liberty and the cupidity of human praise—which compelled the Romans to deeds to be admired. If, therefore, for the liberty of those about to die and for the cupidity of praises which are sought by mortals, sons could be slain by a father: what great thing is it, if for true liberty, which makes us free from the dominion of iniquity and of death and of the devil, and not by a cupidity of human praises but by a charity of men to be liberated, not from King Tarquin but from daemons and the prince of daemons, not sons are killed, but the poor of Christ are reckoned among sons?

Si alius etiam Romanus princeps, cognomine Torquatus, filium, non quia contra patriam, sed etiam pro patria, tamen quia contra imperium suum, id est contra quod imperauerat pater imperator, ab hoste prouocatus iuuenali ardore pugnauerat, licet uicisset, occidit, ne plus mali esset in exemplo imperii contempti quam boni in gloria hostis occisi: ut quid se iactent, qui pro inmortalis patriae legibus omnia, quae multo minus quam filii diliguntur, bona terrena contemnunt? Si Furius Camillus etiam ingratam patriam, a cuius ceruicibus acerrimorum hostium Veientium iugum depulerat damnatusque ab aemulis fuerat, a Gallis iterum liberauit, quia non habebat potiorem, ubi posset uiuere gloriosius: cur extollatur, uelut grande aliquid fecerit, qui forte in ecclesia ab inimicis carnalibus grauissimam exhonorationis passus iniuriam non se ad eius hostes haereticos transtulit aut aliquam contra illam ipse haeresem condidit, sed eam potius quantum ualuit ab haereticorum perniciosissima prauitate defendit, cum alia non sit, non ubi uiuatur in hominum gloria, sed ubi uita adquiratur aeterna? Si Mucius, ut cum Porsenna rege pax fieret, qui grauissimo bello Romanos premebat, quia Porsennam ipsum occidere non potuit et pro eo alterum deceptus occidit, in ardentem aram ante eius oculos dexteram extendit, dicens multos se tales, qualem illum uideret, in eius exitium coniurasse, cuius ille fortitudinem et coniurationem talium perhorrescens sine ulla dubitatione se ab illo bello facta pace compescuit: quis regno caelorum inputaturus est merita sua, si pro illo non unam manum neque hoc sibi ultro faciens, sed persequente aliquo patiens totum flammis corpus inpenderit?

If another Roman princeps as well, surnamed Torquatus, killed his son—not because he had fought against the fatherland, but even for the fatherland, yet because he had fought against his imperium, that is, against what the father the imperator had commanded—having been provoked by the enemy he had fought with youthful ardor, although he had won, he killed him, lest there be more evil in the example of a despised command than good in the glory of a slain enemy: why then do they vaunt themselves, who for the laws of an immortal fatherland despise all earthly goods, which are loved much less than sons? If Furius Camillus even an ungrateful fatherland—from whose necks he had driven off the yoke of the very fierce enemies the Veientes and had been condemned by rivals—he freed again from the Gauls, because he did not have a preferable one where he could live more gloriously: why should he be exalted, as though he had done something great, who perhaps in the Church, having suffered from carnal enemies a most grievous injury of dishonoring, did not transfer himself to its heretical foes nor himself found some heresy against it, but rather, as far as he was able, defended it from the most pernicious depravity of heretics, since there is no other—not where one lives in the glory of men, but where eternal life is acquired? If Mucius, in order that peace might be made with King Porsenna, who was pressing the Romans with a most heavy war, because he could not kill Porsenna himself and, deceived, killed another in his place, stretched forth his right hand into the burning altar before his eyes, saying that many such as himself, such as he saw that man to be, had conspired for his destruction—at which he, shuddering at such fortitude and at the conspiracy of such men, without any hesitation restrained himself from that war, peace being made—who will be for imputing his merits to the kingdom of heaven, if for it he should expend to the flames not one hand, nor doing this of his own accord for himself, but, some persecutor pursuing, suffering it, his whole body?

Si Curtius armatus equo concito in abruptum hiatum terrae se praecipitem dedit, deorum suorum oraculis seruiens, quoniam iusserant, ut illic id quod Romani haberent optimum mitteretur, nec aliud intellegere potuerunt, quam uiris armisque se excellere, unde uidelicet oportebat, ut deorum iussis in illum interitum uir praecipitaretur armatus: quid se magnum pro aeterna patria fecisse dicturus est, qui aliquem fidei suae passus inimicum non se ultro in talem mortem mittens, sed ab illo missus obierit; quando quidem a Domino suo eodemque rege patriae suae certius oraculum accepit: Nolite timere eos, qui corpus occidunt,nimam autem non possunt occidere? Si se occidendos certis uerbis quodam modo consecrantes Decii deuouerunt, ut illis cadentibus et iram deorum sanguine suo placantibus Romanus liberaretur exercitus: nullo modo superbient sancti martyres, tamquam dignum aliquid pro illius patriae participatione fecerint, ubi aeterna est et uera felicitas, si usque ad sui sanguinis effusionem non solum suos fratres, pro quibus fundebatur, uerum et ipsos inimicos, a quibus fundebatur, sicut eis praeceptum est, diligentes caritatis fide et fidei caritate certarunt? Si Marcus Puluillus dedicans aedem Iouis, Iunonis, Mineruae falso sibi ab inuidis morte filii nuntiata, ut illo nuntio perturbatus abscederet atque ita dedicationis gloriam collega eius consequeretur, ita contempsit, ut eum etiam proici insepultum iuberet (sic in eius corde orbitatis dolorem gloriae cuuiditas uicerat): quid magnum se pro euangelii sancti praedicatione, qua ciues supernae patriae de diuersis liberantur et colliguntur erroribus, fecisse dicturus est, cui Dominus de sepultura patris sui sollicito ait: Seqowere aive et sine inortuos sepelire mortuos suos?

If Curtius, armed and with his horse spurred on, gave himself headlong into a precipitous chasm of the earth, serving the oracles of his gods, since they had ordered that there be sent there that which the Romans had as best—and they could understand nothing else than that they excelled in men and arms, whence of course it was proper that, by the gods’ commands, an armed man should hurl himself into that destruction—what great thing will he say he has done for the eternal fatherland, who, having suffered some enemy of his faith, did not send himself of his own accord into such a death, but, sent by that man, met his end; since indeed from his Lord, and likewise king of his fatherland, he received a more certain oracle: Do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul? If the Decii, consecrating themselves to be killed with explicit words, devoted themselves, so that, as they fell and by their blood appeased the wrath of the gods, the Roman army might be freed: by no means will the holy martyrs be puffed up, as though they had done something worthy for a share in that fatherland where happiness is eternal and true, if even to the shedding of their own blood, loving not only their own brothers, for whom it was being poured out, but even their enemies, by whom it was being poured out, as it was commanded to them, they contended by the faith of charity and the charity of faith. If Marcus Pulvillus, dedicating the temple of Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, when the death of his son was falsely announced to him by the envious—so that, disturbed by that message, he might withdraw and thus the glory of the dedication fall to his colleague—so despised it that he even ordered him to be thrown out unburied (thus in his heart the desire of glory conquered the pain of bereavement): what great thing will he say he has done for the preaching of the holy gospel, by which the citizens of the supernal fatherland are freed and gathered out of diverse errors, to whom the Lord, when he was anxious about the burial of his father, said: Follow me and let the dead bury their dead?

Si M. Regulus, ne crudelissimos hostes iurando falleret, ad eos ab ipsa Roma reuersus est, quoniam, sicut Romanis eum tenere uolentibus respondisse fertur, postea quam Afris seruierat, dignitatem illic honesti ciuis habere non posset, eumque Carthaginienses, quoniam contra eos in Romano senatu egerat, grauissimis suppliciis necauerunt: qui cruciatus non sunt pro fide illius patriae contemnendi, ad cuius beatitudinem fides ipsa perducit? aut quid retribuetur Domino pro omnibus quae retribuit, si pro fide quae illi debetur talia fuerit homo passus, qualia pro fide quam perniciosissimis inimicis debebat passus est Regulus? Quo modo se audebit extollere de uoluntaria paupertate Christianus, ut in huius uitae peregrinatione expeditior ambulet uiam, quae perducit ad patriam, ubi uerae diuitiae Deus ipse est, cum audiat uel legat L. Valerium, qui in suo defunctus est consulatu, usque adeo fuisse pauperem, ut nummis a populo conlatis eius sepultura curaretur?

If M. Regulus, lest by an oath he should deceive the most cruel enemies, returned to them from Rome itself, since, as he is reported to have replied to the Romans who wished to keep him, after he had served the Africans he could not there have the dignity of an honorable citizen, and the Carthaginians, since he had acted against them in the Roman senate, killed him with most grievous torments: are not those tortures to be despised for the faith of that fatherland, to the blessedness of which the faith itself conducts? or what shall be repaid to the Lord for all that He has repaid, if for the faith which is owed to Him a man should have suffered such things as Regulus suffered for the faith which he owed to his most pernicious enemies? In what way will a Christian dare to exalt himself on voluntary poverty, that in the peregrination of this life he may walk the way more unencumbered which leads to the fatherland, where the true riches are God Himself, when he hears or reads of L. Valerius, who died in his own consulship, having been so poor that his sepulture was cared for by coins collected from the people?

audiat uel legat Quintium Cincinnatum, cum quattuor iugera possideret et ea suis manibus coleret, ab aratro esse adductum, ut dictator fieret, maior utique honore quam consul, uictisque hostibus ingentem gloriam consecutum in eadem paupertate mansisse? Aut quid se magnum fecisse praedicabit, qui nullo praemio mundi huius fuerit ab aeternae illius patriae societate seductus, cum Fabricium didicerit tantis muneribus Pyrrhi, regis Epirotarum, promissa etiam quarta parte regni a Romana ciuitate non potuisse deuelli ibique in sua paupertate priuatum manere maluisse? Nam illud quod rem publicam, id est rem populi, rem patriae, rem communem, cum haberent opulentissimam atque ditissimam, sic ipsi in suis sdomibus pauperes erant, ut quidam eorum, qui iam bis consul fuisset, ex illo senatu hominum pauperum pelleretur notatione censoria, quod decem pondo argenti in uasis habere compertus est; ita idem ipsi pauperes erant, quorum triumphis publicum ditabatur aerarium: nonne omnes Christiani, qui excellentiore proposito diuitias suas communes faciunt secundum id quod scriptum est in actibus apostolorum, ut distribuatur unicuique, sicut cuique opus est, et nemo dicat aliquid proprium, sed sint illis omnia communia, intellegunt se nulla ob hoc uentilari oportere iactantia, id faciendo pro obtinenda societate angelorum, cum paene tale aliquid illi fecerint pro conseruanda gloria Romanorum?

a person may hear or even read of Quintius Cincinnatus, when he possessed four iugera and tilled them with his own hands, being brought from the plow to become dictator—greater, to be sure, in honor than a consul—and, the enemies conquered and enormous glory obtained, that he remained in the same poverty? Or what great thing will he proclaim himself to have done, who by no reward of this world has been seduced from the fellowship of that eternal fatherland, when he has learned that Fabricius, by so great gifts of Pyrrhus, king of the Epirotes, with even a fourth part of the kingdom promised, could not be torn away from the Roman commonwealth, and preferred to remain there as a private man in his poverty? For this fact, that although they had the res publica, that is, the people’s affair, the fatherland’s affair, the common affair, most opulent and most wealthy, yet they themselves were so poor in their own homes that a certain man among them, who had already been twice consul, was expelled from that senate of poor men by a censorial notation, because he was found to have ten pounds of silver in vessels; thus those very men were poor, by whose triumphs the public aerarium was enriched: do not all Christians, who with a more excellent purpose make their riches common according to what is written in the Acts of the Apostles, that it be distributed to each as each has need, and that no one say anything is his own, but that all things be common to them, understand that they ought not on this account to be tossed about by any vainglory, doing that for the obtaining of the society of angels, when those men did almost such a thing for preserving the glory of the Romans?

Haec et alia, si qua huius modi reperiuntur in litteriseorum, quando sic innotescerent, quando tanta fama praedicarentur, nisi Romanum imperium longe lateque porrectum magnificis successibus augeretur? Proinde perillud imperium tam latum tamque diuturnum uirorumque tantorum uirtutibus praeclarum atque gloriosum et illorum intentioni merces quam quaerebant est reddita, et nobis proposita necessariae commonitionis exempla, ut, si uirtutes, quarum istae utcumque sunt similes, quas isti pro ciuitatis terrenae gloria temuerunt, pro Dei gloriosissima ciuitate non tenuerimus, pudore pungamur; si tenuerimus, superbia non extollamur quoniam, sicut dicit apostolus,indignae sunt passiones huius temporis ad futurum gloriam, quae reuerabitur in nobis. Ad humanam uero gloriam praesentisque temporis satis digna uita aestimabatur illorum.

These and other things, if any of this kind are found in their letters, when would they thus become known, when would they be proclaimed with so great fame, unless the Roman empire, stretched far and wide, were augmented by magnificent successes? Accordingly, through that empire so broad and so long-lasting and, by the virtues of such great men, illustrious and glorious, both to them a reward of intention such as they sought has been rendered, and for us examples of necessary admonition have been set forth, so that, if we shall not have held the virtues—of which these are somehow likenesses—which those men maintained for the glory of the earthly city, for the most glorious City of God, we may be pierced with shame; if we shall have held them, we may not be lifted up with pride, since, as the apostle says, the sufferings of this time are unworthy in comparison with the future glory, which shall be revealed in us. But for human glory and of the present time, their life was judged worthy enough.

Vnde etiam Iudaei, qui Christum occiderunt, reuelante testamento nouo quod in uetere uelatum fuit, ut non pro terrenis et temporalibus beneficiis, quae diuina prouidentia permixte bonis malisque concedit, sed pro aeterna uita muneribusque perpetuis et ipsius supernae ciuitatis societate colatur Deus unus et uerus, rectissime istorum gloriae donati sunt, ut hi, qui qualibuscumque uirtutibus terrenam gloriam quaesiuerunt et adquisiuerunt, uincerent eos,qui magnis uitiis datorem uerae gloriaeet ciuitatis aeternae occiderunt atque respuerunt.

Whence also the Jews, who killed Christ, with the New Testament revealing what in the Old had been veiled, in order that God, one and true, be worshiped not for earthly and temporal benefactions, which divine providence grants in mixed fashion to the good and the bad, but for eternal life and perpetual gifts and for the society of that supernal city itself, were most rightly given over to the glory of these, so that those who by whatever virtues sought and acquired earthly glory might conquer those who by great vices killed and rejected the giver of true glory and of the eternal city.

[XIX] Interest sane inter cupiditatem humanae gloriae et cupiditatem dominationis. Nam licet procliue sit, ut, qui humana gloria nimium delectatur, etiam dominari ardenter affectet, tamen qui ueram licet humanarum laudum gloriam concupiscunt, dant operam bene iudicantibus non displicere. Sunt enim multa in moribus bona, de quibus multi bene iudicant, quamuis ea multi non habeant; per ea bona morum nituntur ad gloriam et imperium uel dominationem, de quibus ait Sallustius: "Sed ille uera uia nititur." Quisquis autem sine cupiditate gloriae, qua ueretur homo bene iudicantibus displicere, dominari atque imperare desiderat, etiam per apertissima scelera quaerit plerumque obtinere quod diligit.

[19] There is indeed a difference between the cupidity of human glory and the cupidity of domination. For although it is easy that he who delights too much in human glory also ardently aspires to dominate, yet those who covet the true glory of human praises take pains not to be displeasing to those who judge well. For there are many goods in morals, about which many judge well, although many do not have them; through those moral goods they strive toward glory and imperium, or domination, concerning which Sallust says: "But he strives by the true way." But whoever, without the cupidity of glory—by which a man fears to be displeasing to those who judge well—desires to dominate and to command, for the most part seeks to obtain what he loves even through the most open crimes.

Proinde qui gloriam concupiscit, aut uera uia nititur aut certe, "dolis atque fallaciis contendit", uolens bonus uideri esse, quod non est. Et ideo uirtutes habenti magna uirtus est contemnere gloriam, quia contemptus eius in conspectu Dei est, iudicio autem non aperitur humano. Quidquid enim fecerit ad oculos hominum, quo gloriae contemptor appareat, ad maiorem laudem, hoc est ad maiorem gloriam, facere si credatur, non est unde se suspicantium sensibus aliter esse, quam suspicantur, ostendat.

Accordingly, whoever covets glory either strives by the true way or else certainly “contends by tricks and deceits,” wishing to seem to be good, which he is not. And therefore for one who has virtues, it is a great virtue to contemn glory, because its contempt is in the sight of God, whereas it is not laid open to human judgment. For whatever he may do before the eyes of men, whereby he may appear a despiser of glory, if it is believed that he does it for greater praise—that is, for greater glory—there is no means by which he might show to the minds of the suspecting that it is otherwise than they suspect.

Sed qui contemnit iudicia laudantium, contemnit etiam suspicantium temeritatem, quorum tamen, si uere bonus est, non contemnit salutem, quoniam tantae iustitiae est ui de spiritu Dei uirtutes habet, ut etiam ipsos diligat inimicos, et ita diligat, ut suos osores uel detractores uelit correctos habere consortes non in terrena patria, sed superna; in laudatoribus autem suis, quamuis paruipendat quod eum laudant, non tamen paruipendit, quod amant, nec eos uult fa lere laudantes, ne decipiat diligentes; ideoque instat ardenter, ut potius ille laudetur, a quo habet homo quidquid in eo iure laudatur. Qui autem gloriae contemptor dominationis est auidus, bestias superat siue crudelitatis uitiis siue luxuriae. Tales quidam Romani fuerunt.

But he who contemns the judgments of the lauders also contemns the temerity of the suspecters—yet, if he is truly good, he does not contemn their salvation—since he is of such justice, who has virtues from the Spirit of God, that he even loves his enemies, and so loves them that he wishes to have his haters or detractors, once corrected, as consorts not in an earthly fatherland but in the heavenly. And in the case of his own laudators, although he makes light of the fact that they laud him, he does not make light of the fact that they love; nor does he wish to mislead those lauding, lest he deceive those loving; and therefore he presses ardently that rather He be lauded, from whom a man has whatever in him is rightly lauded. But the one who, a contemner of glory, is greedy for domination surpasses the beasts, whether in the vices of cruelty or of luxury. Some Romans were of such a kind.

Non enim cura existimationis amissa dominationis cupiditate caruerunt. Multos tales fuisse prodit historia; sed huius uitii summitatem et quasi arcem quandam Nero Caesar primus obtinuit, cuius fuit tanta luxuries, ut nihil ab eo putaretur uirile metuendum; tanta crudelitas, ut nihil molle habere crederetur, si nesciretur. Etiam talibus tamen dominandi potestas non datur nisi summi Dei prouidentia, quando res humanas iudicat talibus.dominis dignas.

For indeed, with the care for estimation having been lost, they did not lack the cupidity for domination. History records that many such men existed; but the summit and, as it were, a certain citadel of this vice Nero Caesar was the first to obtain, whose luxury was so great that nothing virile to be feared was thought to come from him; whose cruelty was so great that he would be believed to have nothing soft, if it were not known. Even to such men, however, the power of dominating is not given except by the providence of the Most High God, when He judges human affairs worthy of such masters.

Aperta de hac re uox diuina est loquente Dei sapientia: Per me reges regnant et tyranni per me tenent terram. Sed ne tyranni non pessimi atque improbi reges, sed uetere nomine fortes dicti existimentur (unde ait Vergilius:

Clear on this matter is the divine voice, with the Wisdom of God speaking: Through me kings reign and tyrants through me hold the earth. But lest tyrants be thought not the worst and wicked kings, but, by an old name, called strong (whence Vergil says:

Pars mihi pacis erit dextram tetigisse tyranni): apertissime alio loco de Deo dictum est: Quia regnare facit hominem hypocritam propter peruersitatem populi. Quam ob rem, quamuis ut potui satis exposuerim, qua causa Deus unus uerus et iustus Romanos secundum quandam formam terrenae ciuitatis bonos adiuuerit ad tanti imperii gloriam consequendam: potest tamen et alia causa esse latentior propter diuersa merita generis humani, Deo magis nota quam nobis, dum illud constet inter omnes ueraciter pios, neminem sine uera pietate, id est ueri Dei uero cultu, ueram posse habere uirtutem, nec eam ueram esse, quando gloriae seruit humanae; eos tamen, qui ciues non sint ciuitatis aeternae, quae in sacris litteris nostris dicitur ciuitas Dei, utiliores esse terrenae ciuitati, quando habent uirtutem uel ipsam, quam si nec ipsam. Illi autem, qui uera pietate praediti bene uiuunt, si habent scientiam regendi populos, nihil est felicius rebus humanis, quam si Deo miserante habeant potestatem.

Part of peace for me will be to have touched the tyrant’s right hand): most plainly in another place it is said of God: Because he makes the hypocritical man to reign on account of the perversity of the people. Wherefore, although, as I was able, I have sufficiently set forth for what cause the one true and just God aided the Romans, according to a certain form of the earthly city, the good, to attain the glory of so great an empire: nevertheless there can also be another, more hidden cause, on account of the diverse merits of the human race, more known to God than to us, while this stands firm among all truly pious: that no one without true piety, that is, the true worship of the true God, is able to have true virtue, nor is that virtue true when it serves human glory; yet those who are not citizens of the eternal city, which in our sacred letters is called the City of God, are more useful to the earthly city when they have virtue itself than if they did not have even it. But those who, endowed with true piety, live well—if they have the knowledge of governing peoples—nothing is happier for human affairs than that, God taking pity, they have power.

Tales autem homines uirtutes suas, quantascumque in hac uita possunt habere, non tribuunt nisi gratiae Dei, quod eas uolentibus credentibus petentibus dederit, simulque intellegunt, quantum sibi desit ad perfectionem iustitiae, qualis est in illorum sanctorum angelorum societate, cui se nituntur aptare. Quantumlibet autem laudetur atque praedicetur uirtus, quae sine uera pietate seruit hominum gloriae, nequaquam sanctorum exiguis initiis comparanda est, quorum spes posita est in gratia et misericordia ueri Dei.

Such men, however, attribute their virtues—whatever amount they can have in this life—only to the grace of God, for that He has given them to those willing, believing, asking; and at the same time they understand how much is lacking to them unto the perfection of justice, such as it is in the society of those holy angels, to which they strive to fit themselves. Yet however much virtue, which without true piety serves the glory of men, may be lauded and proclaimed, it is by no means to be compared with the scant beginnings of the saints, whose hope is set in the grace and mercy of the true God.

[XX] Solent philosophi, qui finem boni humani in ipsa uirtute constituunt, ad ingerendum pudorem quibusdam philosophis, qui uirtutes quidem probant, sed eas uoluptatis corporalis fine metiuntur et illam per se ipsam putant adpetendam, istas propter ipsam, tabulam quandam uerbis pingere, ubi uoluptas in sella regali quasi delicata quaedam regina considat, eique uirtutes famulae subiciantur, obseruantes eius nutum, ut faciant quod illa imperauerit, quae prudentiae iubeat, ut uigilanter inquirat, quo modo uoluptas regnet et salua sit; iustitiae iubeat, ut praestet beneficia quae potest ad comparandas amicitias corporalibus commodis necessarias, nulli faciat iniuriam, ne offensis legibus uoluptas uiuere secura non possit; fortitudini iubeat, ut, si dolor corpori acciderit, qui non compellat in mortem, teneat dominam suam, id est uoluptatem, fortiter in animi cogitatione, ut per pristinarum deliciarum suarum recordationem mitiget praesentis doloris aculeos; temperantiae iubeat, ut tantum capiat alimentorum et si qua delectant, ne per inmoderationem noxium aliquid ualetudinem turbet et uoluptas, quam etiam in corporis sanitate Epicurei maximam ponunt, grauiter offendatur. Ita uirtutes cum tota suae gloria dignitatis tamquam imperiosae cuidam et inhonestae mulierculae seruient uoiuptati. Nihil hac pictura dicunt esse ignominiosius et deformius et quod minus ferre bonorum possit aspectus; et ueruni dicunt.

[20] Philosophers, who set the end of human good in virtue itself, are accustomed, in order to inject shame into certain philosophers who indeed approve the virtues but measure them by the end of bodily pleasure and think that that is to be sought for its own sake, these for her sake, to paint with words a certain picture, where Pleasure sits on a royal chair as a certain delicate queen, and to her the virtues are subjected as handmaids, observing her nod, that they may do what she has commanded; who orders Prudence to inquire vigilantly how Pleasure may reign and be safe; orders Justice to render benefits which it can for procuring friendships necessary for bodily conveniences, to do injury to no one, lest, the laws being offended, Pleasure be unable to live secure; orders Fortitude that, if pain happen to the body which does not compel to death, it hold its mistress, that is, Pleasure, firmly in the mind’s thought, that by the recollection of her former delights she may mitigate the stings of present pain; orders Temperance to take only so much of foods and whatever things delight, lest by immoderation something harmful disturb health, and Pleasure, which even in bodily health the Epicureans place as the greatest, be gravely offended. Thus the virtues, with all the glory of their dignity, will serve Pleasure as some imperious and dishonorable little woman. They say nothing is more ignominious and deformed than this picture, and less endurable to the gaze of good men; and they say truly.

Sed non existimo satis debiti decoris esse picturam, si etiam talis fingatur, ubi uirtutes humanae gloriae seruiunt. Licet enim ipsa gloria delicata mulier non sit, inflata est et multum inanitatis habet. Vnde non ei digne seruit soliditas quaedam firmitasque uirtutum, ut nihil prouideat prouidentia, nihil distribuat iustitia, nihil toleret fortitudo, nihil temperantia moderetur, nisi unde placeatur hominibus et uentosae gloriae seruiatur.

But I do not think the picture has enough of the due decorum, if even such a one be fashioned, where the virtues serve human glory. For although glory itself is not a delicate woman, it is inflated and has much vanity. Whence a certain solidity and firmness of the virtues does not serve it worthily, so that Providence should provide nothing, Justice distribute nothing, Fortitude endure nothing, Temperance moderate nothing, except what may please men and be in service to windy glory.

Nec illi se ab ista foeditate defenderint, qui, cum aliena spernant iudicia uelut gloriae contemptores, sibi sapientes uidentur et sibi placent. Nam eorum uirtus, si tamen ulla est, alio modo quodam humanae subditur laudi; neque enim ipse, qui sibi placet, homo non est. Qui autem uera pietate in Deum, quem diligit, credit et sperat, plus intendit in ea, <in> quibus sibi displicet, quam in ea, si qua in illo sunt, quae non tam ipsi quam ueritati placent; neque id tribuit, unde iam potest placere, nisi eius misericordiae, cui metuit displicere; de his sanatis gratias agens, de illis sanandis preces fundens.

Nor would they defend themselves from that foulness, who, while they spurn the judgments of others as if despisers of glory, seem wise to themselves and are pleased with themselves. For their virtue, if indeed there is any, is subjected in another way to human laud—since he who pleases himself is not a non-man. But he who with true piety in God, whom he loves, believes and hopes, attends more to those things <in> which he is displeasing to himself than to those things, if there are any in him, which please not so much himself as the truth; nor does he attribute that whereby he can now be pleasing, except to His mercy, whom he fears to displease; giving thanks for those things healed, pouring forth prayers for those to be healed.

[XXI] Quae cum ita sint, non tribuamus dandi regni atque imperii potestatem nisi Deo uero, qui dat felicitatem in regno caelorum solis piis; regnum uero terrenum et piis et impiis, sicut ei placet, cui nihil iniuste placet. Quamuis enim aliquid dixerimus, quod apertum nobis esse uoluit: tamen multum est ad nos et ualde superat uires nostras hominum occulta discutere et liquido examine merita diiudicare regnorum. Ille igitur unus uerus Deus, qui nec iudicio nec adiutorio deserit genus humanum, quando uoluit et quantum uoluit Romanis regnum dedit; qui dedit Assyriis, uel etiam Persis, a quibus solos duos deos coli, unum bonum, alterum malum, continent litterae istorum, ut taceam de populo Hebraeo, de quo iam dixi, quantum satis uisum est, qui praeter unum Deum non coluit et quando regnauit.

[21] Since these things are so, let us ascribe the power of giving kingdom and empire to none except the true God, who gives felicity in the kingdom of the heavens to the pious alone; but the earthly kingdom to both the pious and the impious, as it pleases Him, to whom nothing pleases unjustly. For although we have said something which He willed to be open to us: yet it is too much for us and far surpasses our powers to sift the hidden things of men and by a limpid examination to judge the deserts of kingdoms. That one true God, therefore, who deserts not the human race neither in judgment nor in aid, gave the kingdom to the Romans when He willed and as much as He willed; who gave to the Assyrians, and even to the Persians, the writings of these containing that only two gods are to be cultivated—one good, the other evil— to say nothing of the Hebrew people, about whom I have already said as much as seemed enough, who worshiped none besides the one God even when it reigned.

Qui ergo Persis dedit segetes sine cultu deae Segetiae, qui alia dona terrarum sine cultu tot deorum, quos isti rebus singulis singulos, uel etiam rebus singulis plures praeposuerunt: ipse etiam regnum dedit sine cultu eorum, per quorum cultum se isti regnasse crediderunt. Sic etiam hominibus: qui Mario, ipse Gaio Caesari; qui Augusto, ipse et Neroni; qui Vespasianis, uel patri uel filio, suauissimis imperatoribus, ipse et Domitiano crudelissimo; et ne per singulos ire necesse sit, qui Constantino Christiano, ipse apostatae Iuliano, cuius egregiam indolem decepit amore dominandi sacrilega et detestanda curiositas, cuius uanis deditus oraculis erat, quando fretus securitate uictoriae naues, quibus uictus necessarius portabatur, incendit; deinde feruide instans inmodicis ausibus et mox merito temeritatis occisus in locis hostilibus egenum reliquit exercitum, ut aliter inde non posset euadi, nisi contra illud auspicium dei Termini, de quo superiore libro diximus, Romani imperii termini mouerentur. Cessit enim Terminus deus necessitati, qui non cesserat Ioui.

Therefore he who gave to the Persians harvests without the cult of the goddess Segetia, who [gave] other gifts of the lands without the cult of so many gods, whom these people have set over individual things singly, or even several over individual things: he himself also gave rule without the cult of those, through whose cult these believed that they had reigned. So also with men: he who [gave it] to Marius, the same [gave it] to Gaius Caesar; who [gave it] to Augustus, the same [gave it] also to Nero; who [gave it] to the Vespasians, both father and son, most gentle emperors, the same [gave it] also to Domitian, most cruel; and, that it may not be necessary to go through individuals, he who [gave it] to Constantine the Christian, the same [gave it] to Julian the Apostate, whose outstanding natural disposition was deceived by a love of dominating, by a sacrilegious and detestable curiosity, to whose vain oracles he was devoted, when, relying on the security of victory, he burned the ships by which necessary victuals were being carried; then, pressing hotly on with immoderate ventures and soon, deservedly for his temerity, slain in hostile places, he left the army needy, so that it could not be gotten out from there otherwise unless, contrary to that auspice of the god Terminus, of which we spoke in the preceding book, the boundaries of the Roman empire were moved. For the god Terminus yielded to necessity, who had not yielded to Jove.

Haec plane Deus unus et uerus regit et gubernat, ut placet; et si occultis causis, numquid iniustis?

These things plainly the one and true God rules and governs, as it pleases him; and if by occult causes, surely not unjust ones?

[XXII] Sic etiam tempora ipsa bellorum, sicut in eius arbitrio est iustoque iudicio et misericordia uel adterere uel consolari genus humanum, ut alia citius, alia tardius finiantur. Bellum piratarum a Pompeio, bellum Punicum tertium ab Scipione incredibili celeritate et temporis breuitate confecta sunt. Bellum quoque fugitiuorum gladiatorum, quamuis multis Romanis ducibus et duobus consulibus uictis Italiaque horribiliter contrita atque uastata, tertio tamen anno post multa consumpta consumptum est.

[22] So also the very times themselves of wars, since it is in his discretion and by just judgment and mercy to wear down or to console the human race, are such that some are finished more quickly, others more slowly. The war against the pirates by Pompey, and the Third Punic War by Scipio, were concluded with incredible celerity and brevity of time. The war, too, of the runaway gladiators—although many Roman leaders and two consuls were defeated and Italy was horribly crushed and laid waste—was nevertheless consumed in the third year, after much had been consumed.

Picentes, Marsi et Peligni, gentes non exterae, sed Italicae, post diuturnam et deuotissimam sub Romano iugo seruitutem in libertatem caput erigere temptauerunt, iam multis nationibus Romano Imperio subiugatis deletaque Carthagine; in quo bello Italico Romanis saepissime uictis ubi et duo consules perierunt et alii nobilissimi senatores, non diuturno tamen tempore tractum est hoc malum; nam quintus ei annus finem dedit. Sed bellum Punicum secundum cum maximis detrimentis et calamitate rei publicae per annos decem et octo Romanas uires extenuauit et paene consumpsit; duobus proeliis ferme septuaginta Romanorum milia ceciderunt. Bellum Punicum primum per uiginti et tres annos peractum est; bellum Mithridaticum quadraginta.

The Picentes, the Marsi, and the Peligni, nations not foreign but Italic, after a long-continued and most devoted servitude under the Roman yoke, attempted to raise the head into liberty, now that many nations had been subjugated to the Roman Empire and Carthage destroyed; in which Italian war, with the Romans very often defeated—where both two consuls perished and other most noble senators—this evil, however, was not protracted for a long time; for the fifth year gave it an end. But the Second Punic War, with the greatest detriments and a calamity to the commonwealth, over eighteen years attenuated and almost consumed the Roman forces; in two battles nearly seventy thousand Romans fell. The First Punic War was carried through over twenty-three years; the Mithridatic War forty.

Ac ne quisquam arbitretur rudimenta Romanorum fuisse fortiora ad bella citius peragenda, superioribus temporibus multum in omni uirtute laudatis bellum Samniticum annis tractum est ferme quinquaginta; in quo bello ita Romani uicti sunt, ub sub iugum etiam mitterentur. Sed quia non diligebant gloriam propter iustitiam, sed iustitiam propter gloriam diligere uidebantur, pacem factam foedusque ruperunt. Haec ideo commemoro, quoniam multi praeteritarum rerum ignari, quidam etiam dissimulatores suae scientiae, si temporibus Christianis aliquod bellum paulo diutius trahi uident, ilico in nostram religionem proteruissime insiliunt, exclamantes, quod, si ipsa non esset et uetere ritu numina colerentur, iam Romana illa uirtute, quae adiuuante Marte et Bellona tanta celeriter bella confecit, id quoque celerrime finiretur.

And lest anyone suppose that the beginnings of the Romans were stronger for wars to be more quickly carried through, in those earlier times—much lauded in every virtue—the Samnite war was drawn out for nearly fifty years; in which war the Romans were so defeated that they were even sent under the yoke. But because they did not love glory on account of justice, but seemed to love justice on account of glory, they broke the peace that had been made and the treaty. I recall these things for this reason: since many, ignorant of past affairs—some even dissemblers of their own knowledge—if in Christian times they see some war dragged on a little longer, straightway most shamelessly leap upon our religion, exclaiming that, if it did not exist and the numina were worshiped by the old rite, then by that Roman virtue, which, with Mars and Bellona aiding, so many wars completed swiftly, this too would be finished most swiftly.

Recolant igitur qui legerunt, quam diuturna bella, quam uariis euentis, quam luctuosis cladibus a ueteribus sint gesta Romanis, sicut solet orbis terrarum uelut procellosissimum pelagus uaria talium malorum tempestate iactari, et quod nolunt aliquando fateantur, nec insanis aduersus Deum linguis se interimant et decipiant imperitos.

Let those who have read recollect how long-during wars, with how various events, with how lugubrious disasters, were waged of old against the Romans, just as the orb of lands is wont, like a most tempestuous sea, to be tossed by the various tempest of such evils; and let them at some time confess what they do not wish, and let them not with mad tongues against God destroy themselves and deceive the unlearned.

[XXXIII] Quod tamen nostra memoria recentissimo tempore Deus mirabiliter et misericorditer fecit, non cum gratiarum actione commemorant, sed, quantum in ipsis est, omnium si fieri potest hominum obliuione sepelire conantur; quod a nobis si tacebitur, similiter erimus ingrati. Cum Radagaisus, rex Gothorum, agmine ingenti et inmani iam in Vrbis uicinia constitutus Romanis ceruicibus inmineret, uno die tanta celeritate sic uictus est, ut ne uno quidem non dicam extincto, sed uulnerato Romanorum multo amplius quam centum milium prosterneretur eiuS exercituS atque ipse mox captus poena debita necaretur. Nam si ille tam impius cum tantis et tam impiis copiis Romam fuisset ingressus, cui pepercisset?

[33] Yet what God did in our own memory in the most recent time, wondrously and mercifully, they do not commemorate with thanksgiving, but, so far as in them lies, they endeavor, if it can be done, to bury it in the oblivion of all men; which, if we keep silence about it, we too shall likewise be ungrateful. When Radagaisus, king of the Goths, with an immense and monstrous column, already stationed in the neighborhood of the City, was looming over the necks of the Romans, in a single day he was so defeated with such celerity that, with not even one Roman— I do not say slain, but even wounded— far more than 100,000 of his army were laid low; and he himself, soon captured, was put to death with the due penalty. For if that impious man had entered Rome with such great and such impious forces, whom would he have spared?

quibus honorem locis martyrum detulisset? in qua persona Deum timeret? cuius non sanguinem fusum, cuius pudicitiam uellet intactam?

to what places of the martyrs would he have rendered honor? in what person would he have feared God? whose blood would he not have poured out, whose pudicity would he wish left intact?

Quas autem isti pro diis suis uoces haberent, quanta insultatione iactarent, quod ille ideo uicisset, ideo tanta potuisset, quia cotidianis sacrificiis placabat atque inuitabat deos, quod Romanos facere Christiana religio non sinebat? Nam propinquante iam illo his locis, ubi nutu summae maiestatis oppressus est, cum eius fama ubique crebresceret, nobis apud Carthaginem dicebatur, hoc credere spargere iactare paganos, quod ille diis amicis protegentibus et opitulantibus, quibus immolare cotidie ferebatur, uinci omnino non posset ab eis, qui talia diis Romanis sacra non facerent nec fieri a quoquam permitterent. Et non agunt miseri gratias tantae misericordiae Dei, qui cum statuisset inruptione barbarica grauiora <pati> dignos mores hominum castigare, indignationem suam tanta mansuetudine temperauit, ut illum primo faceret mirabiliter uinci, ne ad infirmorum animos euertendos gloria daretur daemonibus, quibus eum supplicare constabat; deinde ab his barbaris Roma caperetur, qui contra omnem consuetudinem gestorum ante bellorum ad loca sancta confugientes Christianae religionis reuerentia tuerentur ipsisque daemonibus atque impiorum sacrificiorum ritibus, de quibus ille praesumpserat, sic aduersarentur nomine Christiano, ut longe atrocius bellum cum eis quam cum hominibus gerere uiderentur; ita uerus dominus gubernatorque rerum et Romanos cum misericordia flagellauit, et tam incredibiliter uictis supplicatoribus daemonum nec saluti rerum praesentium necessarla esse sacrificia illa monstrauit, ut ab his qui non peruicaciter contendunt, sed prudenter adtendunt, nec propter praesentes necessitates uera religio deseratur, et magis aeternae uitae fidelissima expectatione teneatur.

But what voices these men would have on behalf of their gods, with how great an insultation they would vaunt, that he therefore had conquered, had therefore been able to do such great things, because by daily sacrifices he was appeasing and inviting the gods—something which the Christian religion did not allow the Romans to do? For, as he was already approaching those places where by the nod of the highest majesty he was crushed, while his fame everywhere was growing, it was being said to us at Carthage that the pagans believed, broadcast, and bragged this: that he, with friendly gods protecting and helping him, to whom he was reported to sacrifice daily, could by no means be conquered by those who would not perform such sacred rites for the Roman gods nor permit them to be done by anyone. And the wretches do not render thanks for the so great mercy of God, who, when he had determined by a barbarian irruption to chastise the morals of men who were deserving to suffer more grievous things, tempered his indignation with such mildness that he first caused that man to be wondrously defeated, lest glory be given to the daemons, to whom it was evident he made supplication, for the overthrowing of the minds of the weak; then that Rome should be taken by those barbarians who, contrary to all the custom of wars waged before, protected by reverence for the Christian religion those fleeing to the holy places, and thus opposed, in the name of Christ, the very daemons and the rites of impious sacrifices, on which he had presumed, that they seemed to wage a far more atrocious war with them than with men. Thus the true lord and governor of things both scourged the Romans with mercy, and, with the supplicants of daemons so incredibly conquered, showed that those sacrifices were not necessary even for the safety of present affairs, so that by those who do not contend pervicaciously but attend prudently, neither is the true religion deserted on account of present necessities, and rather it is held by the most faithful expectation of eternal life.

[XXIV] Neque enim nos Christianos quosdam imperatores ideo felices dicimus, quia uel diutius imperarunt uel imperantes filios morte placida reliquerunt, uel hostes rei publicae domuerunt uel inimicos ciues aduersus se insurgentes et cauere et opprimere potuerunt. Haec et alia uitae huius aerumnosae uel munera uel solacia quidam etiam cultores daemonum accipere meruerunt, qui non pertinent ad regnum Dei, quo pertinent isti; et hoc ipsius misericordia factum est,neabillo ista qui in eum crederent uelut summa bona desiderarent. Sed felices eos dicimus, si iuste imperant, si inter linguas sublimiter honorantium et obsequia nimis humiliter salutantium non extolluntur, et se homines esse meminerunt; si suam potestatem ad Dei cultum maxime dilatandum maiestati eius famulam faciunt; si Deum timent diligunt colunt; si plus amant illud regnum, ubi non timent habere consortes; si tardius uindicant, facile ignoscunt; si eandem uindictam pro necessitate regendae tuendaeque rei publicae, non pro saturandis inimicitiarum odiis exerunt;si eandem uemam non ad inpunitatem iniquitatis, sed ad spem correctionis indulgent; si, quod aspere coguntur plerumque decernere, misericordiae lenitate et beneficiorum largitate compensant; si luxuria tanto eis est castigatior, quanto po sset esse liberior; si malunt cupiditatibus prauls quam qulbuslibet gentibus imperare et si haec olnnia faciunt non propter ardorem inanis gloriae, sed propter caritatem felicitatis aeternae; si prosuis peccatis humilitatis et miserationis et orationis sacrificium Deo suo uero immolare non neglegunt.

[24] For we do not call certain Christian emperors happy on this account, that they either ruled for a longer time, or, while ruling, left sons behind by a peaceful death, or subdued the enemies of the commonwealth, or were able both to beware of and to crush hostile fellow-citizens rising up against them. These and other gifts or consolations of this toilsome life some even worshipers of daemons have merited to receive, who do not pertain to the kingdom of God to which these pertain; and this too was done by His mercy, lest those who believed in Him should desire such things from Him as if they were the highest goods. But we call them happy if they rule justly, if amid the tongues of those loftily honoring and the obeisances of those saluting too humbly they are not exalted, and remember that they are men; if they make their power the handmaid to His majesty for the enlarging most of the worship of God; if they fear, love, and worship God; if they love more that kingdom where they do not fear to have partners; if they avenge more slowly, they forgive easily; if they wield that same vengeance for the necessity of governing and guarding the commonwealth, not for the glutting of the hatreds of enmities; if they grant that same pardon not to the impunity of iniquity, but to the hope of correction; if they compensate what they are often compelled to decree harshly by the mildness of mercy and the largess of benefactions; if luxury is the more chastised in them, the more it could be freer; if they prefer to be set over their desires rather than to rule any peoples; and if they do all these things not because of the ardor of empty glory, but because of the charity of eternal felicity; if, for their own sins, they do not neglect to immolate to their true God the sacrifice of humility and compassion and prayer.

Tales Christianos imperatores dicimus esse felices interim spe,postea re ipsa futuros, cum id quod expectamus aduenerit.

We say that such Christian emperors are happy for the interim in hope, and afterwards will be so in fact, when that which we expect has arrived.

[XXV] Nam bonus Deus, ne homines, qui eum crederent propter aeternam uitam colendum, has sublimitates et regna terrena existimarent posse neminem consequi, nisi daemonibus supplicet, quod hi spiritus in talibus multum ualerent, Constantinum imperatorem non supplicantem daemonibus, sed ipsum uerum Deum colentem tantis terrenis impleuit muneribus. quanta optare nullus auderet; cui etiam condere ciuitatem Romano imperio sociam, uelut ipsius Romae filiam, sed sine aliquo daemonum templo simulacroque concessit. Diu imperauit, uniuersum orbem Romanum unus Augustus tenuit et defendit; in administrandis et gerendis bellis uictoriosissimus fuit, in tyrannis opprimendis per omnia prosperatus est, grandaeuus aegritudine et senectute defunctus est, filios imperantes reliquit.

[25] For the good God, lest men who would believe that He is to be worshiped on account of eternal life should think that these sublimities and earthly kingdoms could be attained by no one unless he supplicate daemons, since these spirits were very strong in such matters, filled the emperor Constantine—not supplicating daemons, but worshiping the true God Himself—with such earthly gifts as no one would dare to desire; to whom He also granted to found a city allied to the Roman empire, as it were a daughter of Rome herself, but without any temple or image of daemons. He reigned long; as a single Augustus he held and defended the entire Roman world; in administering and waging wars he was most victorious; in suppressing tyrants he prospered in all things; very old, he died of sickness and old age; he left his sons reigning.

Sed rursus ne imperator quisquam ideo Christianus esset, ut felicitatem Constantini mereretur, cum propter uitam aeternam quisque debeat esse Christianus: Iouianum multo citius quam Iulianum abstulit; Gratianum ferro tyrannico permisit interimi, longe quidem mitius quam magnum Pompeium in colentem uelut Romanos deos. Nam ille uindicari a Catone non potuit, quem ciuilis belli quodam modo heredem reliquerat; iste autem, quamuis piae animae solacia talia non requirant, a Theodosio uindicatus est, quem regni participem fecerat, cum paruulum haberet fratrem auidior fidae societatis quam nimiae potestatis.

But again, lest any emperor should on that account be a Christian, in order that he might merit the felicity of Constantine—since for the sake of eternal life each one ought to be a Christian—He took away Jovian much sooner than Julian; He permitted Gratian to be slain by a tyrannical sword, indeed far more mildly than the great Pompey, a worshiper, as it were, of the Roman gods. For that man could not be avenged by Cato, whom he had in a certain manner left as the heir of the civil war; but this one, although such solaces are not required for a pious soul, was avenged by Theodosius, whom he had made a participant in the rule, since he had a very small brother, more eager for faithful society than for excessive power.

[XXVI] Vnde et ille non solum uiuo seruauit quam debebat fidem, uerum etiam post eius mortem pulsum ab eius interfectore Maximo Valentinianum eius paruulum fratrem in sui partes imperii tamquam Christianus excepit pupillum, paterno custodiuit affectu, quem destitutum omnibus opibus nullo negotio posset auferre, si latius regnandi cupiditate magis quam benefaciendi caritate flagraret; unde potius eum seruata eius imperatoria dignitate susceptum ipsa humanitate et gratia consolatus est. Deinde cum Maximum terribilem faceret ille successus, hic in angustiis curarum suarum non est lapsus ad curiositates sacrilegas atque inlicitas, sed ad Iohannem in Aegypti heremo constitutum, quem Dei seruum prophetandi spiritu praeditum fama crebrescente didicerat, misit atque ab eo nuntium uictoriae certissimum accepit. Mox tyranni Maximi extinctor Valentinianum puerum imperii sui partibus, unde fugatus fuerat, cum misericordissima ueneratione restituit, eoque siue per insidias siue quo alio pacto uel casu proxime extincto alium tyrannum Eugenium, qui in illius imperatoris locum non legitime fuerat subrogatus, accepto rursus prophetico responso fide certus oppressit, contra cuius robustissimum exercitum magis orando quam feriendo pugnauit.

[26] Whence also he not only, while he was living, kept the faith which he owed to him, but even after his death he received Valentinian, his very little brother, driven out by his killer Maximus, into his own parts of the empire as a Christian, as a ward; he guarded him with paternal affection, whom, destitute of all resources, he could with no trouble have done away with, if he had burned more with the desire of reigning more widely than with the charity of well-doing; whence rather, with his imperial dignity preserved, having taken him in, he consoled him by his very humanity and grace. Then, when that success made Maximus terrible, he, in the straits of his cares, did not lapse into sacrilegious and illicit curiosities, but sent to John established in the desert of Egypt, whom he had learned by the report growing frequent to be a servant of God endowed with the spirit of prophesying, and from him he received a most certain message of victory. Soon, as the extinguisher of the tyrant Maximus, he restored the boy Valentinian with most merciful veneration to the parts of his empire whence he had been driven; and when he shortly thereafter had been extinguished, whether by treachery or by some other way or by chance, he crushed another tyrant, Eugenius, who had been unlawfully subrogated in that emperor’s place, having again received a prophetic response, certain in faith, and against his most robust army he fought more by praying than by striking.

Milites nobis qui aderant rettulerunt extorta sibi esse de manibus quaecumque iaculabantur, cum a Theodosii partibus in aduersarios uehemens uentus iret et non solum quaecumque in eos iaciebantur concitatissime raperet, uerum etiam ipsorum tela in eorum corpora retorqueret. Vnde et poeta Claudianus, quamuis a Christi nomine alienus, in eius tamen laudibus dixit:

The soldiers who were with us reported that whatever they were hurling was wrested from their hands, when from Theodosius’s side a vehement wind went against the adversaries and not only snatched up with the most impetuous speed whatever was being cast at them, but even retorted their own missiles upon their bodies. Whence also the poet Claudian, although alien from the name of Christ, yet in his praises said:

O nimium dilecte Deo, cui militat aether,

O exceedingly beloved by God, for whom the aether wars,

Et coniurati ueniunt ad classica uenti! Victor autem, sicut crediderat et praedixerat, Iouis simulacra, quae aduersus eum fuerant nescio quibus ritibus uelut, consecrata et in Alpibus constituta, deposuit, eorumque fulmina, quod aurea fuissent, iocantibus (quod illa laetitia permittebat) cursoribus et se ab eis fulminari uelle dicentibus hilariter benigneque donauit. Inimicorum suorum filios, quos, non ipsius iussu, belli abstulerat impetus, etiam nondum Christianos ad ecclesiam confugientes, Christianos hac occasione fieri uoluit et Christiana caritate dilexit, nec priuauit rebus et auxit honoribus.

And the winds, sworn in concert, come to the battle‑trumpets! But the Victor, just as he had believed and had foretold, took down the simulacra of Jove, which had been, against him, as if consecrated by I‑know‑not‑what rites and set up in the Alps, and their thunderbolts, because they were golden, he cheerfully and kindly bestowed upon the couriers who were joking (as that joy permitted) and saying that they wished to be thunder‑struck by them. The sons of his enemies, whom, not by his order, the onrush of war had carried off, even though not yet Christians, fleeing for refuge to the church, he wished on this occasion to become Christians and he loved with Christian charity; nor did he deprive them of their goods, and he increased them in honors.

In neminem post uictoriam priuatas inimicitias ualere permisit. Bella ciuilia non sicut Cinna et Marius et Sulla et alii tales nec finita finire uoluerunt, sed magis doluit exorta quam cuiquam nocere uoluit terminata. Inter haec omnia ex ipso initio imperii sui non quieuit iustissimis et misericordissimis legibus aduersus impios laboranti ecclesiae subuenire, quam Valens haereticus fauens Arrianis uehementer adflixerat; cuius ecclesiae se membrum esse magis quam in terris regnare gaudebat.

He permitted private enmities to prevail against no one after the victory. He did not conduct the civil wars as did Cinna and Marius and Sulla and others of that sort, who did not wish to end them even when they were ended; rather, he grieved that they had arisen than wished, once they were terminated, to harm anyone. Amid all these things, from the very beginning of his reign he did not cease, by the most just and most merciful laws, to come to the aid of the church laboring against the impious, which Valens the heretic, favoring the Arians, had vehemently afflicted; and he rejoiced to be a member of that church rather than to reign upon the earth.

Simulacra gentilium ubique euertenda praecepit, satis intellegens nec terrena munera in daemoniorum, sed in Dei ueri esse posita potestate. Quid autem fuit eius religiosa humilitate mirabilius, quando in Thessalonicensium grauissimum scelus, cui iam episcopis intercedentibus promiserat indulgentiam, tumultu quorundam, qui ei cohaerebant, uindicare compulsus est et ecclesiastica cohercitus disciplina sic egit paenitentiam, ut imperatoriam celsitudinem pro illo populus orans magis fleret uidendo prostratam, quam peccando timeret iratam? Haec ille secum et si qua similia, quae commemorare longum est, bona opera tulit ex isto temporali uapore cuiuslibet culminis et sublimitatis humanae; quorum operum merces est aeterna felicitas, cuius dator est Deus solis ueraciter piis.

He commanded that the images of the pagans be overthrown everywhere, well understanding that earthly gifts are set not in the power of demons, but in that of the true God. What, moreover, was more marvelous than his religious humility, when, regarding the very grave crime of the Thessalonians, to which he had already promised indulgence with bishops interceding, he was compelled by the tumult of certain men who cleaved to him to exact vengeance, and, constrained by ecclesiastical discipline, did penitence in such a way that the people, praying for him, wept more at seeing the imperial highness prostrated than they feared his wrath when sinning? These good works he carried with him, and, if there were any like them—which it is long to recount—out of this temporal vapor of whatever summit and human sublimity; the reward of which works is eternal felicity, whose giver is God to the truly pious alone.

Cetera uero uitae huius uel fastigia uel subsidia, sicut ipsum mundum lucem auras, terras aquas fructus ipsiusque hominis animam corpus, sensus mentem uitam, bonis malisque largitur; in quibus est etiam quaelibet imperii magnitudo, quam pro temporum gubernatione dispensat.

But the rest of this life, whether its heights or its supports, just as the world itself, light, airs, lands, waters, fruits, and of man himself the soul, the body, the senses, the mind, the life, he grants in largess to both the good and the evil; among which is also whatever magnitude of empire, which he dispenses according to the governance of the times.

Proinde iam etiam illis respondendum esse uideo, qui manifestissimis documentis, quibus ostenditur, quod ad ista temporalia, quae sola stulti habere concupiscunt, nihil deorum falsorum numerositas prosit, confutati atque conuicti connantur asserere non propter uitae praesentis utilitatem, sed propter eam, quae post mortem futura est, colendos deos. Nam istis, qui propter amicitias mundi huius uolunt uana colere et non se permitti puerilibus sensibus conqueruntur, his quinque libris satis arbitror esse responsum. Quorum tres priores cum edidissem et in multorum manibus esse coepissent, audiui quosdam nescio quam aduersus eos responsionem scribendo praeparare.

Accordingly, I now also see that an answer must be given to those who, refuted and convicted by most manifest documents showing that, with respect to these temporals—which alone the foolish long to have—the numerosity of false gods profits nothing, attempt to assert that the gods are to be worshiped not on account of the utility of the present life, but on account of that which is to be after death. For to those who, on account of the friendships of this world, wish to worship vain things and complain that they are not permitted to puerile sensibilities, I judge that in these five books sufficient answer has been given. Of which, when I had published the first three and they had begun to be in the hands of many, I heard that certain persons were preparing I know not what response against them by writing.

Deinde ad me perlatum est, quod iam scripserint, sed tempus quaerant, quo sine periculo possint edere. Quos admoneo, non optent quod eis non expedit. Facile est enim cuiquam uideri respondisse, qui tacere noluerit.

Then it was conveyed to me that they have already written, but are seeking a time at which they can publish without peril. I admonish them not to opt for what is not expedient for them. For it is easy for anyone to seem to have responded who has been unwilling to keep silent.

Aut quid est loquacius uanitate? quae non ideo potest quod ueritas, quia, si uoluerit, etiam plus potest clamare quam ueritas. Sed considerent omnia diligenter, et si forte sine studio partium iudicantes talia esse perspexerint, quae potius exagitari quam conuelli possint garrulitate inpudentissima et quasi satyrica uel mimica leuitate, cohibeant suas nugas et potius a prudentibus emendari quam laudari ab inpudentibus eligant.

Or what is more loquacious than vanity? which is not therefore able to do what truth can, because, if it should will, it can even cry out louder than truth. But let them consider everything diligently, and if perchance, judging without party-spirit, they have perceived that such things are of a sort that can rather be harried than torn up by most impudent garrulity and by a kind of satyric or mimic levity, let them restrain their trifles and choose rather to be corrected by the prudent than to be praised by the impudent.

Nam si non ad libertatem uera dicendi, sed ad licentiam maledicendi tempus expectant, absit ut eis eueniat quod ait Tullius de quodam, qui peccandi licentia felix appellabatur: O miserum, cui peccare licebat! Vnde quisquis est, qui maledicendi licentia felicem se putat, multo erit felicior, si hoc illi omnino non liceat, cum possit deposita inanitate iactantiae etiam isto tempore tamquam studio consulendi quidquid uoluerit contradicere et, quantum possunt, ab eis quos consulit amica disputatione honeste grauiter libere quod oportet audire.

For if they are awaiting not the liberty of speaking truth, but the license of reviling, far be it that there befall them what Tullius says about a certain man who was called happy by the license of sinning: O wretched man, to whom it was permitted to sin! Whence whoever he is who thinks himself happy by the license of reviling will be much happier if this is not permitted to him at all, since, the inanity of boastfulness laid aside, even at this time he can, as though with a zeal for consulting, contradict whatever he wishes and, so far as they are able, hear from those whom he consults—by friendly disputation—what ought to be heard, honorably, weightily, and freely.