The Divine Institutes

Our discourse, therefore, will be established concerning religion and divine matters. For if certain very great orators, like veterans of their profession, having run through the works of their activities, gave themselves at last to philosophy and considered it the most fitting rest from their labors—if they tormented their minds in the investigation of things that could not be found, so as to seem to have sought not so much leisure as business, and indeed far more troublesome than that in which they had previously been engaged—how much more justly shall I betake myself to that pious, true, and divine wisdom, as to some most safe harbor, in which all things are easy to say, pleasant to hear, easy to understand, honorable to undertake?

And if certain prudent men, arbiters of equity, composed and published Institutes of civil law, by which they might settle the disputes and contentions of disagreeing citizens: how much better and more rightly shall we pursue in writing the divine Institutes; in which we shall speak not of dripping eaves, or of keeping off water, or of joining battle, but of hope, of life, of salvation, of immortality, of God, so that we may put to rest deadly superstitions and most shameful errors? This work I now begin under the auspices of your name, Constantine, Greatest Emperor, who, first among Roman princes, having rejected errors, both acknowledged and honored the majesty of the one and true God.

For when that most blessed day dawned upon the world, on which the most high God raised you to the blessed height of empire, you inaugurated a reign salutary and desirable to all with a glorious beginning, when, restoring justice that had been overthrown and abolished, you expiated the most dreadful crime of others: for which deed God will grant you happiness, virtue, and long life, so that with the same justice with which you began as a young man, you may hold the helm of the commonwealth even as an old man, and hand on to your children, as you yourself received it from your father, the guardianship of the Roman name. For upon the wicked who still rage against the just in other parts of the world, the same Almighty will repay the reward of their crime the more vehemently the longer it is delayed: because as He is the most indulgent father toward the pious, so He is the most righteous judge against the impious.

Desiring to defend His religion and divine worship, whom should I rather address, whom should I speak to, than him through whom justice and wisdom have been restored to human affairs? Setting aside, therefore, the authors of this earthly philosophy who bring nothing certain, let us approach the straight path: whom indeed, if I thought them sufficiently fit guides to living well, I myself would follow, and would urge others to follow. But since they disagree among themselves with great contention, and are for the most part at variance with themselves, it is clear that their way is by no means direct: seeing that each one has marked out his own paths as he pleased, and has left great confusion to those seeking truth. But we, who have received the mystery of the true religion, since truth has been revealed by God, since we follow God as the teacher of wisdom and guide of truth, we call all people without any distinction of sex or age to the heavenly nourishment.

For there is no food sweeter to the mind than the knowledge of truth, to the defense and illustration of which we have destined seven volumes, although this matter is a work of almost infinite and immense scope: so that if anyone should wish to expand and set it forth most fully, such abundance of material would overflow for him that neither would a book find its measure nor speech find its end. But we shall therefore gather everything briefly; because the things we are about to bring forward are so clear and lucid that it seems more remarkable that truth should appear so obscure to men, and especially to those who are commonly considered wise, or because we shall only need to instruct men, that is, to call them back from the error in which they are entangled to a more upright way.

If we shall have achieved this, as I hope, we shall send them to that most abundant and full fountain of doctrine itself, by whose draught and drink they may quench the thirst conceived in their inmost parts, and extinguish the burning. And all things will be easy, ready, and manifest to them: provided only they are not reluctant to lend patience for reading or hearing to the receiving of the discipline of wisdom. For many, clinging stubbornly to vain superstitions, harden themselves against manifest truth, having deserved not so much well of their religions, which they wrongly defend, as ill of themselves: who, when they have the straight path, follow devious windings; they forsake the level way, so as to slip over a precipice; they abandon the light, so as to lie blind and helpless in darkness. They must be counseled not to fight against themselves, and to be willing at last to be freed from inveterate errors: which they will surely do, if they have at some point fully perceived why they were born.

For this is the cause of depravity: ignorance of oneself; which if anyone, having come to know the truth, shall have dispelled, he will know to what end things are to be referred, and in what manner his life is to be lived. The sum of this knowledge I briefly circumscribe: that no religion is to be undertaken without wisdom, nor any wisdom approved without religion.

Having therefore undertaken the office of illuminating truth, I did not think it so necessary to take a beginning from that question which seems to be first by nature: whether there is a providence that watches over all things, or whether all things were made or are governed by chance. The author of this opinion is Democritus, its confirmer Epicurus. But also before him Protagoras, who called the gods into doubt; and afterward Diagoras, who excluded them; and certain others who did not think the gods to exist—what else did they accomplish, but that no providence was thought to exist? Yet both the other philosophers, and especially the Stoics, most sharply refuted them, teaching that the world could neither have been made without divine reason, nor could subsist unless it were governed by the highest reason.

But also Marcus Tullius, although he was a defender of the Academic discipline, discoursed much and often on providence as the governor of things, confirming the arguments of the Stoics and himself bringing forward many new ones: which he does both in all the books of his philosophy, and especially in those which are on the Nature of the Gods. Nor indeed was it difficult to refute the falsehoods of a few men thinking perversely, by the testimony of peoples and nations not disagreeing on this one point. For there is no one so uncultured, of such savage manners, who, lifting his eyes to heaven, even if he does not know by whose providence all that is seen is governed, does not yet understand from the very greatness, motion, arrangement, constancy, usefulness, beauty, and order of things that there is some such providence: and that it cannot be that what subsists by wonderful reason should not have been furnished by some greater design.

And it is certainly most easy for us to pursue this part as copiously as one might wish. But because the matter has been much debated among philosophers, and sufficient answer seems to have been given to those who remove providence by clever and eloquent men, and because it is necessary to speak throughout this whole work which we have undertaken of the skill of divine providence in scattered passages, let us for the present omit this question, which is so connected with the rest that nothing seems able to be discussed by us without at the same time discussing providence.

Let the beginning of our work therefore be that consequent and second question: whether the world is governed by the power of one God, or of many? There is no one who is wise and reflects with himself who does not understand that there is one, who both founded all things and governs them with the same power by which He founded them. For what need is there of many for sustaining the governance of the world?—unless perhaps we suppose that if there are more, each one individually has less strength and power. Which indeed those do who wish there to be many; because they must necessarily be weak: seeing that each one individually, without the help of the rest, could not sustain the helm of so great a mass. But God, who is the eternal mind, is in every respect of perfect and consummate power. If this is true, He must be one. For absolute power or strength retains its own proper firmness.

That moreover is to be considered solid to which nothing can be taken away; that perfect to which nothing can be added.

Who would doubt that a king is most powerful who holds dominion over the whole world? And not without reason: since all things everywhere are his; since all resources from every quarter are gathered to him alone. But if several divide the world among themselves, each will certainly have less wealth, less strength, as each confines himself within his allotted portion. In the same way, if the gods are many, they will be less powerful, since others will possess just as much in themselves. But the nature of power can be more perfect in him in whom the whole resides, than in him in whom there is but a small part of the whole. God, however, if he is perfect—and because he is perfect, as he ought to be—can only be one, so that all things are in him. The powers and authorities of the gods, therefore, must necessarily be weaker: because each will lack as much as exists in the rest; and so the more numerous they are, the lesser they will be.

What of the fact that that supreme power over all things and divine force cannot even once be divided? For whatever admits of division must necessarily also admit of destruction. But if destruction is far from God, because he is incorruptible and eternal, it follows that divine power cannot be divided. God, therefore, is one, if nothing else can exist that possesses an equal measure of power; and yet those who think there are many gods say that offices have been distributed among them—concerning all of which we shall dispute in the proper place. This much, meanwhile, which pertains to the present passage, I hold fast. If they have distributed offices among themselves, the matter comes back to the same point: that any one of them is insufficient for all things. He will therefore no longer be perfect, who, when the rest are idle, cannot govern all things. Thus it comes about that for ruling the world there is more need of the perfect power of one than of the weakness of many.

But he who thinks that so great a magnitude cannot be governed by one is mistaken. For he does not understand how great the force and power of divine majesty is, if he supposes that the singular God who was able to make the world cannot also rule what he made. But if he conceives in his mind how immense is the magnitude of this divine work—that although previously nothing existed, yet by the power and counsel of God it was fashioned out of nothing; a work which could only have been begun and completed by one—he will then understand that it is far easier for one to rule what has been established by one.

Perhaps someone may say that so immense a work as the world could not have been fashioned even by many: however many and however great he makes them, whatever magnitude, power, strength, and majesty he has placed in many, all of that I bring together into one and say it exists in one; so that there is in him as much of these things as can neither be thought nor spoken. In this matter, since we fail both in sense and in words—because neither does the human breast contain the light of so great an understanding, nor does mortal tongue admit the expression of such great things—we ought to understand and say this very thing. I see again what can be said on the other side: that those many are such as we wish the one to be. But this can in no way come to pass, because the power of each individual will not be able to advance further, being met by the powers of the rest.

For it is necessary that each either cannot cross his own boundaries, or if he has crossed them, he drives another out of his own territory. Those who believe there are many gods do not see that it is possible for some to will different things; from which dispute and strife would arise among them—just as Homer depicted the gods warring among themselves, when some wished Troy to be taken and others resisted. The world must therefore be governed by the will of one. For unless the power of individual parts is referred to a single providence, the whole itself cannot hold together; with each caring for nothing beyond what properly pertains to himself—just as military affairs cannot be managed unless there is one commander and ruler.

But if in one army there were as many commanders as there are legions, cohorts, wedges, and wings, first the battle line could not be drawn up, with each refusing danger; nor could it easily be governed or kept in order, since all would use their own separate counsels, by the diversity of which they would do more harm than good: so too in this governance of the natural order, unless there is one to whom the care of the whole sum of things is referred, all things will be dissolved and will fall to ruin.

But to say that the world is governed by the will of many is like saying that in one body there are many minds: because the services of the members are many and varied; so that individual minds are believed to govern the individual senses of the body, and likewise the many emotions by which we are usually moved—to anger, to desire, to joy, to fear, to pity—so that in all of these an equal number of minds are thought to be at work: which if anyone were indeed to say, he would appear not even to have the one mind that exists. But if in one body a single mind possesses the governance of so many things and attends to all of them simultaneously; why should anyone suppose that the world cannot be governed by one, but can be governed by many? Because those who assert the existence of gods understand this, they say that the gods preside over individual things and parts, yet in such a way that there is one supreme ruler.

Already, then, the rest will not be gods but attendants and ministers, whom that one greatest and most powerful of all has set over these offices; and they themselves will serve his command and nod. If all are not equal, then not all of them are gods. For that which serves and that which rules cannot be the same thing. For if God is the name of supreme power, he must be incorruptible, perfect, impassible, subject to nothing. Therefore those whom necessity compels to obey the one greatest God are not gods. But because those who think this are not deceived without cause, we shall disclose the reason for this error a little later. Now let us confirm the unity of divine power by testimonies.

The prophets, who were very many, proclaim one God, they speak of one: inasmuch as they, filled with the spirit of the one God, foretold things to come with a voice equal and harmonious. But those who are strangers to truth do not think these men are to be believed. For they say that those were not divine but human voices. Evidently, because they proclaimed one God, they were either mad or deceitful. Yet we see that their prophecies have been fulfilled and are being fulfilled daily; and a divination consistent in one judgment teaches that they were not frenzied. For who, with mind disordered, could not only foretell future things, but even speak coherently? Were they then deceitful, who spoke such things? What is more foreign to them than a motive for deception, since they restrained others from all fraud? For they were sent by God for this very purpose: to be both heralds of his majesty and correctors of human wickedness.

Moreover, the will to fabricate and to lie belongs to those who seek wealth, who desire gain; which thing was far removed from those holy men. For they performed the office entrusted to them in such a way that, having abandoned all things necessary for the sustenance of life, they labored not only for the future but not even for the day, content with the food provided for the moment which God would supply: and these men not only had no profit, but also suffered torments and death. For the precepts of justice are bitter to the vicious and the evildoers. And so those whose sins were rebuked and forbidden put them to death with the most cruel torments. Therefore, from those in whom the desire for gain was absent, the will and motive for deception was also absent. What of the fact that some of them were princes or even kings, upon whom no suspicion of greed and fraud could fall, and yet they proclaimed the one God with the same divination as the rest?

But let us set aside the testimonies of the prophets, lest the proof seem less adequate from those who are not believed at all. Let us come to the authors; and let us call as witnesses to the proof of truth those very ones whom they are accustomed to use against us—I mean the poets and philosophers. From these we must prove that there is one God: not because they had knowledge of the truth; but because the force of truth itself is so great that no one can be so blind as not to see the divine brightness pressing itself upon his eyes. The poets, therefore, although they have adorned the gods in their verses and magnified their deeds with the highest praises, yet very frequently confess that all things are contained and governed by one spirit or mind.

Orpheus, who is the most ancient of the poets and contemporary with the gods themselves (since he is said to have sailed among the Argonauts with the sons of Tyndareus and Hercules), calls the true and great God πρωτόγονον, that is, firstborn; because before him nothing was begotten, but all things were generated by him: he also names him φάνητα; because when as yet nothing existed, he first appeared and came forth from the infinite. Whose origin and nature, because he could not conceive it in his mind, he said was born from the boundless air: The firstborn, shining son of the boundless air. For he had nothing greater to say. He says that this one is the parent of all the gods, for whose sake he founded heaven, and provided for his children that they might have a dwelling and a common abode: he built for the immortals an imperishable house. Led therefore by nature and reason, he understood that there was a most excellent power, the founder of heaven and earth.

For he could not say that Jupiter was the first principle of things, since he was born of Saturn; nor Saturn himself, who was said to have been born of heaven: but to establish heaven as the first God he did not dare, because he saw it was an element of the world, which itself had need of an author. This reasoning led him to that firstborn God, to whom he assigns and attributes the primacy.

Homer could give us nothing that pertains to truth, since he wrote of human rather than divine matters. Hesiod could have, since he encompassed the genealogy of the gods in the work of a single book. Yet he gave nothing, taking his beginning not from God the creator, but from chaos, which is the confused mass of rude and disordered matter: when he ought first to have explained whence, when, how chaos itself began to exist or to take form. Doubtless, just as all things were arranged, ordered, and made by some craftsman: so the matter itself must necessarily have been fashioned by someone. Who then made it, if not God, to whose power all things are subject? But he fled from this while shrinking from the truth he did not know. For it was not by the inspiration of the Muses, as he wished to appear, that he poured forth that poem on Helicon; but he had come prepared and ready.

Among our own, Maro was first and was not far from the truth; whose words concerning the supreme God, whom he named mind and spirit, are these: And lest anyone by chance be ignorant of who that spirit was, who held such great power, he declared it in another place, saying: Ovid also, at the beginning of his celebrated work, without any concealment of the name, acknowledges that the world was fashioned by God, whom he calls the maker of the world, the artificer of things. Now if either Orpheus, or these our own poets, had maintained forever what they perceived under the guidance of nature, they would have held, with truth grasped, the same doctrine which we follow. But enough of poets. Let us come to the philosophers, whose authority is weightier and whose judgment more certain; because they are believed to have devoted themselves not to invented matters, but to the investigation of truth.

Thales of Miletus, who was one of the number of the seven wise men, and who is reported to have been the first of all to inquire into natural causes, said that water is that from which all things were born; and that God is the mind which formed all things out of water. Thus he placed the matter of things in moisture; the principle and cause of birth he established in God. Pythagoras defined what God is in this way: "A soul, moving through and diffused throughout all parts of the world and all of nature; from which all animals that are born receive life." Anaxagoras said that God is an infinite mind, which moves by itself. Antisthenes said that there are indeed many gods among the peoples, yet one natural God, the artificer of the whole sum of things. Cleanthes and Anaximenes say that the ether is the supreme God; with which opinion our poet agreed. Chrysippus calls the natural force endowed with divine reason, and sometimes divine necessity, God.

Likewise Zeno calls him the divine and natural law. The opinion of all these, though uncertain, nevertheless tends to the same point, that they agree there is one providence. For whether you say nature, or ether, or reason, or mind, or fatal necessity, or divine law, or anything else; it is the same as what is called by us God. Nor does the diversity of names stand in the way, since by the very meaning all things are resolved into one. Aristotle, though he disagrees with himself, and both says and thinks things that contradict one another, nevertheless testifies that one mind presides over the world as supreme. Plato, who is judged the wisest of all, plainly and openly defends monarchy; and calls it not ether, or reason, or nature, but, as it truly is, God; and that this world, so perfect and wonderful, was fashioned by him.

Cicero, who followed and imitated him in very many things, frequently confesses God, and calls him supreme in those books which he wrote on the Laws; and argues that the world is governed by him, when he disputes on the Nature of the Gods, in this manner: "Nothing is more excellent than God; therefore the world must necessarily be governed by him. God therefore is obedient or subject to no nature; he himself therefore governs all nature." But what God is, he defines in the Consolation: "Nor indeed can God himself, as he is understood by us, be understood in any other way than as a certain mind, free and unbound, separated from all mortal composition, perceiving and moving all things." Annaeus Seneca also, who among the Romans was the most keen of the Stoics, how often does he extol the supreme God with deserved praise!

For when he was discoursing on untimely death: "Do you not understand," he said, "the authority and majesty of your judge, the ruler of the lands and sky and of all the gods, God, upon whom those divine powers, which we individually adore and worship, are dependent." Likewise in the Exhortations: "When he was laying the first foundations of that most beautiful structure, and was beginning that work than which nature knows nothing greater or better; that all things might proceed under their own leaders, although he had extended himself through the whole body, yet he begot gods as ministers of his kingdom." And how many other things similar to ours he spoke concerning God: which I now defer, because they are more fitting for other places.

Now it is enough to show that men of the highest genius touched upon the truth and almost grasped it; had not custom, made foolish by perverse opinions, dragged them back, by which they both supposed there were other gods, and believed that those things which God made for the use of man, as though they were endowed with sense, ought to be held as gods and worshipped.

Now let us pass to divine testimonies: but first I will bring forward one which is akin to divine, both on account of its very great antiquity, and because he whom I shall name was translated from men into the gods. In Cicero, C. Cotta the pontiff, disputing against the Stoics concerning religions and the variety of opinions which are wont to exist about the gods, in order to render all things uncertain after the manner of the Academics, says that there were five Mercuries; and having enumerated four in order, says that the fifth was he by whom Argus was slain, and that for this reason he fled into Egypt, and gave the Egyptians laws and letters. Him the Egyptians call Thoyth, from whom the first month of their year, that is September, received its name among them. The same man founded a town, which is still called in Greek Ἑρμόπολις; and the Pheneatae worship him with religious reverence.

Although he was a man, yet he was most ancient, and most fully instructed in every kind of learning: so much so that the knowledge of many things and arts imposed upon him the surname of Trismegistus. He wrote books, and indeed many, pertaining to the knowledge of divine things, in which he asserts the majesty of the supreme and singular God, and calls him by the same names as we do, God and Father. And lest anyone should seek his name, he said he is ἀνώνυμος; because he has no need of the property of a name, on account of his very unity. These are his own words: God is one, and the One has no need of a name; for the One who truly is has no name. God therefore has no name, because he alone is; nor is there need of a proper designation, unless the distinction required by a multitude demands that each person be marked by his own sign and appellation. But to God, because he is always one, the proper name is God.

It remains to bring forward testimonies from oracles and sacred verses, which are much more certain. For perhaps those against whom we contend think that neither poets are to be believed, as inventors of vain fictions; nor philosophers, because they could err, since they too were men. M. Varro, than whom no one ever lived more learned, not even among the Greeks, much less among the Latins, in the books of divine things which he wrote to C. Caesar the pontifex maximus, when speaking of the fifteen men, says that the Sibylline books were not the work of one Sibyl; but that they are called by the one name Sibylline because all female prophets were called Sibyls by the ancients, either from the name of one Delphis, or from the declaring of the counsels of the gods.

For they called the gods σιούς, not θεούς, and counsel not βουλὴν but βυλὴν in the Aeolic manner of speech: and so the Sibyl was said to be named as it were σιοβυλή; moreover that there were ten Sibyls in number; and he enumerated all of them with the authors who wrote about each individually. The first was from Persia, of whom Nicanor made mention, who wrote the deeds of Alexander of Macedon. The second was the Libyan, whom Euripides mentions in the prologue of Lamia. The third was the Delphian, of whom Chrysippus speaks in that book which he composed on divination. The fourth was the Cimmerian in Italy, whom Naevius names in the books of the Punic War, and Piso in the Annals.

The fifth was the Erythraean, whom Apollodorus of Erythrae affirms was his own fellow citizen, and that she prophesied to the Greeks setting out for Troy, both that Troy would perish and that Homer would write falsehoods: the sixth the Samian, concerning whom Eratosthenes writes that he found it recorded in the ancient annals of the Samians: the seventh the Cumaean by name Amalthea, who is called by others Demophile or Herophile; and that she brought nine books to king Tarquinius Priscus, and demanded three hundred Philippics for them; and that the king, scorning the greatness of the price, laughed at the woman's madness: that she in the sight of the king burned three of them, and demanded the same price for the remaining ones: that Tarquinius thought the woman was much more mad.

That she again burned three others, and when she persisted in the same price, the king was moved, and bought the remaining ones for three hundred gold pieces: the number of which was afterwards increased, when the Capitol was rebuilt, because they were gathered from all cities both Italian and Greek, and especially Erythraean, and brought to Rome, under whatever Sibyl's name they may have been. The eighth was the Hellespontian, born in the Trojan territory, in the village of Marpessus, near the town of Gergithium; whom Heraclides Ponticus writes was of the times of Solon and Cyrus. The ninth was the Phrygian, who prophesied at Ancyra. The tenth was the Tiburtine, by name Albunea, who is worshipped at Tibur as a goddess, beside the banks of the river Anio, in whose pool her image is said to have been found, holding a book in her hand: whose oracles the Senate transferred to the Capitol.

The verses of all these Sibyls are both circulated and preserved, except those of the Cumaean, whose books are kept secret by the Romans, and they consider it lawful for no one to inspect them except the fifteen men. And there is one book belonging to each of them; which, because they are inscribed with the name of Sibyl, are believed to be the work of one; and they are confused together, nor can they be distinguished and assigned each to its own author: except in the case of the Erythraean, who both inserted her own true name into the poem, and foretold that she would be called Erythraean, although she was born at Babylon: but we too shall speak of the Sibyl without distinction, wherever it shall be necessary to make use of their testimonies.

All these Sibyls therefore proclaim one God; but most especially the Erythraean, who is held to be more celebrated and more noble among the rest: since Fenestella, a most diligent writer, speaking of the fifteen men, says that when the Capitol was restored, C. Curio the consul reported to the Senate that envoys should be sent to Erythrae, who might search out the verses of the Sibyl and bring them to Rome; and that accordingly P. Gabinius, M. Otacilius, and L. Valerius were sent, who brought to Rome about a thousand verses copied from private persons. The same thing we showed above that Varro said. In those verses therefore, which the envoys brought to Rome, these are the testimonies concerning one God: That he alone is the supreme God, who made the heaven and adorned it with lights.

Who, since he alone is the builder of the world and the artificer of those things of which it consists, or which are in it, she testifies that he alone ought to be worshipped: Likewise another Sibyl, whosoever she may be, when she said that she was bearing the voice of God to men, spoke thus: I would now set forth the testimonies of the rest, were it not that these suffice, and that I reserve those for more fitting places. But since we are defending the cause of truth before those who, straying from the truth, serve false religions, what kind of proof ought we more to employ against them, than to refute them by the testimonies of their own gods?

For Apollo, whom beyond all others they consider most divine and prophetic, when giving responses at Colophon—whither he had migrated from Delphi (I suppose), drawn by the pleasantness of Asia—replied to someone who asked who he was, or what God was at all, in twenty-one verses, of which this is the beginning: Self-born, untaught, motherless, unshaken, a name not known even by speech, dwelling in fire: this is God; we angels are but a small part of God. Can anyone suspect that this was said of Jupiter, who had both a mother and a name? What of the fact that that Mercurius thrice greatest, of whom I made mention above, calls God not only ἀμήτορα, as Apollo does, but also ἀπάτορα—because his origin is from no other source? For he cannot have been begotten by anyone, who himself begat all things. I have shown sufficiently (as I think) both by arguments and confirmed by witnesses what is in itself sufficiently clear: that there is One king of the world, one father, one God.

But perhaps someone will ask us that same question which Hortensius asks in Cicero: If God is one, what blessed solitude can there be? As though we, who say he is one, were saying he is desolate and solitary; for he has ministers, whom we call messengers. And that saying is true which I recalled above that Seneca wrote in his Exhortations—that God begat ministers of his kingdom. But these are neither gods, nor do they wish to be called gods or to be worshipped; since they do nothing beyond the command and will of God. Nor are they those who are commonly worshipped, whose number is both small and fixed. But if the worshippers of gods think they are worshipping those very beings whom we call ministers of the most high God, they have no cause to reproach us, who say there is one God and deny there are many.

If a multitude delights them, we do not say there are twelve, or three hundred and sixty-five (as Orpheus does), but we demonstrate that their errors are innumerable, going in different directions—those who think there are so few. Yet let them know by what name they ought to be called: lest they violate the true God, whose name they expose by attributing it to many. Let them believe their own Apollo, who in that same response took away from Jupiter the primacy, and likewise took away the name of gods from the rest. For the third verse shows that the ministers of God ought to be called not gods but angels. As for himself, he lied, since being of the number of demons he counted himself among the angels of God: indeed in other responses he confessed himself to be a demon. For when he was asked how he wished to be supplicated, he answered thus. And again when he was asked to set forth a prayer to Apollo Sminthius, he began from this verse.

What then remains, except that by his own confession he lies subject to the stripes of the true God and to eternal punishment? For in another response he also said this: We discuss both classes in the second book. In the meantime it is enough for us that, while wishing to honour himself and to place himself in heaven, he confessed what the matter actually is—how those who always stand by God ought to be called. Let men therefore withdraw from their errors and cast aside their depraved religions, and acknowledge their parent and lord: whose power cannot be estimated, nor his greatness perceived, nor his beginning comprehended. When the intention and keenness and memory of the human mind has reached unto him, as though all roads were retraced and exhausted, it stops, it sticks fast, it fails; nor is there anything further to which it can advance.

But because it cannot be but that what exists must at some time have begun to exist, it follows that, since nothing existed before him, he himself was brought forth from himself before all things. And therefore he is called by Apollo αὐτοφυὴς, by the Sibyl αὐτογενὴς, and ἀγέννητος, and ἀποίητος. This Seneca, a man of keen mind, perceived in his Exhortations: "We," he says, "depend upon another. And so we look to someone to whom we owe what is best in us. One brought us forth; another instructed us: God made himself."

By so many and so great witnesses as these, it is established that the world is governed by the power and providence of one God; whose force and majesty Plato says in the Timaeus is so great that no one can either conceive it in the mind or express it in words, on account of his excessive and inestimable power. Can anyone doubt whether anything is difficult or impossible for God, who by his providence devised such great and wondrous works, established them by his power, perfected them by his reason; and now sustains them by his spirit, governs them by his power—he who is inconceivable, ineffable, and sufficiently known to none other than himself?

Hence, when I reflect more frequently upon such great majesty, those who worship gods sometimes seem to me so blind, so thoughtless, so senseless, so little different from dumb animals, as to believe that those who were born of the union of male and female could have possessed any majesty or divine power; when the Erythraean Sibyl says: But if this is true, as it is, it is apparent that Hercules, Apollo, Liber, Mercury, and Jupiter himself along with the rest were men; since they were born of two sexes. And what is so far removed from God as that act which he himself granted to mortals for the propagation of offspring, and which cannot exist without bodily substance?

If the gods are immortal and eternal, what need is there of the other sex; since those who are always going to exist have no need of succession? For assuredly in human beings and other living creatures the diversity of sex, and union, and generation has no other reason than that all kinds of living things, since they are going to die by the condition of mortality, may be preserved by mutual succession. But for God, who is everlasting, neither the other sex nor succession is necessary. Someone will say: in order that he may have ministers, or beings over whom he himself may rule. What need then is there of the female sex, since God, who is omnipotent, can beget sons without the use and agency of a woman? For if he granted this to certain tiny creatures, why should anyone think that God himself cannot generate except through mingling with the other sex?

Those therefore whom the ignorant and foolish both name and adore as gods—there is no one so thoughtless as not to understand that they were mortal. How then, someone will ask, were they believed to be gods? Doubtless because they were the greatest and most powerful kings: on account of the merits of their virtues, or of their gifts, or of the arts they discovered, when they had been dear to those over whom they had ruled, they were consecrated in memory. If anyone doubts this, let him consider their deeds and acts, all of which both the poets and the ancient historians have handed down.

Hercules, who on account of his valour is held most glorious and regarded as a kind of Africanus among the gods—did he not defile with debaucheries, lusts, and adulteries the very world which he is said to have traversed and cleansed? Nor is it surprising, since he was born of the adultery of Alcmena. What could there have been in him that was divine, when he, enslaved to his own vices, covered both males and females with infamy, disgrace, and shame against all laws? But not even those deeds which he performed that were great and marvellous are to be judged such as to seem attributable to divine virtues. For what is so magnificent, if he overcame a lion and a boar, if he shot down birds with arrows, if he cleaned out a royal stable, if he conquered a warrior-woman and stripped off her girdle, if he slew fierce horses together with their master? These are the works of a brave man, yet of a man nonetheless. For those things which he conquered were frail and mortal.

For there is (as the Orator says) no force so great that it cannot be weakened and broken by iron and strength. But to conquer the mind, to restrain anger, belongs to the bravest: which he never did, nor was able to do. He who does these things, I do not compare to the greatest of men; but I judge him most like to God. I could wish he had added something about lust, luxury, greed, and insolence; so as to complete the virtue of him whom he judged like to God.

For he is not to be thought braver who overcomes a lion than he who overcomes the violent beast enclosed within himself—anger; nor he who shot down the most rapacious birds than he who restrains the most greedy desires; nor he who conquered the warrior Amazon than he who conquers lust, the destroyer of modesty and reputation; nor he who cleared dung from a stable than he who clears vices from his own heart, which are more pernicious because they are domestic and personal evils, than those which could both be avoided and guarded against. From which it follows that he alone ought to be judged a brave man who is temperate, moderate, and just. But if anyone reflects upon what the works of God are, he will then judge all these things which the most foolish of men admire to be ridiculous. For they measure them not by the divine virtues, which they do not know, but by the weakness of their own powers.

For this indeed no one will deny: that Hercules served not only king Eurystheus, which can appear somewhat honourable; but also the unchaste woman Omphale, who ordered him, clothed in her own garments, to sit at her feet doing the spinning—a detestable disgrace! But pleasure was worth so much. What, someone will say, do you think we should believe the poets? Why should I not? For it is not Lucilius who tells these things, nor Lucianus, who spared neither gods nor men; but those above all who sang the praises of the gods. Whom then shall we believe, if we give no credence to those who praise them? Let him who thinks these men lie produce other authorities for us to believe, who may teach us who these gods are, how and whence they arose; what their power is, what their number, what their authority, what in them is admirable, what worthy of worship, what finally is the more certain and true mystery: he will produce none.

Let us therefore believe those who spoke not to reproach but to proclaim. He sailed therefore with the Argonauts, and sacked Troy, angered at Laomedon for having denied him the reward promised for his daughter's safety: from which it is apparent at what period he lived. The same man, seized by fury and madness, slew his own wife together with his children. Do men think this man a god? But Philoctetes, his heir, did not think so—he who set the torch beneath him as he was about to burn, who saw his limbs and sinews consumed and dissolved by fire, who buried his bones and ashes on Mount Oeta, and received his arrows as the reward for that service.

Aesculapius, himself born not without the disgrace of Apollo, what else did he do worthy of divine honours, except that he healed Hippolytus? He had indeed a more glorious death, in that he merited to be struck by lightning by God. Tarquitius, in his treatise on illustrious men, says of him that he was born of uncertain parents, exposed, found by hunters, nourished on the milk of a dog, handed over to Chiron, and learned medicine; that he was a Messenian, but dwelt at Epidaurus. Tullius also says he was buried at Cynosura. What of Apollo his father? Did he not, on account of the love with which he burned, most shamefully tend another's flock, and build walls for Laomedon, hired for wages along with Neptune—wages which could be withheld from him with impunity—and from that faithless king, who first denied whatever he had agreed upon with the gods, he learned to be refused? The same man both violated a beautiful boy while loving him, and killed him while playing with him.

Mars, a murderer, and freed from the charge of slaughter by the Athenians as a favour, lest he should seem too fierce and savage, committed adultery with Venus. Castor and Pollux, while carrying off the brides of others, ceased to be twins. For Idas, stirred by the resentment of the injury, ran one of them through with a sword; and the poets tell that these same men live and die on alternate turns: so that they are now not only the most wretched of all the gods, but of all mortals, since it is not permitted to them to die even once. Yet Homer testifies plainly (not as poets are wont) that both of them are dead. For when he was depicting Helen seated on the walls beside Priam, recognising all the princes of Greece, but seeking only her own brothers and finding them not, he appended to her speech a verse of this kind: So she spoke, but the life-giving earth already held them.

Mercury, a thief and a scoundrel, what did he leave to his fame except the memory of his frauds? Worthy of heaven, no doubt, because he taught wrestling and was the first to invent the lyre. Father Liber must needs be of the highest authority and of the first opinion in the senate of the gods; because, apart from Jupiter, he alone of all men triumphed, led an army, and conquered the Indians. But that unconquered Indian commander, that greatest of men, was most shamefully conquered by love and lust. For having been brought to Crete with his half-man retinue, he found a shameless woman on the shore and, relying on his Indian victory, wished to play the man, lest he should seem too effeminate; and that woman who had betrayed her father, slain her brother, been abandoned and repudiated by another—her he claimed in marriage for himself, made her Libera, and ascended with her equally into heaven. What of Jupiter, the father of all these, who in solemn prayer is named Optimus Maximus?

Is he not detected as impious and nearly a parricide from his very boyhood? Since he drove his father from his kingdom and put him to flight, and did not wait for the death of a decrepit old man, out of eagerness to reign; and when he had seized his father's throne by force and by arms, he was provoked to war by the Titans, which was the beginning of evils for the human race. When these were conquered and peace secured for ever, he spent the rest of his life in debaucheries and adulteries. I pass over the virgins whom he violated. For that is usually judged tolerable. I cannot pass over Amphitryon and Tyndareus, whose houses he filled most completely with disgrace and infamy. But that deed was of the utmost impiety and wickedness—that he carried off a royal boy for defilement.

For it seemed too little if he were merely stained and base in assaulting the chastity of women, unless he also did injury to his own sex; this is true adultery, which is committed against nature. Whether he who did these things was the greatest, let us consider; certainly he is not the best: for that name is absent from corrupters, adulterers, and those guilty of incest; unless perhaps we men are mistaken, who call those who do such things wicked and depraved, and judge them most worthy of every punishment. But foolish was Marcus Tullius, who cast the adulteries of C. Verres in his teeth: for Jupiter, whom he worshipped, committed the same; who cast in the teeth of P. Clodius the incest with his sister: yet for that Optimus Maximus, sister and wife were one and the same.

Who then is so witless as to think that he reigns in heaven, who ought not even to have reigned on earth? A certain poet wrote not inelegantly of the triumph of Cupid: in which book he makes Cupid not only the most powerful of the gods, but also their conqueror. For having enumerated the loves of each one, by which they had come into the power and dominion of Cupid, he marshals a procession in which Jupiter, along with the other gods, is led in chains before the chariot of the triumphant god. That is elegantly figured by the poet; yet it is not far from the truth. For he who is devoid of virtue, who is overcome by desire and evil lusts, is subject not to Cupid (as the poet feigned), but to everlasting death. But let us leave off speaking of morals: let us consider the matter itself; that men may understand in what wretched errors they are involved.

The common people believe that Jupiter reigns in heaven: this is persuaded alike to the learned and the unlearned. Which both Religion itself, and prayers, and hymns, and temples, and images demonstrate. Yet they confess that this same Jupiter was begotten of Saturn and Rhea. How can he be seen or believed to be God (as the poet says): before whose birth infinite thousands of men had existed?—those, namely, who lived under the reign of Saturn; and who came into the light before Jupiter. I see that one God was king in the earliest times, another in the times that followed. It is possible, therefore, that another may be king hereafter. For if the kingdom was changed once before, why should we despair that it can be changed again afterward?—unless perhaps Saturn was able to beget one stronger than himself, but Jupiter cannot. And yet divine rule is either always immutable: or, if it is mutable—which cannot be—it is always mutable. Can Jupiter therefore lose his kingdom, as his father lost it? Plainly he can.

For although he had never spared either virgins or married women, he nevertheless restrained himself with regard to Thetis alone, because it had been foretold that whoever was born of her would be greater than his father. And first, the lack of foresight in him is not that of a God, who, had not Themis told him the future, would not have known it himself. But if he be not divine, let him not even be a God; since divinity itself is named from this, as humanity from man. Then the consciousness of weakness, in that he feared one who would be greater—and whoever does this certainly knows that he himself is not the greatest, since something greater can exist. The same man swears most solemnly by the Stygian marsh.

An empty superstition, which is rendered to the gods above. What is this superstition? Or by whom is it rendered? Is there then some supreme power which punishes gods who perjure themselves? What great dread is there of an infernal marsh, if they are immortal? Why do they fear that which they shall not see, unless those must die for whom death is necessary? Why then do men lift their eyes to heaven? Why do they swear by the gods above, when those same gods above are drawn down to the underworld, and have there what they venerate and adore? And what of this?—that there are fates, to which all the gods, and Jupiter himself, are subject. If the power of the Parcae is so great that they have more power than all the heavenly ones together, and than the ruler and lord himself, why are they not rather said to reign, by whose laws and decrees necessity compels all the gods to obey? Now who can doubt that he who submits to anything is not the greatest?

For if he were, he would not receive fates, but make them. Now I return to another point which I had omitted. In one matter alone, then, he was more restrained, though he was desperately in love with her; not by any virtue, but from fear of a successor. Which fear is assuredly that of one who is both mortal, and weak, and of no account: seeing that he could even then, at the time of his birth, have been destroyed, just as his brother who was born before him was destroyed; who, had he been able to live, would never have yielded empire to a lesser.

But he himself, saved by stealth and nourished in secret, was called Zeus or Ζῆν; not, as these men think, from the heat of celestial fire, or because he is the giver of life, or because he breathes souls into living beings—which is the power of God alone (for what soul could he breathe in, who himself received his from elsewhere?)—but because he was the first of Saturn's male children to have lived. Men could therefore have had another god as ruler, had Saturn not been deceived by his wife. But, they say, the poets invented these things. Whoever thinks this is mistaken.

For they were speaking of men; but in order to adorn those whose memory they celebrated with praises, they said they were gods. And so those things are rather invented which were spoken as if about gods, not those which were spoken as if about men: which will become clear from the example we shall introduce. When he was about to violate Danaë, he poured golden coins lavishly into her lap. This was the price of the defilement. But the poets, who were speaking as if about a God, lest they undermine the authority of the majesty entrusted to him, invented that he himself descended in a golden shower, in the same figure by which they speak of iron showers when they describe a multitude of spears and arrows. He is said to have carried off Ganymede in an eagle: this is a poetic embellishment.

But either he carried him off through a legion whose standard is an eagle, or the ship on which he was placed had its figurehead fashioned in the form of an eagle, just as a bull, when he carried off and conveyed Europa. In the same way it is handed down that he transformed Io, the daughter of Inachus, into a cow; who, in order to escape the wrath of Juno, already covered with bristles, already a cow, is said to have swum across the sea and come to Egypt, and there, having recovered her former appearance, became a goddess who is now called Isis. By what argument, then, can it be proved that Europa did not sit upon a bull, nor was Io turned into a cow? Because there is a fixed day in the Calendar on which the sailing of Isis is celebrated: which fact teaches that she did not swim across, but sailed.

Therefore those who think themselves wise, because they understand that a living earthly body cannot exist in the sky, reject the whole fable of Ganymede as false; and they hold that it happened on earth, because the act and the desire itself are earthly. The poets, therefore, did not invent the deeds themselves; if they did that, they would be utterly worthless: but they added a certain embellishment to the deeds. For they were not saying those things to disparage, but desiring to adorn. Hence men are deceived: especially because, while they suppose all these things to have been invented by the poets, they worship what they do not know. For they do not know what is the limit of poetic license; how far it is permitted to go in inventing: since the duty of the poet consists in this, that he translate the things which have truly happened into other forms, transformed with some elegance through oblique figurations. But to invent entirely everything that one relates, that is to be inept, and a liar rather than a poet.

But suppose they invented those things which are believed to be fabulous; did they also invent those things which have been said about goddesses and the marriages of the gods? Why then are they depicted thus, thus worshipped? Unless perhaps not only poets, but painters and makers of images also lie. For if this Jupiter is he who is called god by you, if he is not the one who was born of Saturn and Ops, then only his image ought to have been placed in all temples. What do the likenesses of women mean? What does the weaker sex mean? If this Jupiter fell into that, the very stones themselves will confess him to be a man. They say the poets lied, and yet they believe them; nay rather, they prove by the very fact that they did not lie, for they fashion the images of the gods in such a way that from the very diversity of sex it appears that what the poets say is true.

For what other meaning has the image of Ganymede, and the figure of the eagle, when they are placed before the feet of Jupiter in the temples, and are adored together with him: except that the memory of a wicked crime and defilement may remain forever? Nothing, therefore, has been entirely invented by the poets: something perhaps has been transformed and obscured by oblique figuration, so that the truth wrapped up might be concealed; as in that matter concerning the allotment of kingdoms. For they say that the sky fell to Jupiter by lot, the sea to Neptune, the underworld to Pluto. Why did the earth not rather come as the third lot; unless because the matter was transacted on earth?

Therefore the truth of the matter is this, that they divided and allotted the dominion of the world in such a way that the empire of the East fell to Jupiter; to Pluto, whose surname was Agesilaus, the part of the West fell: because the region of the East, from which light is given to mortals, seems superior; while that of the West seems inferior. Thus they veiled the truth with falsehood, so that the truth itself detracted nothing from popular belief. Concerning the lot of Neptune it is clear, whose kingdom we say was such as was that boundless command of Marcus Antonius; to whom the Senate had decreed power over the entire sea coast, that he might pursue pirates and pacify the whole sea. Thus all maritime regions together with the islands fell to Neptune. How can this be proved? Doubtless the ancient histories teach it.

The ancient author Euhemerus, who was from the city of Messene, collected the deeds of Jupiter and of the others who are thought to be gods, and composed a history from the titles and sacred inscriptions which were kept in the most ancient temples, and especially in the shrine of Jupiter Triphylius; where a title indicated that a golden column had been placed by Jupiter himself, on which column he wrote out his deeds, so that it might be a monument to posterity of his achievements. This history Ennius both translated and followed; whose words are these: "Where Jupiter gives Neptune the command of the sea, that he should reign over all the islands and all places that were along the sea." True, therefore, are the things which the poets say, but veiled by some covering and appearance. Mount Olympus too may have given the poets the figure for saying that Jupiter obtained the kingdom of the sky; because Olympus is an ambiguous name, both of a mountain and of the sky.

Moreover, that Jupiter dwelt on Olympus the same history teaches, which says: "In that time Jupiter spent the greater part of his life on Mount Olympus, and people came there to him for justice, if there were any matters in dispute. Likewise, if anyone had discovered something new that was useful for human life, he came there and showed it to Jupiter." Many things in this manner the poets transfer, not to lie about those whom they worship, but to add beauty and charm to their poems through varied figures. But those who do not understand how or why each thing is figured, pursue the poets as liars and sacrilegious persons. Deceived by this error, even the philosophers, because the things reported about Jupiter seemed in no way fitting for God, made two Jupiters, one natural, the other fabulous.

They saw in part what was true, namely that he of whom the poets speak was a man: but in that natural Jupiter, led astray by the common habit of religion, they erred, because they transferred the name of a man to God; who (as we said above) because he is alone, has no need of a name. But that Jupiter is he who was born of Ops and Saturn cannot be denied. Vain, therefore, is the persuasion of those who attribute the name of Jupiter to the supreme God. For certain persons are accustomed to defend their errors with this excuse; who, convicted concerning one God, since they cannot deny it, affirm that they worship him, but that it pleases them that he be called Jupiter: than which what is more absurd? For Jupiter is not usually worshipped without the company of his wife and daughter. Whence it is apparent what he is: nor is it right that name to be transferred where there is neither any Minerva nor Juno.

What of the fact that the very meaning of this name expresses not divine power but human? For Cicero interprets Jupiter and Juno as having been named from helping. And Jupiter is called as it were the Helping Father; which name is in no way fitting for God; because to help belongs to a man who confers some assistance upon one who is a stranger, and it is a benefit of small degree. No one prays to God in such a way as to ask him to help him; but to save him, to grant him life and health: which is much more and greater than to help. And since we are speaking of a father, no father is said to help his children when he begets or rears them. For that is too slight a thing for the greatness of a father's benefit to be expressed by that word.

How much more unfitting is this for God, who is the true Father; through whom we exist, and whose we entirely are, by whom we are formed, animated, illuminated; who imparts life to us, grants salvation, supplies manifold sustenance. He does not understand the divine benefits, who thinks he is only helped by God. Therefore he is not only ignorant but also impious, who diminishes the power of the supreme authority by the name of Jupiter. Wherefore if we find that Jupiter was a man both from his deeds and from his character, and that he reigned on earth, it remains that we investigate his death also.

Ennius in the Sacred History, having described all the things he did in his life, at the end says thus: Then Jupiter, after he had gone around the earth five times, and had divided his commands among all his friends and kinsmen, and had left laws and customs for men and had provided grain, and had done many other good things, endowed with immortal glory and memory, left everlasting monuments to his people: worn out by age, he changed his life in Crete, and departed to the gods, and his sons the Curetes cared for him and honored him; and his tomb is in Crete in the town of Cnossus, and it is said that Vesta founded this city; and on his tomb is inscribed in ancient Greek letters, Zan kponoy, that is in Latin, Jupiter son of Saturn.

This certainly is not handed down by poets, but by writers of ancient matters: which things are so true that they are confirmed by the Sibylline verses; which are as follows: soulless demons, images of the dead who have suffered, whose tombs wretched Crete holds as her boast.

Cicero, in his work On the Nature of the Gods, when he said that three Jupiters are enumerated by the theologians, stated that the third was the Cretan, son of Saturn, whose tomb is shown on that island. How then can a god be alive in one place and dead in another, have a temple in one place and a tomb in another? Let the Romans therefore know that their Capitol, that is the supreme head of the public religions, is nothing other than an empty monument.

Let us now come to his father, who reigned before him, and who perhaps had more in him, in that he is said to have been born from the union of such great elements. Let us see what there was in him worthy of a god: first of all, that he is narrated to have had a golden age; that justice was on earth under him. I find something in this which was not in his son. For what is so fitting for a god as just rule and a pious age? But when I reflect that he was born by the same reasoning, I cannot think him the supreme God, since I see there is something more ancient than he, namely heaven and earth. But I seek a God beyond whom there is nothing at all, who is the source and origin of things. He must be there, who himself founded the very heaven and established the earth.

But Saturn, if he was born of these (as is supposed), how can he be the primal God, who owes his origin to others? Or who presided over the world before Saturn was begotten? But this is a poetic invention (as I was saying a little before). For it could not come to pass that insensible elements, separated by so great an interval, should come together into one and beget a son: or that he who was born should not most of all resemble his begetters; but should bear that form which his parents did not have.

Let us therefore inquire what truth lies hidden beneath this figure. Minucius Felix, in that book which is entitled Octavius, argued thus: "Saturn, since he had been driven out by his son and had come into Italy, was called the son of Heaven, because we are accustomed to say of those whose virtue we admire, or who have arrived suddenly, that they have fallen from heaven; and son of Earth, because we call those who are born of unknown parents sons of the earth. These things are indeed similar to the truth, yet not true: because it is established that he was so regarded even when he was reigning. He could also have argued thus: that Saturn, since he was a most powerful king, in order to preserve the memory of his parents, gave their names to heaven and earth, when these had previously been called by other names; by which reasoning we know that names have been given to mountains and rivers as well.

For when the poets speak of the offspring of Atlas, or of the river Inachus, they do not thereby chiefly mean that men could be generated from things lacking sense; but they signify those who were born from those men who, either living or dead, gave their names to mountains or rivers. For this was customary among the ancients, and especially among the Greeks. Thus we have learned that seas took their names from those who had fallen into them, such as the Aegean, the Icarian, the Hellespontic: and in Latium, Aventinus gave his name to the mountain on which he was buried; Tiberinus or Tiberis, to the river in which he was drowned. It is therefore no wonder if the names of those who had begotten most powerful kings were attributed to heaven and earth. It is apparent, therefore, that he was not born from heaven, which cannot happen: but from that man whose name was Uranus.

That this is true, Trismegistus is the authority: who, when he said that very few had existed in whom perfect learning resided, named among these Uranus, Saturn, and Mercury as his kinsmen. This man, because he was ignorant of these things, transferred the history elsewhere; I have shown how he might have argued: now I will say how, where, and by whom this was done; for it was not Saturn who did this, but Jupiter. In the Sacred History, Ennius relates as follows: 'Then Pan leads him to the mountain which is called the pillar of heaven.

After he had ascended there, he gazed widely over the lands, and there on that mountain he establishes an altar to Heaven; and Jupiter was the first to sacrifice on that altar: in that place he looked up to the heaven which we now name, and that which was above the world, which was called aether, he named heaven after his grandfather's name: and Jupiter, praying to that which is called aether, first named it heaven; and the victim which he consecrated there, he burned entirely.' Nor is Jupiter found to have sacrificed only here. Caesar also, in his work on Aratus, reports that Aglaosthenes says that when Jupiter was setting out from the island of Naxos against the Titans and was making sacrifice on the shore, an eagle flew to him as an omen; which, accepted as a good omen by the victor, he subjected to his own guardianship. But the Sacred History (namely that of Ennius) also testifies that the eagle had settled upon his head even before this, and had portended kingship to him.

To whom, then, could Jupiter sacrifice, if not to his grandfather Heaven? Whom Euhemerus says died in Oceania and was buried in the town of Aulacia.

Since we have revealed the mysteries of the poets and have found the parents of Saturn, let us return to his virtues and deeds. He was just in his reign. First, from this very fact he is already not a god, because he was: then, because he was not even just; but impious, not only toward his sons whom he killed, but also toward his father, whose genitals he is said to have cut off; which perhaps truly happened. But men, out of regard for the element which is called heaven, reject the whole fable as most absurdly invented: which the Stoics nevertheless attempt (as is their custom) to transfer to a physical interpretation; whose opinion Cicero, discoursing in On the Nature of the Gods, set forth: "They wished," he says, "the celestial, highest, and ethereal nature, that is the fiery nature, which by itself begets all things, to lack that part of the body which requires the union of another for procreation: which reasoning could have applied to Vesta, if she were said to be male.

For this reason they consider Vesta a virgin, because fire is an inviolable element, and nothing can be born from it, since it consumes everything it seizes." Ovid in the Fasti: This could also have been attributed to Vulcan, who indeed is thought to be fire; and yet the poets did not cut him off. It could also have been attributed to the Sun, in whom resides the nature and cause of begetting things; for without the fiery heat of the Sun nothing can either be born or grow: so that no other element has more need of generative organs than heat, by whose warmth all things are conceived, born, and sustained. Finally, even if it be so (as they wish), why should we suppose that Heaven was cut rather than simply born without genitals altogether? For if he begets by himself, he had no need of genitals at all, even when he was begetting Saturn himself.

But if he had them, and they were cut off by his son, the origin of things and all of nature would have perished. What of the fact that they take away from Saturn himself not only divine understanding but human understanding as well, when they affirm that Saturn is he who contains the course and revolution of spaces and times; and that he has this very name in Greek. For he is called Cronus, which is the same as χρόνος, that is, a space of time. Saturn, moreover, is so named because he is saturated with years. These are the words of Cicero expounding the opinion of the Stoics: "How vain this is, it is most easy for anyone to understand. For if Saturn is the son of Heaven, how could time be begotten by Heaven, or Heaven be cut off by time, or time thereafter be stripped of power by his son Jupiter? Or how was Jupiter born from time? Or by what years can eternity, which has no end, be saturated?"

If therefore the reasonings of the philosophers are vain, what remains, except that we believe it truly happened, that is, that a man was mutilated by a man? Unless perhaps someone supposes him to have been a god, who feared a co-heir: since, if he had possessed any divinity, he ought not to have cut off his father's genitals, but his own, lest Jupiter be born, who deprived him of the possession of his kingdom.

The same man is said to have had his sister Rhea, whom in Latin we call Ops, as his wife, and to have been forbidden by an oracle to rear male children; because it was destined that he would be driven out by a son: fearing which, he did not devour the sons born to him (as the fables relate) but killed them; although it is written in the Sacred History (namely that of Ennius) that Saturn and Ops and the other men of that time were accustomed to eat human flesh: but that Jupiter, when he was establishing laws and customs for men, was the first to forbid by edict that it should be lawful to feed on that food. But if this is true, what justice could there have been in him? But let us suppose it invented that Saturn devoured his sons, only with some reason: is it perhaps because, as the common people say, he who has buried his sons and committed them to the grave is said to have eaten them?

But when Ops had borne Jupiter, she withdrew the infant and secretly sent him to Crete to be nursed. Again I must needs find fault with his imprudence. For why did he receive an oracle from another rather than from himself? Why, established in heaven, did he not see what was being done on earth? Why did the Corybantes deceive him with their cymbals? Finally, why did some greater power arise which overcame his authority? Doubtless an old man was easily overcome by a young man and stripped of his power. He fled therefore, and came to Italy by ship, having wandered long; as Ovid, driven into exile, relates in the books of the Fasti (book one): The reason for the ship remains. The sickle-bearing god came by raft to the Tuscan river, Having previously wandered over the whole world. Janus received him as he wandered and was destitute.

The evidence for this is old coins, on which Janus appears with a double face, and on the other side a ship; as the same poet (in the same place) added: But good posterity fashioned a ship on bronze, Bearing witness to the arrival of the god as guest. All therefore, not only poets, but also writers of histories and ancient affairs, agree that he was a man, who have handed down to memory the things he did in Italy: among the Greeks, Diodorus and Thallus; among the Latins, Nepos and Cassius and Varro. For when life was being lived in Italy in a somewhat rustic manner, He gathered together a race untaught and scattered over the high mountains; and gave them laws, and preferred that it be called Latium, because he had lain hidden safely on these shores.

Does anyone suppose him to be a god, who was driven out, who fled, who lay hidden? No one is so foolish. For he who flees or lies hidden must necessarily fear both violence and death. Orpheus, who lived in times more recent than his, openly records that Saturn reigned on earth and among men: likewise our Virgil: Saturn led this life on earth in gold; And in another place: And golden (as they say) were the ages under that king: thus did he rule the peoples in tranquil peace.

Nor did he say above that he had led his life in heaven, nor below that he had ruled the gods in peace: whence it is apparent that he was an earthly king; which he declares more openly elsewhere: He shall found golden ages; who once again in Latium, over fields ruled by Saturn of old.

Ennius indeed in Euhemerus does not say that Saturn reigned first, but his father Uranus. "In the beginning," he says, "Heaven first held supreme power on earth; he established and prepared that kingdom together with his brothers." There is no great disagreement, since the uncertainty of the greatest authorities concerns son and father. But nevertheless both things can be true: that Uranus first began to stand out among the rest in power and to hold a principate, not a kingdom; and that afterwards Saturn acquired greater resources for himself and assumed the royal name.

Now, since the Sacred History disagrees somewhat with what we have related, let us disclose what is contained in the true writings, lest we seem to follow and approve the absurdities of the poets in accusing the religions. These are the words of Ennius: "Thereupon Saturn took Ops as his wife. Titan, who was older by birth, demanded that he himself should reign. Then Vesta their mother, and their sisters Ceres and Ops, persuade Saturn not to yield the kingdom to his brother. Then Titan, who was of less comely appearance than Saturn, and because he saw that his mother and sisters were working to ensure that Saturn should reign, yielded to him that he should reign. And so he made a pact with Saturn, that if any child of the male sex should be born to him, he should not rear it. He did this for the reason that the kingdom might return to his own sons. Then the first son born to Saturn, they killed. Afterwards twins were born later, Jupiter and Juno.

Then they gave Juno into Saturn's sight, and secretly hid Jupiter, and gave him to Vesta to be reared, concealing him from Saturn. Likewise Ops secretly bore Neptune to Saturn and hid him in secret. In the same manner at a third birth Ops bore twins, Pluto and Glauca. Pluto in Latin is Dispater: others call him Orcus. Then they show Glauca the daughter to Saturn, and conceal and hide the son Pluto. Afterwards Glauca died in infancy." This, as it is written, is the lineage and kinship of Jupiter and his brothers, handed down to us in this manner from the Sacred Writing.

Likewise a little after this he adds: "Then Titan, after he learned that sons had been begotten by Saturn and reared in secret, took aside with him his sons, who are called Titans, and seized his brother Saturn and Ops, and enclosed them within a wall, and set a guard over them." How true this history is, the Erythraean Sibyl teaches, saying nearly the same things; except that she differs in a few points which do not pertain to the matter. Jupiter therefore is freed from the charge of the greatest crime, in that he is said to have bound his father in chains: for it was his uncle Titan who did this, because Saturn had reared male children contrary to the agreement and his sworn oath.

The rest of the history is woven together thus: that Jupiter, having grown to manhood, when he had heard that his father and mother were hemmed in by guards and cast into chains, came with a great multitude of Cretans, and overcame Titan and his sons in battle, freed his parents from their chains, restored the kingdom to his father, and so returned to Crete: that after these things Saturn was given an oracle to beware lest a son drive him from his kingdom: that he, for the sake of evading the oracle and escaping the danger, laid a plot against Jupiter to kill him: that Jupiter, having learned of the plot, claimed the kingdom for himself anew, and drove out Saturn, who, having been tossed about through all lands, with armed men pursuing him whom Jupiter had sent to seize or kill him, scarcely found a place in Italy where he might lie hidden.

From these things, since it is established that those were men, it is not obscure by what reasoning they began to be called gods. For if there were no kings before Saturn or Uranus, on account of the scarcity of men who lived a rustic life without any ruler, there is no doubt that in those times men began to extol the king himself and his whole people with the highest praises and new honours, so as even to call them gods—whether on account of wonder at their virtue (this the still rude and simple people truly believed), or (as is wont to happen) in flattery of present power, or on account of the benefits by which they had been shaped toward civilised life. Then the kings themselves, having been dear to those whose lives they had ordered, left behind a great longing for themselves when they died.

And so men fashioned images of them, that they might have some consolation from the contemplation of their likenesses; and going further still through love of their merit, they began to honour the memory of the departed, so that they might seem both to render thanks to those who had deserved well and to attract their successors to a desire of ruling well. This Cicero teaches in his work On the Nature of the Gods, saying: "But the common life and custom of men has received the practice of raising to heaven by fame and goodwill those men who excelled in beneficence. Hence Hercules, hence Castor, hence Pollux, hence Aesculapius, hence Liber." And in another place: "And in most states it can be understood that, for the sake of sharpening virtue, or that each best man of brave men might more willingly face danger for the sake of the state, the memory of brave men has been consecrated with the honour of the immortal gods." By this reasoning, of course, the Romans consecrated their Caesars, and the Moors their kings.

Thus little by little religions began to exist, while those first ones who had known them imbued their own children and grandchildren, and then all their posterity, with that rite. And yet these supreme kings were worshipped in all provinces on account of the renown of their name. But privately each people worshipped with the highest veneration the founders of their own nation or city, whether they were men distinguished by valour or women admirable for chastity: as the Egyptians Isis, the Moors Juba, the Macedonians Cabirus, the Carthaginians Uranus, the Latins Faunus, the Sabines Sancus, the Romans Quirinus. In the same manner Athens worshipped Minerva, Samos Juno, Paphos Venus, Lemnos Vulcan, Naxos Liber, Delphi Apollo. Thus through peoples and regions various sacred rites were taken up, while grateful men desire to show themselves dutiful toward their princes, and because they can find no other honours to bestow upon those who lack life.

Moreover the piety of those who had succeeded them contributed greatly to the error; who, in order to appear born of divine stock, paid divine honours to their parents and commanded that such honours be paid. Can anyone doubt how the religions of the gods were instituted, when he reads in Virgil the words of Aeneas commanding his companions: Now pour libations to Jupiter, and with prayers call upon Anchises my father. To whom he attributes not only immortality but also power over the winds: Let us ask for winds, and may he wish that these rites be brought to him each year in a city founded, with temples dedicated to him. The same thing, of course, Liber, and Pan, and Mercury, and Apollo did concerning Jupiter; and afterwards their successors did the same concerning these very ones. Poets also joined in, and having composed verses for pleasure, raised them to heaven—just as those do who flatter kings, even wicked ones, with mendacious panegyrics.

This evil arose from the Greeks, whose levity, equipped with facility and abundance of speech, it is incredible how great clouds of falsehoods it stirred up. And so those who admired them both first received their sacred rites and handed them on to all nations. On account of this vanity the Sibyl thus rebukes them: O Greece, why do you trust in men who are leaders? Why do you offer vain gifts to the dead? You sacrifice to idols; who put error in your mind, to perform these things, forsaking the face of the great God? Marcus Tullius, who was not only a perfect orator but also a philosopher—for he alone stood forth as an imitator of Plato—in that book in which he consoled himself over the death of his daughter, did not hesitate to say that the gods who were publicly worshipped had been men. This testimony of his ought to be judged the weightier in that he both held the augural priesthood and testifies that he himself worships and venerates those same gods.

And so within a few short lines he gave us two things. For while he professed that he would consecrate the image of his daughter in the same manner as those were consecrated by the ancients, he both showed that those were dead men and revealed the origin of vain superstition. "But since," he says, "we see that a considerable number of men and women have been placed in the number of the gods, and we venerate their most august shrines in cities and in the countryside, let us assent to the wisdom of those by whose talents and discoveries we have all of life cultivated and established by laws and institutions. But if any living creature was ever to be consecrated, surely that one was. If the offspring of Cadmus, or of Amphitryon, or of Tyndareus was to be raised to heaven by fame, surely the same honour must be dedicated to her.

This indeed I will do, and I will consecrate you, best and most learned of all, with the approval of the immortal gods themselves, placed in their company, to the opinion of all mortals." Perhaps someone will say that Cicero was raving from excessive grief. But all that discourse, perfected in learning, in examples, and in the very manner of speaking, was the work not of a sick but of a steady mind and judgment; and this very sentiment bears no mark of grief. For I do not think he could have written so variously, so copiously, so ornately, unless both reason itself and the consolation of friends and the length of time had mitigated his mourning. What of the fact that he says the same thing in his books On the Republic? The same in his work On Glory?

For in his work On the Laws, in which following Plato he wished to set down laws by which he thought a just and wise state would make use, he decreed thus concerning Religion: "Let them worship the gods, and those who have always been held as heavenly; and those whom their merits have placed in heaven: Hercules, Liber, Aesculapius, Pollux, Castor, Quirinus." Likewise in the Tusculan Disputations, when he said that almost the whole heaven was filled with the human race: "But if," he says, "I should try to search out ancient things and to draw forth from them what the writers of Greece have handed down, those very gods who are held to be of the greater families will be found to have gone forth from us to heaven.

Ask whose tombs are pointed out in Greece; recall, since you have been initiated, what is handed down in the mysteries: then at last you will understand how widely this extends." He clearly called upon the knowledge of Atticus, that from the mysteries themselves it could be understood that all those who are worshipped were men; and while he unhesitatingly confessed this of Hercules, Liber, Aesculapius, Castor, and Pollux, he feared to confess it openly of Apollo and Jupiter their fathers, and likewise of Neptune, Vulcan, Mars, and Mercury, whom he called gods of the greater families. And therefore he says that this extends widely, so that we may understand the same of Jupiter and the other more ancient gods, whose memory if the ancients consecrated by the same reasoning by which he says he will consecrate the image and name of his daughter, those who mourn can be forgiven, but those who believe cannot. For who is so senseless as to think that heaven is opened to the dead by the agreement and decree of countless fools?

Or that anyone can give to another what he himself does not possess? Among the Romans Julius is a god, because this pleased that wicked man Antony; Quirinus is a god, because this seemed good to shepherds—when the one proved to be the slayer of his twin brother, the other the murderer of his fatherland. But if Antony had not been consul, C. Caesar, for his services to the state, would have lacked even the honour of a dead man, and indeed by the counsel of his father-in-law Piso and of L. Caesar his kinsman, who forbade a funeral to be held, and of the consul Dolabella, who overturned his column in the forum—that is, his tomb—and purified the forum.

For Ennius declares that Romulus was missed by his people, in whose words the people, grieving for their lost king, speak thus: On account of this longing it was the more easily believed when Julius Proculus lied—he who was suborned by the senators to announce to the people that he had seen the king in a form more august than human, and that he had charged him to tell the people that a shrine should be made for him, that he was a god and was to be called Quirinus. By this act he both persuaded the people itself that Romulus had gone to the gods, and freed the senate from suspicion of the king's murder.

I continue to loose the minds from the knots of religions, as Lucretius says—who indeed could not accomplish this, because he brought forward nothing true. This is our office, who both assert the true God and refute the false ones. Those, therefore, who think that the poets invented fables about the gods, and who believe that goddesses are women and worship them, roll back unwittingly to what they denied—that those gods come together and give birth. For it cannot be otherwise than that two sexes were instituted for the purpose of generation. But having accepted the diversity of sexes, they do not understand that it follows that they conceive—which cannot apply to God. But let it be as they suppose; for they say that Jupiter has sons, and the other gods likewise. Gods are therefore born, and indeed daily, nor are they surpassed by men in fruitfulness. Therefore all things are full of countless gods, with none of course dying.

For since the number of men is incredible in force and beyond reckoning, yet they must die as they are born; what then shall we suppose the number of gods to be, who have been born through so many ages and have remained immortal? Why then are so few worshipped? Unless perhaps we suppose that the two sexes of the gods exist not for the purpose of generation but only for the taking of pleasure, and that they do those things which it shames even little men both to do and to suffer.

But since some are said to have been born from others, it follows that they are always being born—if indeed they were ever born; or, if they at some point ceased to be born, it is fitting that we know why or when they ceased. Not inelegantly Seneca in his books of moral philosophy: "What then is the reason," he says, "why among the poets the most lustful Jupiter ceased to beget children? Has he become sixty years old, and has the Papian law put a clasp on him? Or has he obtained the right of three children?

Or has it at last come into his mind: Expect from another what you have done to another, and does he fear lest someone do to him what he himself did to Saturn?" But those who assert the gods, let them see how they answer this argument which we shall press: If there are two sexes of gods, intercourse follows; and if they come together, they must also have houses—for they are not without virtue and modesty, so as to do this promiscuously or in the open, as we see dumb animals do. If they have houses, it follows that they also have cities, and indeed on the authority of Naso who says: The common people dwell in different places; on this side the powerful Heaven-dwellers and the renowned have set up their own homes. If they have cities, they will also have fields. Now, who does not see what follows? That they plough and till—which is done for the sake of sustenance. Therefore they are mortal. This argument reversed is equally valid.

For if they have no fields, neither do they have cities; if they have no cities, neither do they have houses. If they lack houses, then they lack intercourse also. If intercourse is absent from them, then the female sex also is absent; but we see that there are females among the gods; therefore they are not gods. Let anyone dissolve this argument if he can. For one thing follows from another in such a way that this last must necessarily be confessed. But neither will anyone dissolve the following. Of two sexes, one is stronger, the other weaker. For males are more robust, females more feeble. But weakness does not apply to a god; therefore neither does the female sex. To this is added that final conclusion of the foregoing argument, that the gods do not exist, since among the gods there are also females.

For these reasons the Stoics interpret the gods in another direction; and because they do not perceive what the truth is, they endeavour to connect them with the rationale of natural things. Following whom, Cicero delivered this judgment concerning the gods and their religions: "Do you not see, therefore, how from physical things well and usefully discovered, the reasoning has been drawn toward invented and fictitious gods? This matter gave rise to false opinions and turbulent errors and superstitions almost old-womanish." For the forms of the gods are known to us, and their ages, and their dress and adornment; moreover their families, marriages, all their kindred, and everything transferred to the likeness of human weakness. What can be said more plainly, what more truly? The foremost of Roman philosophy, endowed with the highest priesthood, charges the gods with being invented and fictitious; he testifies that their worship consists of superstitions almost old-womanish; he laments that men are entangled in false opinions and turbulent errors.

For the entire third book On the Nature of the Gods overthrows and destroys all religions from the foundation. What more then is expected of us? Can we surpass Cicero in eloquence? By no means; but confidence was lacking to him, ignorant of the truth, as he himself frankly confesses in the same work. For he says that he can more easily say what a thing is not than what it is; that is, that he understands what is false but does not know what is true. It is therefore clear that those who are thought to be gods were men, and that their memory was consecrated after death. For this reason also their ages are different and the likenesses of each are fixed, because their images were fashioned in that appearance and age in which death overtook each one.

Let us consider, if you please, the miseries of the unhappy gods. Isis lost her son; Ceres her daughter; driven out and tossed about through the whole world, Latona scarcely found a small island (Delos) in which to give birth. A goddess-mother both loved a handsome youth, and when she caught him with a concubine, rendered him half-male by cutting off his virile parts; and for this reason his rites are now celebrated by the Galli priests. Juno most bitterly persecuted the concubines, because she herself could not bear children by her brother. Varro writes that the island of Samos was previously called Parthenia, because Juno grew up there, and there also married Jupiter. And so her most noble and most ancient temple is at Samos, and her image is fashioned in the guise of a bride, and her annual rites are celebrated after the manner of a wedding. If therefore she grew up, if she was first a virgin, then a woman, whoever does not understand that she was a human being confesses himself a brute.

Why should I speak of the obscenity of Venus, prostituted to the lusts of all, not only of gods but also of men? For she bore Harmonia from the notorious debauchery with Mars; from Mercury, Hermaphroditus, who was born an androgyne; from Jupiter, Cupid; from Anchises, Aeneas; from Butes, Eryx; from Adonis indeed she could have none, because he was still a boy when he was struck and killed by a boar: she it was who first, as is contained in the Sacred History, established the art of harlotry, and was the originator among women in Cyprus of selling their bodies for gain—this she commanded so that she alone might not appear, beyond other women, to be shameless and eager for men. Does she then have any divine power?—she whose adulteries are counted more numerous than her offspring. But not even those virgins were able to preserve their chastity undefiled. For whence are we to suppose Erichthonius was born? From the earth, as the poets would have it appear? But the matter itself cries out.

For when Vulcan had made arms for the gods, and Jupiter had given him the choice of demanding whatever reward he wished, and had sworn, as was his custom, by the infernal marsh that he would refuse nothing, then the lame smith demanded the marriage of Minerva. Here Jupiter Optimus Maximus, bound by so great an oath, could not refuse; yet he warned Minerva to resist and defend her chastity. Then in that struggle, they say, Vulcan spilled his seed upon the ground, from which Erichthonius was born; and that name was given to him ἀπὸ τῆς ἔριδος καὶ χθονὸς, that is, from the strife and the earth. Why then did the virgin entrust that boy, shut up and sealed with a serpent, to the three virgin daughters of Cecrops? It is evident incest, in my opinion, which can in no way be glossed over.

Another goddess, when she had nearly lost her lover, who had been torn apart by frightened horses, summoned the most excellent physician Asclepius to tend the young man; and when he was healed: What does this so diligent, so anxious care mean? What do the secret retreats mean? What the banishment either so far away, or to a woman, or into solitude? What then the change of name? Finally, what does the so stubborn abomination of horses signify? What do all these things mean, if not the consciousness of a shameful act, and a love by no means virginal? There was plainly reason enough for her to undertake such great labor on behalf of so faithful a youth, who had refused compliance to an enamored stepmother.

At this point those must also be refuted who not only confess that gods were made from men, but even glory in it to praise them—either on account of valor, as Hercules; or of gifts, as Ceres and Liber; or of arts discovered, as Aesculapius and Minerva. How foolish these things are, and how unworthy of causing men to contaminate themselves with inexpiable crime and become enemies to the true God—having despised him, they take up the rites of the dead—I shall show from each matter in turn. They say it is valor that raises a man to heaven: not that valor of which the philosophers discourse, which is placed in the goods of the soul; but this bodily one, which is called fortitude—which, because it was preeminent in Hercules, is believed to have merited immortality.

Who is so foolishly absurd as to judge bodily strength a divine or even a human good, since greater strength is attributed to beasts, and it is often broken by a single disease, or diminished and ruined by old age itself? And so that same man, when he saw his muscles being disfigured by ulcers, wished neither to be healed nor to grow old, lest he should ever appear less than or more disfigured than himself. They supposed that from the pyre on which he had burned himself alive he ascended into heaven; and those very things which they most foolishly admired, they expressed and consecrated in statues and images, so that the monuments of their folly might endure forever—the folly of those who believed that gods could be made through the slaying of beasts. But this perhaps may be the fault of the Greeks, who always regarded the most trivial things as the greatest. What of our own people—are they any wiser?

They indeed despise athletic valor, because it harms no one; but kingly valor, because it is wont to harm widely, they so admire that they think brave and warlike commanders deserve a place in the assembly of the gods; and that there is no other road to immortality than to lead armies, to lay waste the property of others, to destroy cities, to raze towns, to slaughter free peoples or reduce them to slavery—evidently the more men they have afflicted, despoiled, and killed, the more noble and illustrious they consider themselves, and, captivated by the phantom of empty glory, they impose the name of virtue upon their crimes. I would rather they fashioned gods for themselves from the slaughter of wild beasts than that they approved of so bloody an immortality. If anyone has slain a single man, he is held to be defiled and wicked, and they think it unlawful to admit him to this earthly dwelling of the gods.

But he who has slaughtered countless thousands of men, flooded the fields with blood, and polluted rivers—he is admitted not only into the temple, but even into heaven. In Ennius, Africanus speaks thus;—evidently because he had destroyed and ruined a great part of the human race. O in what great darkness, Africanus, were you wandering! Or rather, O poet, who thought that the way to heaven lay open to men through slaughter and blood! To this vanity Cicero also assented: "It is true indeed, Africanus," he says, "for to Hercules that same gate stood open." As though he himself had plainly been the doorkeeper in heaven when that happened. For my part I cannot determine whether I should rather grieve or laugh, when I see grave and learned men, and, as they think themselves, wise men, wallowing in such pitiable waves of error. If this is the virtue that makes us immortal, I would rather die than be the destruction of as many as possible.

If immortality cannot be obtained otherwise than through blood, what will happen if all men agree to live in concord?

This could certainly come to pass, if, casting aside pernicious and impious fury, they were willing to be innocent and just. Will no one then be worthy of heaven? Will virtue perish, because it will not be permitted for men to rage against men? But those who reckon the overthrow of cities and peoples as the highest glory will not endure public peace; they will plunder, they will rage, and by insolently inflicting injuries they will break the bond of human society, so that they may have an enemy whom they may destroy more wickedly than they provoked. Now let us proceed to the rest. The tradition of gifts made the name of gods for Ceres and Liber. I am able to show from the divine scriptures that wine and grain were in use among men before the offspring of Coelus and Saturn; but let us suppose that these things were indeed discovered by them.

Can it seem a greater or more important thing to have gathered grain and taught how to make bread from it when ground, or to have gathered grapes from the vines and pressed them and made wine, than to have generated the grain itself, or the vines, and brought them forth from the earth? Let God have left these things to be worked out by human ingenuity: yet it cannot be but that all things belong to him who both gave wisdom to man to discover them, and those very things which could be discovered. Arts too are said to have won immortality for their inventors, as medicine for Aesculapius, smithcraft for Vulcan. Let us therefore also worship those who taught the fuller's trade and the cobbler's trade. But why is no honor paid to the inventor of pottery? Is it because the wealthy despise Samian ware? There are also other arts whose inventors have profited human life very greatly. Why have temples not been assigned to them as well?

But doubtless it is Minerva who discovered them all—and therefore craftsmen supplicate her. Is there truly reason for anyone to abandon him who fashioned the earth with its living creatures, the heaven with its stars and lights, in order to venerate her who taught how to set up the loom? What of him who taught how to heal wounds in bodies—can he be more excellent than he who formed the bodies themselves, who gave the capacity for sensation and life, who devised and brought forth the very herbs and all the other things of which the art of healing consists?

But someone will say that veneration ought to be given both to this supreme one who made all things, and to those who have in part been of benefit. Veneration ought to be given. First, it has never in fact happened that one who worshipped these also worshipped God; nor can it happen, because if the same honor is given to others, he is not worshipped at all, whose religion it is to believe that he alone and only is God. The greatest poet cries out that all those are among the shades below, and that that very discoverer of medicine and of such an art was hurled down to the Stygian waters by a thunderbolt—so that we may understand how great is the power of the almighty father, who extinguishes even gods with his thunderbolts. But clever men perhaps had this reasoning with themselves: because God cannot be struck by lightning, it is apparent that this did not happen; nay rather, because it did happen, it is apparent that he was a man, not a god.

For the falsehood of the poets lies not in the deed, but in the name. For they feared harm if, against the common persuasion, they confessed what was true. But if it is agreed among themselves that gods were made from men, why then do they not believe the poets when they describe their flights, and wounds, and deaths, and wars, and adulteries? From which matters it is made clear that they could in no way have become gods, because they were not even upright men, and in their lives they did those things which bring forth everlasting death.

I come now to the particular religions of the Romans, since I have spoken of those held in common. The she-wolf, nurse of Romulus, was honored with divine honors. And I would bear it if it had been the animal itself whose form she bears. Livy is the authority that it is a likeness of Larentina, and indeed not of her body, but of her mind and character. For she was the wife of Faustulus, and on account of the cheapness of her body given to all, she was called among the shepherds a lupa, that is, a harlot—whence also the word lupanar is derived. The Romans evidently followed the example of the Athenians in fashioning her image; among whom a certain harlot named Leaena, having killed a tyrant, because it was wrong to set up the image of a harlot in a temple, they placed the likeness of the animal whose name she bore. And so as those made a memorial from the name, so these made one from the profession.

A festival day was also dedicated to her name, and the Larentinalia established. Nor do the Romans worship this harlot alone, but also Faula, whom Verrius writes was the concubine of Hercules. How great now must that immortality be thought, which even harlots attain? Flora, when she had acquired great wealth from the art of harlotry, made the people her heir, and left a fixed sum of money, from whose annual interest her birthday should be celebrated with the production of games, which they call the Floralia. Because this seemed disgraceful to the senate, it was decided that an argument should be drawn from the very name itself, so that a certain dignity might be added to a shameful thing. They invented that she was a goddess presiding over flowers, and that she ought to be propitiated so that crops together with trees and vines might flower well and prosperously.

Following this coloring in his Fasti, the poet related that she was no ignoble nymph, called Chloris, and that she was married to Zephyr, and received as it were in place of a dowry this gift from her husband, that she should have power over all flowers. These things are indeed spoken honorably; but they are believed dishonorably and shamefully. Nor ought such veils as these to deceive us when truth is sought. Those games are therefore celebrated with all lasciviousness, fittingly to the memory of a harlot. For besides the license of words, through which all obscenity is poured forth, the harlots are also stripped of their garments at the demand of the people—they who at that time perform the function of actresses—and are kept in the sight of the people with shameful movements until the eyes of the shameless are satisfied.

Tatius consecrated a statue of Cloacina found in the great sewer, and because he did not know whose image it was, he gave it a name from the place. Tullus Hostilius fashioned and worshipped Fear and Pallor. What shall I say of this, except that he deserved always to have his gods present with him, as is commonly wished? From him that act of M. Marcellus concerning the consecration of Honor and Virtue differs in the honorableness of the names, but agrees in the thing. With the same vanity the senate also placed Mind among the gods—which, if it had truly possessed, it would never have undertaken rites of such a kind. Cicero says that Greece had undertaken a great and bold design in having consecrated images of Cupids and Loves in the gymnasia—he was flattering Atticus, evidently, and mocking his intimate friend.

For that ought not to have been called a great design, or a design at all, but the ruined and desperate wickedness of shameless men, who prostituted their children, whom they ought to have trained to honorable things, to the lust of youth; who wished the gods of shameful acts to be worshipped in those very places where naked bodies are exposed to the eyes of the corrupt, and at that very age which, being simple and improvident, can be ensnared and fall into the snares before it can be on its guard.

What wonder is it if all manner of shameful deeds have flowed from this people? Among whom the very vices are religious, and are not only not avoided, but even worshipped. And therefore he added to this opinion, as though he surpassed the Greeks in wisdom: "For virtues, not vices, ought to be consecrated. But if you grant this, O Marcus Tullius, do you not see that vices will break in together with the virtues, because evils cleave to goods, and are more powerful in the minds of men; and if you forbid these to be consecrated, that same Greece will answer you that she worships some gods that they may be of benefit, and others that they may not do harm." For this is always the excuse of those who hold their own evils as gods, as the Romans do Rubigo and Fever. If therefore vices are not to be consecrated, in which I agree with you, neither are virtues.

For they have no wisdom or feeling of themselves, nor are they to be placed within walls or little shrines made of clay, but within the breast they must be lodged, and grasped more inwardly, lest they be false if placed outside of man. And so I deride that splendid law of yours, which you set forth in these words: "But those things through which man is given ascent to heaven—mind, virtue, piety, faith—and shrines to the praise of these, let there be." And yet these things cannot be separated from man. For if they are to be worshipped, they must of necessity reside in man himself. But if they are outside of man, what need is there to worship things of which you are destitute? For virtue is to be worshipped, not an image of virtue: and it is to be worshipped not by any sacrifice, or incense, or solemn prayer, but by will and purpose alone. For what else is it to worship virtue, but to grasp it with the mind and hold it fast?

Which each person attains as soon as he begins to will it. This alone is the worship of virtue; for religious reverence and veneration is to be maintained toward none other than the one God. What need is there, then, O most wise man, to occupy spaces with superfluous structures, which might yield to human uses? What need to appoint priests to worship things vain and insensible? What need to sacrifice victims? What need to spend such great sums either in fashioning or in worshipping images? The human breast is a firmer and more incorruptible temple: let this rather be adorned, let this be filled with those true names. These false consecrations are therefore followed by what must needs follow. For those who worship virtues in this manner, that is, who pursue shadows and images of virtues, cannot hold fast to the very things that are true.

And so there is no virtue in anyone, with vices everywhere holding sway; no faith, with every man snatching for himself alone; no piety, with avarice sparing neither kinsmen nor parents, and desire rushing into poison and the sword; no peace, no concord, with wars raging in public and private enmities fuming to the point of bloodshed; no chastity, with unbridled lusts defiling every sex and every part of the body: and yet they do not cease to worship those things which they flee and hate. For they worship with incense and with the tips of their fingers what they ought to have shuddered at in the depths of their senses: and all this error descends from ignorance of that first and highest good. When the city was seized by the Gauls and the Romans were besieged on the Capitol, having made engines of war from the hair of women, they consecrated a temple to Venus Calva. They do not therefore understand how vain their religions are, even from the very fact that they mock them with such absurdities.

They had perhaps learned from the Lacedaemonians to fashion gods for themselves out of events, who, when they were besieging the Messenians, and the latter had secretly slipped past the besiegers by a trick and rushed to plunder Lacedaemon, were routed and put to flight by the Spartan women. When the treachery of the enemy became known, the Lacedaemonians gave pursuit. The women, armed, went out a good distance to meet them; and when they saw their own men preparing for battle, thinking them to be Messenians, they bared their bodies. But the men, recognizing their wives, and stirred to lust by the sight, mingled with them promiscuously just as they were, armed; for there was no leisure to make distinctions. Thus the young men previously sent by the same women, having mingled with the maidens, fathered the Partheniae, and in memory of this deed they set up a temple and image to Venus Armata: which, although it arose from a shameful cause, yet seems more honorable to have consecrated an armed Venus than a bald one.

At the same time an altar was also set up to Jupiter Pistor, because he had warned them in a dream to make bread from all the grain they had and throw it into the enemy's camp; and when this was done the siege was lifted, the Gauls despairing that the Romans could be subdued by want. What manner of mockery of religions is this? If I were their defender, what could I complain of so grievously as that the name of the gods had come into such contempt as to be made a laughingstock under the most shameful names? Who would not laugh at the goddess Fornax, or rather at learned men busying themselves with the celebration of the Fornacalia? Who, upon hearing of the goddess Muta, could restrain his laughter? They say she is the one from whom the Lares were born, and they call her Lara, or Larunda. What can she bestow upon her worshipper, she who cannot speak?

Caca also is worshipped, who gave Hercules information about the theft of the cattle, having attained divinity because she betrayed her brother; and Cunina, who watches over infants in their cradles and wards off the evil eye; and Stercutus, who first introduced the practice of manuring fields; and Tutinus, in whose shameful lap brides preside, so that the god may seem to have first tasted their chastity: and a thousand other monstrosities, so that we may now say those who have undertaken to worship these things are more foolish than the Egyptians, who venerate certain monstrous and ridiculous images. And yet those have some likeness. What of those who worship a shapeless and rough stone, whose name is Terminus?

This is the one which Saturn is said to have devoured in place of Jupiter; and not without reason is honor paid to it. For when Tarquinius wished to build the Capitol, and in that place there were shrines of many gods, he consulted them through auguries whether they would yield to Jupiter; and while the others yielded, Terminus alone remained. Hence the poet calls him the immovable rock of the Capitol. Now from this very fact how great Jupiter is found to be, to whom a stone did not yield—perhaps with the confidence that it had freed him from his father's jaws. And so when the Capitol was built, a hole was left in the roof above Terminus himself: so that, since he had not yielded, he might enjoy the open sky; which not even those themselves enjoyed, who supposed that a stone could enjoy it. And to this stone public supplication is made, as to the god guardian of boundaries: who is not only a stone, but sometimes also a post.

What shall I say of those who worship such things? Except that they themselves are most fittingly stones and posts.

We have spoken of the gods themselves who are worshipped: now a few things must be said about their rites and mysteries. Among the Cyprians, Teucer sacrificed a human victim to Jupiter; and he handed down this sacrifice to his posterity, which was only recently abolished in the reign of the emperor Hadrian. There was a law among the Taurians, an inhuman and savage people, that strangers should be sacrificed to Diana; and this sacrifice was celebrated for many ages. The Gauls propitiated Hesus and Teutates with human blood. Nor indeed were the Latins free from this savagery, since the Latian Jupiter is even now worshipped with human blood. What good do those who sacrifice in this manner pray for from the gods? Or what can such gods bestow upon men, who are propitiated by their torments? But concerning the Barbarians there is not so much cause for wonder, whose religion is in keeping with their customs.

But our own people, who have always claimed for themselves the glory of gentleness and humanity, are they not found more savage in these sacrilegious rites? For those are rather to be held as criminals who, though polished by the studies of the liberal arts, depart from humanity, than those who, being rude and unlearned, slip into evil deeds through ignorance of what is good. Yet it is apparent that this rite of sacrificing men is ancient: since Saturn in Latium was worshipped with the same kind of sacrifice, not indeed in the sense that a man was slaughtered at the altar, but that he was thrown from the Milvian bridge into the Tiber. This was done, as Varro attests, in accordance with a certain oracle; the last verse of which oracle is as follows: Send heads to Hades, and a man to the father.

Because this seems ambiguous, both a torch and a man are customarily thrown. But this kind of sacrifice is said to have been abolished by Hercules when he returned from Spain, yet with the rite remaining, so that images made of rushes were thrown in place of real men; as Ovid teaches in the Fasti: those rites the Vestal Virgins perform, as the same author says!

For concerning the infants who were sacrificed to this same Saturn on account of hatred of Jupiter, I do not know what to say; that men were so barbarous, so savage, as to call their own act of parricide—that is, a deed foul and execrable to the human race—a sacrifice: when they extinguished tender and innocent souls, which are the age most dear to parents, without any regard for natural affection, and surpassed in ferocity the savagery of all beasts, which nevertheless love their own offspring! O incurable madness! What more could those gods do to them, if they were most wrathful, than they do when propitious? Since they defile their own worshippers with acts of parricide, afflict them with bereavements, strip them of human feeling. What can be sacred to these men? Or what will they do in profane places, who commit the greatest crimes at the very altars of the gods?

Pescennius Festus in his books of Histories relates in a digression that the Carthaginians were accustomed to sacrifice human victims to Saturn: and when they had been defeated by Agathocles, king of the Sicilians, they supposed that the God was angry with them; and therefore, to discharge the expiation more carefully, they sacrificed two hundred sons of nobles.

Whom then were those most foolish men consulting by that sacrifice? When they were slaying so great a part of the city as perhaps not even Agathocles the conqueror had slain.

From this kind of rites, those public rites are to be judged as no less insane: of which some belong to the Mother of the Gods, in which men make offering with their own virile members; for having cut away their sex, they make themselves neither men nor women: others belong to Virtus, whom they also call Bellona, in which the priests themselves sacrifice not with another's but with their own blood. For with their shoulders slashed, and brandishing drawn swords in both hands, they run, they rage, they are frenzied. Quintilian therefore said most aptly in his work On the Fanatic: "If a god compels this, he is angry." Are even these things sacred rites? Is it not better to live after the manner of cattle, than to worship gods so impious, so profane, so bloodthirsty?

But whence these errors and such great shameful deeds have flowed, we shall discuss in its proper place: in the meantime let us look also at the rest, which are free from crime, lest in our eagerness to attack we seem to be selecting the worst. The Egyptian rites of Isis concern the extent to which she either lost or found her little son. For first her priests, with their bodies made smooth, beat their breasts; they lament, as she herself had done when she lost him. Then the boy is brought forth as though found, and that mourning is changed into joy: hence Lucan: For they always lose, and always find. Therefore in the rites is represented the image of what truly happened, which assuredly, if we have any wisdom, declares that she was a mortal woman, and nearly bereft, had she not recovered her only child.

Which did not escape that same poet, in whose work the young Pompey, upon hearing of his father's death, speaks thus: This is Osiris, whom the common people call Serapis or Serapis. For it is customary that when the dead are consecrated their names are changed; I believe, lest anyone should think them to have been human beings. For Romulus after death became Quirinus; and Leda, Nemesis; and Circe, Marica; and Ino, after she threw herself headlong, Leucothea, and Mother Matuta; and her son Melicertes, Palaemon, and Portunus.

But the Eleusinian rites of Ceres are not unlike these. For just as there the boy Osiris is sought amid the lamentation of his mother; so here Proserpina, carried off to the incestuous marriage of her uncle: and because Ceres is said to have sought her in Sicily with torches lit from the summit of Etna, for this reason her rites are celebrated with the brandishing of burning torches.

At Lampsacus an ass is the acceptable victim for Priapus: the reason for this sacrifice is given in the Fasti as follows: when all the gods had assembled for the feast of the Great Mother, and having satisfied themselves with banqueting were passing the night in games, Vesta had lain down on the ground and fallen asleep; there Priapus had laid snares against her sleep and her chastity; but she was roused by the untimely braying of the ass on which Silenus rode, and the lust of the schemer was thus frustrated; for this reason the people of Lampsacus were accustomed to sacrifice an ass to Priapus, as it were in revenge; but among the Romans that same animal is crowned with loaves at the Vestal rites in honour of the chastity that was preserved. What is more shameful? What more disgraceful? Than that Vesta should be a virgin by the favour of an ass? But the poet invented the fable.

Is that then more true which those relate who wrote the Phaenomena, when they speak of the two stars of Cancer, which the Greeks call ὄνους? That these were asses which carried Father Liber across, when he could not cross a river; and that to one of them he gave as a reward the power of speaking with a human voice: and so a contest arose between that ass and Priapus concerning the size of an obscene member; and Priapus, defeated and enraged, slew the victor. This indeed is far more absurd; but poets may do whatever they please: I do not shake out so foul a mystery, nor do I strip Priapus bare, lest something appear worthy of laughter. These things the poets have certainly invented; but they must needs have been invented for the sake of concealing some greater baseness. Let us therefore inquire what that may be. But it is surely manifest.

For just as a bull is sacrificed to the Moon because it likewise has horns, so in this case, because the enormity of the virile member is monstrous, no more fitting victim could be found for that monster than one which could imitate the very thing to which it is sacrificed. At Lindus, which is a town of Rhodes, there are rites of Hercules whose manner is far different from all others: for they are celebrated not with εὐφημίᾳ (as the Greeks call it), but with curses and execration; and they count them as violated if at any time during the solemn rites even a good word should escape from anyone unawares. The reason given for this is as follows, if indeed any reason can exist in matters most vain: when Hercules had been brought to that place and was suffering hunger, he caught sight of a certain ploughman at work, and began to ask him to sell him one ox.

But the man refused, saying it could not be done, because all his hope of tilling the land rested on those two bullocks. Hercules, using his customary violence, since he could not obtain one, took both. But that unhappy man, when he saw his oxen being slaughtered, avenged his wrong with curses. This was most pleasing to that elegant and refined personage. For while he was preparing a feast for his companions, and while he was devouring another man's oxen, he listened with laughter and guffaws to the man railing at him most bitterly.

But after it was decided that divine honours should be paid to Hercules on account of admiration for his valour, an altar was set up for him by the citizens, which he named βούζυγον from the deed, at which two yoked oxen were to be sacrificed, just like those he had taken from the ploughman; and he appointed that very man as his priest, and commanded that the same curses should always be used in the celebration of the sacrifices, because he declared he had never feasted more pleasantly. These are no longer sacred rites but sacrileges, in which that is called holy which in other contexts, if done, is punished even most severely. But the rites of the Cretan Jupiter himself, what else do they show than how he was either taken away from his father or nurtured?

There is the she-goat of the nymph Amalthea, who suckled the infant at her udders; concerning which Germanicus Caesar in his poem on Aratus speaks thus: Musaeus is the authority that Jupiter used the hide of this she-goat as a shield when fighting against the Titans: whence by the poets he is called αἰγίοχος. Thus whatever was done in hiding the boy, that very thing is enacted symbolically in the rites. But also the mystery of his mother contains the same, which Ovid sets forth in the Fasti, book IV.: Sallustius rejected this whole opinion as though invented by the poets, and wished to interpret ingeniously why the Curetes are said to have been the fosterers of Jupiter; and he speaks thus: Because they were the foremost in understanding things divine, antiquity, as it embellishes all else into something greater, celebrated them as the fosterers of Jupiter. How greatly this learned man erred, the matter itself now makes plain.

For if Jupiter is the foremost both of gods and of religious observances; if before him no gods were commonly worshipped, because those who are worshipped had not yet been born; it is apparent that the Curetes were on the contrary the foremost in not understanding things divine, through whom all error was introduced and the memory of the true God was destroyed. From the very mysteries and ceremonies themselves, therefore, they ought to have understood that they were supplicating dead men. I do not therefore require that anyone should believe the fictions of the poets. Let whoever thinks these men lie consider the writings of the Pontiffs themselves, and examine whatever literature pertains to the sacred rites: he will perhaps find more than we bring forward, from which he may understand that all things held as holy are empty, absurd, and fabricated.

But if anyone, having received wisdom, shall have laid aside error, he will assuredly laugh at the follies of men nearly out of their minds; I mean those who either leap about in dishonourable dancing, or who run naked, anointed, crowned, masked, or smeared with mud. What shall I say of shields now rotten with age? When they carry these, they think they are bearing the very gods upon their shoulders. For Furius Bibaculus is counted among the foremost examples of piety, who, though he was praetor, nevertheless walked before the lictors and carried the ancile, although he had, by the privilege of his magistracy, exemption from that duty. That Furius therefore was not a Furius but plainly a furiosus, who thought he was adorning his praetorship by that service. Rightly therefore, since these things are done by men not unlearned and ignorant, does Lucretius exclaim: Who would not laugh at these mockeries, if he possessed any soundness of mind?

When he sees men, as though bereft of reason, doing in earnest what, if anyone were to do in play, he would seem too wanton and absurd.

The author and establisher of these vanities among the Romans was that king Sabinus, who above all others entangled the rude and ignorant minds of men with new superstitions: and in order to do this with some authority, he pretended to have nightly meetings with the goddess Egeria. There was a certain very shady cave in the grove of Aricia, from which a stream flowed from a perennial spring; to this place, having removed all witnesses, he was accustomed to betake himself, so that he might be able to lie, claiming that by the admonition of his divine consort he was delivering to the people those sacred rites which would be most acceptable to the gods: he evidently wished to imitate the cunning of Minos, who used to shut himself up in the cave of Jupiter, and after remaining there a long time would bring forth laws as though delivered to him by Jupiter, so as to bind men to obedience not only by authority but also by religion. Nor was it indeed difficult to persuade shepherds.

And so he created pontiffs, flamens, salii, augurs, and distributed the gods among families. Thus he softened the fierce spirits of a new people and called them away from warlike pursuits to the pursuits of peace. But while he deceived others, he did not deceive himself; for after many years, in the consulship of Cornelius and Bebius, two stone chests were found by diggers in the field of the scribe Petilius beneath the Janiculum, in one of which was the body of Numa, and in the other seven Latin books on pontifical law, and likewise the same number in Greek on the discipline of wisdom, by which he dissolved religious observances—not only those which he himself had instituted, but all others besides. When this matter was brought before the senate, a decree was passed that these books should be destroyed: and so the consul Q. Petilius the city praetor burned them in an assembly of the people—foolishly indeed. For what did it profit that the books were burned?

Since the very fact that they were burned for this reason, namely because they detracted from religious observances, has been handed down to memory. No one therefore in the senate at that time was not most foolish. For the books could have been destroyed, and yet the matter need not have passed into memory. Thus while they wished to prove even to posterity with what great piety they had defended religious observances, by their testimony they diminished the authority of those very observances. But as Pompilius was among the Romans the establisher of foolish religious rites: so before Pompilius, Faunus in Latium established abominable rites even from his grandfather Saturn, and honoured his father Picus among the gods, and consecrated his sister Fatua Fauna, who was also his wife; whom Gabius Bassus reports was called Fatua because she was accustomed to chant fates to women, as Faunus did to men. Varro writes that she was of such great chastity that no male ever saw her while she lived, except her own husband, nor heard her name.

For this reason women sacrifice to her in a closed place, and call her the Good Goddess. And Sextus Clodius in the book which he wrote in Greek relates that this was the wife of Faunus, who, because she had secretly drunk down a jar of wine contrary to royal custom and decency, and had become drunk, was beaten with myrtle rods by her husband to the point of death. But afterwards, when he repented of his deed and could not bear his longing for her, he paid her divine honour; for this reason in her rites a wine-jar wrapped in coverings is placed. Faunus therefore also left to posterity no small measure of error, which nevertheless all prudent men perceive. For Lucilius mocks the folly of those who think images are gods, in these verses: The poet indeed compared foolish men to infants. But I say they are far more imprudent. For those think images to be men, these think them gods. Age causes those to think what is not so, folly causes these.

Those at any rate soon cease to be deceived, but the vanity of these both endures and ever grows. The rites of Father Liber were first introduced into Greece by Orpheus, and first celebrated on the mountain of Boeotia nearest to Thebes, where Liber was born, which, because it frequently resounded with the music of the lyre, was called Cithaeron. Those rites are even now called Orphic, in which he himself was afterwards torn apart and rent, and he lived at about the same times as Faunus. But which of them preceded the other in age may be doubted: since Latinus and Priam reigned in the same years; likewise their fathers Faunus and Laomedon, in whose reign Orpheus with the Argonauts approached the shore of the Ilians. Let us proceed therefore further, and inquire who was altogether the first author of worshipping the gods. Didymus in his books of commentary on Pindar says that Melisseus, king of the Cretans, was the first to sacrifice to the gods and to introduce new rites and solemn processions of sacred things.

He had two daughters, Amalthea and Melissa, who nourished the boy Jupiter with goat's milk and honey. Hence that poetic fable took its origin, that bees flew to him and filled the mouth of the boy with honey. Melissa moreover was appointed by her father as the first priestess of the Great Mother, whence even now the ministers of that same Mother are called Melissae. But the sacred history testifies that Jupiter himself, after he had gained power over all things, came to such arrogance that he established shrines to himself in many places. For as he travelled through the lands, into whatever region he came, he bound the kings or chief men of the peoples to himself by hospitality and friendship, and when he departed from each, he commanded a shrine to be created for him in the name of his host, as though in this way the memory of friendship and alliance could be preserved. Thus were established the temples of Jupiter Atabyrius, Jupiter Labrandius.

For Atabyrius and Labrandius were his hosts and helpers in war. Likewise Jupiter Laprius, Jupiter Molio, Jupiter Casius, and others of the same kind. This he most cunningly devised, so as to acquire for himself divine honour and for his hosts a perpetual name joined with religious veneration. They therefore rejoiced, and for this reason willingly complied with his authority, and for the sake of their own name celebrated annual rites and festivals. Something similar was done in Sicily by Aeneas, when he gave to the city he founded the name of his host Acestes, so that Acestes might afterwards cherish, enlarge, and adorn it gladly and willingly. In this manner Jupiter sowed throughout the world the religious worship of himself, and gave an example to the rest for imitation. Whether therefore the rite of worshipping the gods flowed from Melisseus, as Didymus has handed down, or also from Jupiter himself, as Euhemerus says; yet the time is agreed upon when the gods began to be worshipped.

Melisseus indeed preceded by a great span of age, inasmuch as he had reared Jupiter as his grandson. And therefore it is possible either that before Jupiter, or while Jupiter was still a boy, he instituted the worship of the gods, that is, of his nursling's mother; and of his grandmother Tellus, who was the wife of Uranus, and of his father Saturn: and that by this example and institution he himself led Jupiter on to such great pride that he afterwards dared to assume divine honours for himself.

Now since we have discovered the origin of vain superstitions, it remains that we also gather together the times in which those lived whose memory is venerated. Theophilus, in the book On Times written to Autolycus, says that in his history Thallus states that Belus, whom the Babylonians and Assyrians worship, is found to have been three hundred and twenty-two years older than the Trojan war; and that Belus was the equal of Saturn, and that both came to maturity at the same time. This is so true that it can be gathered by reason itself. For Agamemnon, who waged the Trojan war, was the great-grandson of Jupiter, and Achilles and Ajax were great-grandsons, and Ulysses was related at the same degree; Priam indeed by a long line. But certain authors hand down that Dardanus and Jasius were sons of Corythus, not of Jupiter. For if it had been otherwise, he could not have had Ganymede, his great-grandson, for shameful purposes.

And so, if you divide the corresponding years among the parents of those whom I named above, the number will agree. From the destruction of the city of Troy, one thousand four hundred and seventy years are reckoned. From this reckoning of times it is manifest that Saturn, who was also the begetter of all the gods, was born not more than eighteen hundred years ago. Let them not therefore glory in the antiquity of their rites, whose origin, and rationale, and times have been discovered. There remain still some things which are of great force in refuting false religions. But I have now resolved to make an end of the book, lest it exceed its measure. For those matters must be pursued more fully, so that, when all things that seem to stand in the way of truth have been refuted, we may be able to imbue with true religion those men who wander uncertain through ignorance of good things. Now the first step of wisdom is to understand what is false; the second, to know what is true.

Therefore, he with whom this our first instruction, by which we have uncovered falsehoods, shall have made progress, will be stirred up toward the knowledge of truth, than which no pleasure is more delightful to man; and he will already be worthy of the wisdom of heavenly teaching, who shall have come willingly and prepared to learn the rest.

Although in the first book I showed that the religions of the gods are false, because those whose varied and dissimilar cults throughout the whole earth the agreement of men has taken up through foolish persuasion were mortal, and having completed their lives yielded to divine necessity by death; yet lest any doubt remain, this second book will lay open the very fountain of errors, and will explain all the causes by which men, having been deceived, both at first believed there were gods, and afterward persevered most perversely in the religions they had taken up, through inveterate persuasion. For I am eager, O Emperor Constantine, now that vanities have been refuted and the impious folly of men exposed, to assert the majesty of the one God, undertaking the more useful and greater office of recalling men from crooked paths, and of reconciling them with themselves, lest they despise themselves so greatly (as certain philosophers do), nor think themselves weak, and superfluous, and nothing, and born altogether in vain. For this opinion drives many to vices.

For while they suppose that we are of no concern to any God, or that after death they will be nothing, they give themselves wholly to lusts, and while they think all things lawful to themselves, they thirstily press on to drain pleasures, through which, unwitting, they fall into the snares of death; for they do not know what is the nature of man. If they were willing to hold to it, they would above all acknowledge their Lord, would follow virtue and justice, would not bridle their souls to earthly fictions, would not seek the death-dealing sweetnesses of lusts; and finally they would esteem themselves highly, and would understand that there is more in man than appears, whose force and condition they could not otherwise preserve unless, laying aside perversity, they had taken up the worship of their true Father.

Indeed, as is fitting, when I often think upon the sum of things, I am accustomed to marvel that the majesty of the one God, who contains and governs all things, has fallen into such oblivion that he who alone ought to be worshipped is alone above all neglected; and that men themselves have been led to such blindness that they prefer the dead to the true and living God, and those who are earthly and buried in the earth to him who was the founder of the earth itself. And yet pardon might be granted to men for this impiety, if this error came entirely from ignorance of the divine name. But since we often see the very worshippers of the gods both confess and proclaim the supreme God, what pardon can they hope for their impiety? Who do not acknowledge the worship of him whom it is not right for man to be wholly ignorant of.

For both when they swear, and when they make vows, and when they give thanks, they name not Jupiter or many gods, but God: so truly does truth itself, compelled by nature, burst forth even from unwilling hearts; which indeed they do not do in times of prosperity. For then God most of all slips from the memory of men, when, enjoying his benefits, they ought to render honor to the divine bounty. But if any heavy necessity has pressed upon them, then they remember God. If the terror of war has roared, if the pestilential force of diseases has settled upon them, if long drought has denied food to the crops, if a fierce storm or hail has come on, men flee to God, help is sought from God, God is prayed to come to their aid. If anyone is tossed at sea with the wind raging, he calls upon him. If anyone is afflicted by some violence, he implores him rather.

If anyone, reduced to the uttermost necessity of begging, seeks food by prayers, he calls upon God alone, and through his divine and unique name seeks for himself the mercy of men. They never therefore remember God except while they are in troubles. After fear has left them and dangers have receded, then indeed they run eagerly to the temples of the gods; to these they make libations, to these they sacrifice, these they crown. But to God, whom they had implored in their very necessity, they do not even give thanks in word: so truly from the prosperity of things is born luxury, and from luxury, as all vices, so impiety toward God is born. For what cause shall we suppose this to be done?

Unless there is some perverse power, which is always the enemy of truth, which rejoices in human errors, whose sole and perpetual work it is to spread darkness and to blind the minds of men; lest they see the light, lest finally they look up to heaven, and preserve the nature of their body, whose origin we shall relate in its proper place; now let us expose the deceits. For since the other living creatures, with bodies bent, look toward the ground, because they have not received reason and wisdom, but to us an upright posture and a lofty countenance has been given by God the craftsman, it is apparent that those religions of the gods are not of human reason, because they bend a heavenly creature to the veneration of earthly things. For that one and only Father of ours, when he fashioned man, that is, a creature intelligent and capable of reason, raised him up from the earth and lifted him toward the contemplation of his maker.

Which the gifted poet most aptly noted: Hence indeed the Greeks called him ἄνθρωπον, because he looks upward. They therefore renounce themselves, and disclaim the name of men, who do not look upward but downward: unless perhaps they think that the very fact of our being upright has been attributed to man without cause. God willed that we look upon heaven, certainly not in vain. For both birds and almost all of the mute creatures see heaven; but it has been given to us in particular to behold heaven with rigid and standing gaze, so that we may seek religion there, so that we may contemplate with the mind God, whose seat is there, since we cannot with our eyes: which assuredly he does not do who venerates bronze or stone, which are earthly things.

Moreover it is most perverse that, while the posture of the body is upright, which is temporal, the soul itself, which is eternal, should be made lowly; since the figure and posture signify nothing other than that the mind of man ought to look toward that toward which his countenance looks, and that the soul ought to be as upright as the body, so that it may imitate that which it ought to govern. But men, forgetful both of their name and of their reason, cast down their eyes from on high, fix them upon the ground, and fear the works of their own fingers, as though anything could be greater than its maker.

What madness is it, therefore, either to fashion those things which they themselves afterward fear, or to fear those things which they have fashioned? We do not fear these things themselves, they say, but those at whose image they were fashioned, and to whose names they have been consecrated. You fear them, forsooth, because you judge them to be in heaven: for if they are gods, it cannot be otherwise. Why then do you not lift your eyes to heaven? And, calling upon their names, celebrate sacrifices in the open? Why do you look most of all at walls, and wood, and stones, rather than toward that place where you believe them to be? What do temples mean? What do altars mean? What finally do the images themselves mean, which are either memorials of the dead or of the absent? For the practice of fashioning likenesses was altogether invented by men for this reason, that the memory of those who had been removed either by death or separated by absence might be retained.

In which number of the dead or absent shall we place the gods therefore? If among the dead, who is so foolish as to worship them? If among the absent, they are therefore not to be worshipped, if they neither see what we do nor hear what we pray. But if gods cannot be absent, who, since they are divine, wherever in the world they may be, see and hear all things; then images are superfluous, since they are everywhere present, and it is sufficient to call upon those who hear by invoking their names in prayers. But they are present only at their own images. Just so; in the same way as the common people suppose that the souls of the dead wander about their tombs and the remains of their bodies. But nevertheless, after that god has begun to be present, there is no longer need of his image.

For I ask, if someone were to contemplate rather frequently the image of a man who is abroad, so as to draw from it consolation for his absence, would he seem to be in his right mind if, when that man had returned and was present, he were to persist in contemplating the image, and wished to enjoy it rather than the sight of the man himself? By no means certainly. For the image of a man seems necessary when he is far away; it will be superfluous when he is at hand: but the image of God, whose spirit and power, diffused everywhere, can never be absent, is always superfluous. But they fear lest all their religion be empty and vain, if they see nothing present to adore, and therefore they set up images, which, because they are likenesses of the dead, are like the dead; for they are wholly without sense. But the image of God who lives forever ought to be living and sentient.

Now if it received its name from likeness, how can those images be judged similar to God, which neither feel nor move? And so the image of God is not that which is fashioned by the fingers of man from stone, or bronze, or any other material; but man himself, since he both feels, and moves, and has many and great actions. Nor do those most foolish men understand that, if images could feel and move, they would of their own accord have adored the man by whom they were polished, who would have been either an uncultured and rough stone, or formless and crude material, had they not been shaped by man.

Man, therefore, is to be considered as the parent, so to speak, of those things, through whose hands they were born, through whom they began to have form, figure, and beauty. And therefore he who made them is better than those things which were made. And yet no one looks up to or reveres the maker himself; he fears what he made, as though there could be more power in the work than in the craftsman. Rightly therefore does Seneca say in his moral books: They venerate the images of the gods, they supplicate them with bended knee, they adore them, they sit beside them or stand before them the whole day long, they cast offerings to them, they slay victims; and while they hold these things in such great admiration, they despise the craftsmen who made them. What is so contrary to itself as to despise the sculptor yet adore the statue, and not even to admit to one's table the man who makes gods for you?

What force, then, what power can they have, when he himself who made them has none? But neither could he give to them even those things which he possessed: to see, to hear, to speak, to move. Is anyone, then, so foolish as to think there is something in an image of a god, in which there is not even anything of a man except a shadow? But no one considers these things; for they are steeped in persuasion, and their minds have drunk deep of the taint of folly. They adore things without sense, they who have sense; things without reason, they who have wisdom; things without life, they who live; things of earth, they who are born from heaven. It is pleasing, therefore, as though stationed on some lofty watchtower from which all might hear, to cry aloud that saying of Persius: O souls bent down to earth, and empty of things celestial! Look rather upon the heaven, to the contemplation of which your maker God has aroused you.

He gave you an uplifted countenance; you bend yourselves toward the earth: you press down your lofty minds, raised together with their bodies toward their parent, to lower things, as though you repented of not having been born on four feet. It is not right that a heavenly creature should be equated with earthly things and things tending toward the earth. Why do you deprive yourselves of heavenly gifts, and of your own will fall prone upon the ground? For you poor wretches wallow on the ground, when you seek below what you ought to have sought on high. For those playthings of mortal fingers, those fragile images formed from whatever kind of material, what else are they but earth, from which they were born? Why then do you lie subject to inferior things? Why do you place earth above your heads?

For when you submit yourselves to the earth and make yourselves lower, you of your own accord plunge yourselves down to the dead, and condemn yourselves to death, because nothing is lower and more humble than earth, except death and the dead. If you wished to escape these, you would despise the earth subject to your feet, with your bodily posture preserved: which posture you received upright for this reason, that you might be able to lift your eyes and mind toward him who made you. But to despise and trample upon the earth is nothing other than not to adore images, because they are fashioned from earth; likewise not to covet riches, to spurn the pleasures of the body, because wealth and the body itself, of whose lodging we make use, is earth. Worship the living, that you may live; for he must necessarily die who has consigned himself and his soul to the dead.

But what does it profit to harangue the common people and unlearned men in this manner? When we see that even learned and prudent men, though they understand the vanity of religious observances, nevertheless persist with some perversity in worshipping those very things which they condemn. Cicero understood that what men adored was false. For after he had said many things tending toward the overthrow of religious observances, he nevertheless says that these things ought not to be debated before the common people, lest such debate extinguish the religious observances publicly received. What are you to make of a man who, while he feels himself to be in error, deliberately dashes himself against stones, so that all the people may stumble? Who tears out his own eyes, so that all may be blind?

Who neither does well by others, whom he allows to err; nor by himself, who joins in the errors of others, and does not at last make use of the good of his own wisdom, so as to fulfil in deeds what he has grasped in mind; but knowingly and willingly puts his foot in the snare, so that he too may be caught along with the rest, whom as the wiser man he ought to have freed? Why not rather, if you have any virtue in you, Cicero, try to make the people wise: it is a worthy cause in which to exercise all the powers of your eloquence. For there is no need to fear that speech will fail you in so good a cause, you who have often defended even bad causes copiously and boldly. But no doubt you fear the prison of Socrates, and therefore you dare not undertake the defense of truth. Yet as a wise man you ought to have despised death.

And it would indeed have been far more glorious to die for speaking well rather than for speaking ill. Nor could the Philippics have brought you more praise than the dispelling of the error of the human race and the recalling of men's minds to sanity by your disputation. But let us grant the timidity which ought not to exist in a wise man. Why then do you yourself wallow in the same error? I see you venerating earthly and man-made things: you understand them to be vain, and yet you do the same things as those very men whom you yourself confess to be most foolish. What profit was it, then, for you to have seen the truth, which you were neither going to defend nor to follow? If even those who feel themselves to be in error err willingly, how much more the unlearned common people, who delight in empty pageantry, and with childish minds behold everything?

They are charmed by trifles, and are captivated by the appearance of images, nor can they weigh each thing within themselves, so as to understand that nothing ought to be worshipped which is seen by mortal eyes, because it must necessarily be mortal. Nor is it to be wondered at if they do not see God, since they do not even see a man, whom they think they see. For that which is set before the eyes is not a man, but the receptacle of a man; whose quality and form is perceived not from the features of the vessel in which he is contained, but from his deeds and character. Those, therefore, who worship images are bodies lacking men, because they have given themselves over to bodily things, and see no more with the mind than with the body; whereas it is the function of the soul to discern more subtly those things which the bodily eye cannot behold.

These men that same philosopher and poet gravely accuses, as base and abject, who contrary to the principle of their own nature prostrate themselves to venerate earthly things: for he says: He indeed meant something else when he said these things; namely, that nothing at all ought to be worshipped, because the gods take no care of human affairs. Indeed in another place he confesses that the religious observances and worship of the gods are an empty duty: Which, if they are truly empty, lofty and exalted souls ought not to be called away and pressed down to earth, but ought to think of nothing other than heavenly things. False religions, therefore, have been attacked by the more prudent, because they felt them to be false: but the true religion was not introduced, because they did not know what it was or where it was. And so they held that there was none at all, because they could not find the true one.

And in this way they fell into an error far greater than those who held to a false one. For the worshippers of fragile things, though they are foolish in placing heavenly things in corruptible and earthly objects, yet retain some measure of wisdom, and can be pardoned, because they hold, if not in reality yet in intention, the highest duty of man: since indeed the distinction between men and brute beasts is either solely, or at least chiefly, in religion. But these men, the more wise they were in having understood the error of false religion, the more foolish they became in not believing that any true one existed. And so, because it is easier to judge of others' affairs than of one's own, while they saw the precipice of others, they did not look to what was before their own feet.

In both parties, therefore, both the height of folly is found, and a certain scent of wisdom: so that you might hesitate to say which are the more foolish, those who take up a false religion, or those who take up none. But (as I said) pardon can be granted to the unlearned and to those who confess themselves not to be wise: but it cannot be granted to those who, having professed wisdom, display folly instead. I am not indeed so unjust as to think they could have divined so as to find the truth by themselves; which I confess cannot be done. But this I require of them, which they could have achieved by reason itself. For they would have acted more prudently if they both understood that some true religion exists, and, having attacked the false ones, openly declared that the true one was not held by men.

But perhaps this consideration moved them: that if any true religion existed, it would assert and vindicate itself, and would not suffer anything else to exist. For they could in no way see why, or by whom, or in what manner the true Religion was suppressed; which is a matter of divine mystery and heavenly secret. This indeed no one can know in any way unless he is taught. The sum of the matter is this: the unlearned and unwise hold false religions for true ones, because they neither know the true nor understand the false. But the more prudent, because they do not know the true, either persist in those which they understand to be false, so as to appear to hold something, or worship nothing at all, lest they fall into error; when this very thing is the greatest error, to imitate the life of cattle under the form of a man. To understand what is false is indeed a mark of wisdom, but of human wisdom.

Beyond this degree man cannot advance; and so many of the philosophers (as I have shown) abolished religions: but to know what is true belongs to divine wisdom. Man, however, cannot arrive at this knowledge by himself, unless he is taught by God. Thus the philosophers attained what was the highest point of human wisdom, namely to understand what is not: that further point they could not attain, to say what is. The well-known saying of Cicero is: "Would that I could as easily discover the true as convict the false." Because this exceeds the powers of the human condition, the capacity for that office has been assigned to us, to whom God has delivered the knowledge of truth; to the unfolding of which the four remaining books will be devoted. For now let us meanwhile continue to expose the false, as we have begun.

What majesty, then, can images possess, which were in the power of a little man either to make into something else or not to make at all? For this reason Priapus in Horace speaks thus: Who would not be safe with so great a guardian? For thieves are so foolish as to fear the erection of Priapus; while the very birds, which they think are driven away by the terror of the sickle or the groin, perch upon the skillfully made images, that is, upon things plainly resembling men, build their nests, and defile them. But Flaccus, as a writer of satirical verse, mocked the vanity of men. But those who make them think they are doing a serious thing. Finally the greatest poet, a man prudent in other respects, in this alone raved not as a poet but as an old woman; when in those most polished books he even commands this to be done: They worship therefore mortal things, as things made by mortals. For they can be broken, burned, and destroyed.

For they are often shattered when roofs collapse from age, and when consumed by fire they crumble into ashes, and for the most part (unless their own great size has protected them, or careful guarding has enclosed them) they fall as prey to thieves. What madness is it, then, to fear those things on whose behalf one must fear either ruin, or fires, or theft? What vanity, to hope for any protection from those who cannot protect themselves? What perversity, to have recourse to the defense of those who, when they are violated, go unavenged unless they are vindicated by their worshippers? Where then is truth? Where no force can be applied to Religion; where nothing that can be violated appears; where sacrilege cannot be committed. But whatever is subject to eyes and hands, that indeed, because it is fragile, is wholly alien from any claim to immortality. In vain, therefore, do men adorn and deck out gods with gold, ivory, and gems; as though they could derive any pleasure from such things.

What use are precious gifts to those who feel nothing? Or is it the same as for the dead? For by the same reasoning they bury in the ground the bodies of the departed, smeared and wrapped in perfumes and costly garments, as they honor gods, who neither felt anything when they were being made, nor know anything when they are worshipped; for they did not acquire sense through consecration. It did not please Persius that golden vessels should be brought into temples, thinking it superfluous among religious observances, as being an instrument not of holiness but of greed. For it is better to bring before God, whom you rightly worship, that other thing as an offering.

He thought excellently and wisely. But he added that ridiculous point: that this is the gold in the temples, which there are things that he perhaps despised on account of their smallness. For he did not see that the very statues and images of the gods, wrought by the hand of Polycletus, and Euphranor, and Phidias, from gold and ivory, were nothing other than large dolls, consecrated not by maidens, whose play may be pardoned, but by bearded men. Rightly therefore does Seneca also mock the foolishness of old men. We are not, he says, children twice over (as the common saying goes); but always. Yet this is the difference, that we play with greater things.

Therefore upon these twice-childish, and adorned, and large dolls they bring ointments, and incense, and perfumes: upon these they sacrifice rich and fat victims, which have a mouth indeed, but one lacking the function of teeth: upon these they bestow costly robes and garments, for which there is no use of covering: upon these they consecrate gold and silver, which those who receive them possess no more than those who gave them. And not without reason did Dionysius, tyrant of Sicily, after his victory over Greece, despise, despoil, and mock such gods: for indeed he accompanied his sacrileges with jesting words as well. For when he had stripped Jupiter of Olympia of his golden mantle, he ordered a woolen one to be put on, saying that the golden one was heavy in summer and cold in winter, but the woolen one was suited to both seasons.

The same man, pulling off the golden beard of Aesculapius, said it was incongruous and unjust that, since Apollo his father was still beardless and smooth, the son should appear bearded before the father. Likewise he pulled off the cups, and the spoils, and certain small figurines which were held in the outstretched hands of the statues: and he said he was receiving them, not taking them away; for it was exceedingly foolish and ungrateful to refuse to receive from those who were voluntarily extending them, from whom men prayed for good things for themselves. These things he did with impunity, because he was a king and a conqueror. Indeed his accustomed good fortune followed him: for he lived to old age, and handed on his kingdom to his son from hand to hand. In that case therefore, because men could not avenge the sacrileges, it was fitting that the gods themselves should be their own avengers.

But if some lowly person commits such a thing, there are ready for him whips, fires, the rack, crosses, and whatever it is permitted to devise by those who are angry and raging. But when they punish those caught in sacrilege, they themselves distrust the power of their own gods. For why do they not leave to them above all the opportunity of avenging themselves, if they believe them capable of anything? Indeed they even think it happened by the divine will of those gods that the plunderers of sacred things were caught and held; and they rage not so much from anger as from fear, lest if they do not avenge the injury to the gods, punishments should fall upon themselves; with incredible vanity, forsooth, who think the gods will harm them on account of another's crimes, when those same gods could do nothing of themselves against those by whom they were violated and despoiled.

But indeed they have sometimes themselves also taken vengeance on sacrilegious persons: that could have happened by chance, since it occurred sometimes, not always. But yet a little later I shall show how that came about. Now in the meantime I ask, why did those gods not avenge so many and so great sacrileges against Dionysius, who held the gods in mockery not secretly but openly? Why did they not drive away this so powerful sacrilegious man from their temples, their rites, their images? Why, even after the sacred things were taken away, did he sail prosperously? Which he himself attested in jest (as was his custom). Do you not see, he said (to his companions who feared shipwreck), how prosperous a voyage is granted to the sacrilegious by the immortal gods themselves? But perhaps he had learned from Plato that the gods are nothing.

What of Gaius Verres? Whom Tullius, his accuser, compares to that same Dionysius, and Phalaris, and all the tyrants. Did he not plunder all Sicily, carrying off the statues of the gods and the ornaments of the shrines? It is tedious to pursue each instance. I am pleased to recall one over which the accuser lamented with all the powers of his eloquence, with every effort of voice and body, concerning the Ceres of Catina, or of Enna; of whom the one was held in such great reverence that it was sacrilege for men to approach the inner sanctuaries of her temple; and the other was of such great antiquity that all histories declare that the goddess herself first discovered grain on the soil of Enna, and that her virgin daughter was carried off from that same place. Finally, in the times of the Gracchi, when the republic was disturbed by seditions and portents, and it had been found in the Sibylline verses that the most ancient Ceres ought to be appeased, envoys were sent to Enna.

This Ceres therefore, either most sacred, whom it was not lawful for males to see even for the sake of worship, or most ancient, whom the Senate and People of Rome had appeased with sacrifices and gifts, was carried off with impunity from her secret and ancient inner sanctuary by Gaius Verres, who sent in his slave robbers. And indeed when he affirmed that he had been begged by the Sicilians to take up the cause of the province, he used these words: "That they now had not even gods in their cities to whom they might flee for refuge; because Gaius Verres had removed their most sacred statues from their most holy shrines:" as though indeed, if Verres had removed them from the cities and shrines, he had also removed them from heaven. From this it is apparent that those gods have nothing in them beyond the material from which they were fashioned.

And not without reason did the Sicilians flee to you, Marcus Tullius, that is, to a man, since for three years they had experienced that those gods were of no avail. For they would have been most foolish if they had fled to those gods to defend human wrongs, who could not even be angry with Gaius Verres on their own behalf. But indeed Verres was condemned for these crimes. Therefore the gods did not avenge it, but the industry of Cicero, by which he both overwhelmed his defenders and withstood his influence. What of the fact that for Verres himself that condemnation was not a condemnation but a respite? So that just as the immortal gods had given a good voyage to Dionysius as he carried off the spoils of the gods, so they might seem to have granted a good repose to Verres as well, in which he could tranquilly enjoy his sacrileges.

For when civil wars afterwards raged, removed from all danger and fear under the pretext of his condemnation, he heard of the heavy calamities and pitiable ends of others, and he who seemed to have fallen alone while all others stood, truly stood alone while all others fell, until the proscription of the triumvirs carried him off, sated with the wealth gained by sacrilege and with life, and worn out by old age—the same proscription, forsooth, that carried off Tullius, the avenger of the violated majesty of the gods. Indeed he was even fortunate in this, that before his own death he heard of the most cruel end of his accuser; the gods evidently providing that that sacrilegious plunderer of their sacred things should not die before he had taken comfort from the vengeance.

How much more rightly therefore is it to turn away from things insensible and vain, and to direct one's eyes thither where the seat, where the dwelling-place of the true God is; who suspended the earth with stable firmness; who adorned the heaven with shining stars; who kindled the sun, most brilliant and singular light for human affairs, as a testimony to his unique majesty: and poured the seas around the lands, and commanded the rivers to flow with everlasting current.

All of which things Jupiter certainly did not make, who was born a thousand seven hundred years ago; but he who is called God, whose beginning, since it cannot be comprehended, ought not even to be sought. It is enough for man, for full and perfect wisdom, if he understands that God exists: the force and sum of which understanding is this, that he should look up to and honor the common parent of the human race and the maker of wonderful things. Hence certain persons of dull and obtuse heart worship the elements, which both were made and lack sense, as though they were gods.

Who, when they marveled at the works of God, that is, the heaven with its varied lights, the earth with its plains and mountains, the seas with their rivers and lakes and springs, struck dumb with admiration of those things, and forgetting the very craftsman whom they could not see, began to venerate and worship his works; nor were they ever able to understand how much greater and how much more wonderful is he who made those things from nothing. And when they see those things serving the divine laws in obedience to the needs and uses of man with perpetual necessity, they nevertheless think those things are gods; ungrateful toward the divine benefits, who preferred the works of God and the most indulgent father to God himself. But what wonder, if either barbarians or unlearned men err?

Since even the philosophers of the Stoic school are of the same opinion, holding that all heavenly things which move ought to be reckoned in the number of gods; for indeed Lucilius the Stoic in Cicero speaks thus: "This constancy therefore in the stars, this so great agreement of times in so varied courses throughout all eternity, I cannot understand without mind, reason, and design; and since we see these things to be in the heavenly bodies, we cannot but place those very things in the number of gods." Likewise a little earlier: "It remains," he says, "that the motion of the stars is voluntary; and whoever sees this, acts not only ignorantly but also impiously, if he denies that they are gods." We however deny it, and indeed steadfastly, and we prove you, O philosophers, to be not only ignorant and impious, but also blind, foolish, and delirious, who have surpassed the ignorance of the unlearned with your own vanity. For they think the sun and moon are gods, but you think even the stars are gods.

Hand over to us therefore the mysteries of the stars, so that we may erect altars and temples to each one; so that we may know by what rite, on what day to worship each, by what names, by what prayers to invoke them; unless perhaps we ought to worship so innumerable and so minute gods all in a heap without any distinction. What of the fact that that argument by which they conclude that all heavenly things are gods, is valid in the contrary direction. For if they think them to be gods for the reason that they have fixed and regular courses, they err. For from this it is apparent that they are not gods, because it is not permitted to them to deviate from their appointed paths. But if they were gods, they would be carried hither and thither at random without any necessity, just as living creatures on earth, whose wills, because they are free, wander hither and thither as they please, and each is carried wherever its mind leads it.

The motion of the stars therefore is not voluntary, but necessary, because they serve appointed laws and functions. But when he was arguing about the courses of the heavenly bodies, which from the very agreement of things and seasons he understood to be not fortuitous, he supposed them to be voluntary, as though they could not move so regularly and so orderly unless there were in them a sense knowing its own function. O how difficult is truth for those who do not know, and how easy for those who do! If the motion of the stars, he says, is not fortuitous, nothing else remains but that it is voluntary; nay rather, as it is manifest that it is not fortuitous, so neither is it voluntary. How then do they maintain their constancy in completing their courses? Doubtless God, the maker of the universe, so disposed them, so contrived them, that they should run through the spaces of heaven by divine and wonderful reason, to produce the varieties of the seasons succeeding one another.

Or could Archimedes of Sicily contrive in hollow bronze a likeness and figure of the world, in which he so arranged the sun and moon that they produced unequal motions, and revolutions similar to those of the heavens, on each successive day as it were, and that sphere, as it turned, exhibited not only the approaches and recessions of the sun, or the waxings and wanings of the moon, but also the differing courses of the stars, whether fixed or wandering? And could God not contrive and make those true things which the skill of a man was able to imitate in simulation? Would the Stoic, if he had seen the figures of the stars painted and fashioned in that bronze, say that they moved by their own design, and not rather by the ingenuity of the craftsman? There is therefore in the stars a reason fitted for completing their courses: but that reason belongs to God, who both made and governs all things, not to the stars themselves, which are moved.

For if he had willed the sun to stand still, there would certainly be perpetual day. Likewise, if the stars had no motion, who doubts that there would have been everlasting night? But in order that there might be alternations of day and night, he willed them to move: and to move so variously, that not only might the mutual alternations of light and darkness come about, whereby the alternating spaces of labor and rest are established; but also of cold and heat, so that the force and power of the different seasons might be suited either to generating or to ripening crops. This ingenuity of divine power in contriving the courses of the stars, because the philosophers did not perceive it, they supposed the stars to be living creatures; as though they proceeded by their own feet and of their own accord, and not by divine reason. But why God devised those things, who does not understand?

Namely, lest when the light of the sun departed, the overly blind night should grow heavy with foul and dreadful darkness, and harm living things. And so he both adorned the heaven at the same time with wonderful variety, and tempered the darkness itself with many small lights. How much more wisely therefore does Naso, than those who think themselves devoted to wisdom, perceive that those lights were established by God to drive away the darkness of night! He ended that book in which he briefly comprised the Phaenomena with these three verses: So many in number, and of such figure, God placed likenesses Upon the heaven, and scattered through the dark shadows Commanded them to give bright lights to the frosty night. But if it cannot be that the stars are gods; therefore neither can the sun nor the moon be gods, since they differ from the lights of the stars not in reason but in magnitude. But if these are not gods; therefore neither is the heaven itself, in which all those things are contained.

In like manner, if the earth, which we tread upon, which we till and cultivate for sustenance, is not God, then neither will fields and mountains be gods: but if these are not, then neither can the whole earth be seen as God. Likewise, if water, which serves living creatures for the use of drinking or washing, is not God, then neither are the springs from which water flows. If springs are not gods, then neither are the rivers which are gathered from springs. If rivers also are not gods, then the sea as well, which is made up of rivers, cannot be held to be God. But if neither heaven, nor earth, nor sea, which are parts of the world, can be gods; then neither is the whole world God, which these same Stoics contend is both animate and wise, and therefore God: in which matter they were so inconsistent that nothing was said by them which was not overturned by themselves. For they argue thus: that what generates from itself things possessed of sense cannot lack sense.

But the world generates man, who is endowed with sense; therefore the world itself is also sentient. Likewise: that what a part of which has sense cannot be without sense; therefore, because man is sentient, sense is also present in the world, of which man is a part. The propositions indeed are true—both that what generates a being endowed with sense is itself sentient, and that what has a part furnished with sense itself has sense—but the assumptions by which they conclude their arguments are false, because neither does the world generate man, nor is man a part of the world. For man was made from the beginning by the same God who also made the world: and man is not a part of the world as a limb is of a body; for the world can exist without man, just as a city and a house can. And yet, as a house is the dwelling of one man, and a city of one people, so also the world is the abode of the whole human race.

And the thing which is inhabited is one thing, and the thing which inhabits is another. But they, while striving to confirm what they had falsely assumed—namely, that the world is both sentient and God—did not see the consequences of their own arguments. For if man is a part of the world, and the world is sentient because man has sensation: then, because man is mortal, the world must of necessity be mortal too; and not only mortal, but also subject to all diseases and passions.

And on the other hand: if the world is God, then its parts are certainly immortal; therefore man also is God, because he is a part (as you say) of the world. If man is God, then so too are beasts of burden, and cattle, and the other kinds of wild animals, and birds, and fish; since they likewise have sensation in the same manner, and are parts of the world. But this is tolerable: for even these the Egyptians worship. But the matter comes to the point where frogs, and gnats, and ants are seen to be gods, because sense is present in them too, and they are parts of the world. Thus arguments drawn from falsehood always have absurd and ridiculous conclusions. What of the fact that these same men say that the world was constructed for the sake of gods and men, as a common dwelling: therefore neither is the world God, nor animate, if it was constructed; for an animate being is not constructed, but born.

And if it was built in the manner of a house, in the manner of a ship: then there is some God who is the craftsman of the world; and the world, which was made, will be one thing, and he who made it will be another. Now how contradictory and absurd is this: that while they affirm the celestial fires and the other elements of the world to be gods, they also call the world itself God. How can one God be assembled from a mass of many gods? If the stars are gods, then the world is not God, but the dwelling-place of gods. But if the world is God, then all those things which are in it are not gods, but members of God, which certainly cannot individually receive the name of God. For no one would rightly say that the members of one man are many men: and yet the comparison of an animal and the world is not alike.

For an animal, because it is endowed with sense, its members also have sense, and do not become insensible unless severed from the body. To what thing, then, does the world bear resemblance? Surely they themselves teach, when they do not deny that it was made, that it was made to be as it were a common dwelling for gods and men. If therefore it was constructed like a house, then neither is it itself God, nor are the elements which are its parts; because neither can a house have dominion over itself, nor can those things of which a house consists. They are therefore refuted not only by truth, but also by their own words. For just as a house, made for the use of habitation, has no sensation of itself and is subject to the master who built or inhabits it: so the world, having no sensation of itself, is subject to God its maker, who made it for his own use.

The foolish therefore err in a twofold manner: first, because they prefer the elements, that is, the works of God, to God; then, because they worship the very forms of those elements comprehended under human shape. For they fashion images of the sun and moon in human form; likewise of fire, and earth, and sea, which they call Vulcan, Vesta, and Neptune; nor do they offer sacrifice to the elements themselves in the open. So great a desire for images holds men that those things which are true are now reckoned of less worth: they delight, that is, in gold, gems, and ivory. The beauty and brilliance of these dazzles their eyes: and they think there is no religion wherever these things do not shine. And so under the pretext of the gods, greed and desire are worshipped. For they believe that the gods love whatever they themselves covet; whatever it is on account of which thefts, and robberies, and murders rage daily; on account of which wars overturn peoples and cities throughout the whole world.

They therefore consecrate to the gods their spoils and plunder—gods who must certainly be weak and devoid of the highest virtue, if they are subject to desires. For why should we think them heavenly, if they desire something from the earth? Or blessed, if they are in need of anything? Or incorrupt, if they take pleasure in those things in the pursuit of which the desire of men is not undeservedly condemned? They come therefore to the gods, not so much for the sake of religion—which can have no place in things ill-gotten and corruptible—as to drink in gold with their eyes, to behold the gleam of polished marble or ivory; to handle with insatiable contemplation garments adorned with gems and colors, or cups set with gleaming jewels. And the more ornate the temples and the more beautiful the images, the more majesty they are believed to possess: so entirely is their religion nothing other than what human desire admires.

These are the religions which they persist most stubbornly in guarding and defending as handed down to them by their ancestors: nor do they consider what kind of things they are; but they are confident that they are proven and true for this reason, that the ancients handed them down, and so great is the authority of antiquity that to inquire into it is said to be a crime. And so it is believed by all indiscriminately, as though it were known truth. Finally, in Cicero, Cotta speaks thus to Lucilius: "You have, Balbus, what Cotta thinks, what the pontiff thinks. Now make me understand what you think; for from you as a philosopher I ought to receive an account of religion, but from our ancestors, even with no account rendered, it is reasonable to believe." If you believe, why then do you seek a reason, which may bring it about that you do not believe? But if you seek a reason, and think it ought to be sought, then you do not believe.

For you seek it in order to follow it when you have found it. Behold, reason teaches you that the religions of the gods are not true. What will you do? Will you follow your ancestors, or reason?—reason which was not instilled in you by another, but found and chosen by yourself, when you uprooted all religions from their foundations. If you prefer reason, you must of necessity depart from the institutions and authority of your ancestors; since that alone is right which reason prescribes. But if piety persuades you to follow your ancestors, then confess that both those men were foolish who served religions devised against reason, and that you yourself are unwise in worshipping what you are convinced is false. But since the name of our ancestors is so greatly urged against us, let us at last see who those ancestors were, from whose authority it is held impious to depart.

Romulus, about to found a city, summoned the shepherds among whom he had grown up, and when that number seemed too small for founding a city, he established an asylum. Thither fled from the neighboring places all manner of the worst men, without any distinction of condition. From all these together he forged a people; and he chose into the senate those who were foremost in age, and called them Fathers, by whose counsel he would manage all things. Concerning this senate the writer of elegies Propertius speaks thus: These are the Fathers, whose decrees learned and prudent men serve most devotedly, and all posterity judges that to be true and immutable which a hundred skin-clad old men willed to be decreed—men whom, however, as was said in the first book, chapter 22, Pompilius enticed into believing that the sacred rites which he himself was handing down were true.

Is it indeed right that their authority should be held in such esteem by posterity, men whom, while they lived, no one, whether of the highest or lowest rank, judged worthy of kinship?

Wherefore it is fitting that in that matter especially in which the conduct of life is at stake, each person should trust in himself, and rely more upon his own judgment and his own senses for investigating and weighing the truth, than be deceived by trusting in the errors of others as though he himself were devoid of reason. God has given to all wisdom in proportion to their capacity, so that they might both investigate things unheard and weigh things heard. Nor, because those men preceded us in time, did they therefore precede us in wisdom; which, if it is given equally to all, cannot be monopolized by those who came before. It is available to all like the light and brightness of the sun, because as the sun is the light of the eyes, so wisdom is the light of the human heart.

Wherefore, since to be wise—that is, to seek truth—is innate in all, those who without any judgment approve the findings of their ancestors and are led by others after the manner of cattle deprive themselves of wisdom. But this deceives them: that when the name of ancestors is put forward, they do not think it possible either that they themselves should be wiser, because they are called lesser, or that those men were foolish, because they are called greater. What then prevents us from taking an example from those very men; so that just as they handed down to posterity what they had found to be false, so we, who have found the truth, may hand down better things to posterity? There remains a great question, the discussion of which comes not from natural ability but from knowledge, and which must be explained at greater length, lest anything at all doubtful be left.

For perhaps someone may take refuge in those things which are handed down by many and unquestioned authorities; namely, that those very beings whom we have shown to be no gods have very often displayed their majesty, both through prodigies, and dreams, and auguries, and oracles. And indeed many things worthy of wonder can be enumerated: first among them that which concerns Accius Navius, the chief augur, who, when he was reminding Tarquinius Priscus that he should begin nothing new without first taking the auspices, and the king, belittling confidence in his art, told him to consult the birds and report back to him whether what he himself had conceived in his mind could be done, and Navius affirmed that it could: "Take then this whetstone," said he, "and cleave it with a razor." And he without hesitation took it and cut it through.

Then there is the account that Castor and Pollux, during the Latin War, were seen at the Lake of Juturna washing the sweat from their horses, when their temple, which stood next to the spring, had opened of its own accord; and that these same figures, mounted on white horses, are said to have appeared to Publius Vatinius as he was coming to Rome by night during the Macedonian War, announcing that on that day King Perseus had been defeated and captured, which a few days later letters from Paulus proved to be true. There is also the remarkable account that the statue of Fortune, a female image, is recorded to have spoken more than once; likewise that of Juno Moneta, when, after the capture of Veii, one of the soldiers sent to transfer her asked her in jest and sport whether she wished to migrate to Rome, and she replied that she did. Claudia too is put forward as an example of a miracle.

For when the Idaean Mother had been summoned in accordance with the Sibylline books, and the ship by which she was being conveyed had run aground in the shallows of the Tiber and could not be moved by any force, they say that Claudia, who had always been considered unchaste on account of her excessive attention to bodily adornment, knelt and prayed to the goddess that, if she judged her to be chaste, she would follow her girdle; and so the ship, which all the young men together had been unable to move, was moved by one woman. Equally remarkable is the account that when a plague was raging, Aesculapius, summoned from Epidaurus, is said to have freed the city of Rome from a long-lasting pestilence. Those too can be counted among the sacrilegious whose gods are believed to have avenged their own injury through punishments inflicted in the presence of witnesses.

Appius Claudius the Censor, when in defiance of a response he had transferred the rites of Hercules to public slaves, was deprived of his sight, and the family of the Potitii, who had betrayed the rites, was extinguished within the space of a single year. Likewise the Censor Fulvius, when he had removed the marble roof-tiles from the temple of Juno Lacinia in order to roof the temple of Equestrian Fortune which he had built at Rome, both lost his mind and, after losing two sons who were serving in Illyricum, was consumed by the deepest grief of soul. Also M. Antony's officer Turullius, having at Cos built a fleet from the felled grove of Aesculapius, was afterwards killed in that same place by the soldiers of Caesar. To these examples is added Pyrrhus, who, having taken money from the treasury of Proserpina at Locri, suffered shipwreck and was dashed upon the shores near to the goddess, so that nothing was found intact except that money. Ceres of Miletus also gained much veneration for herself among men.

For when the city had been captured by Alexander and soldiers had burst in to plunder it, a sudden blaze of fire struck the eyes of all and blinded them. There are also found dreams which seem to display the power of the gods.

For Jupiter is said to have appeared to Tiberius Atinius, a man of plebeian rank, in his sleep, and to have commanded him to announce to the Consuls and Senate that at the most recent Circus games a dancer had displeased him, because one Antonius Maximus had led a flogged slave under the yoke through the middle of the circus to punishment, and that therefore the games ought to be repeated; and that when Atinius had neglected this, he lost his son on that very day, and was himself seized by a severe illness; and that when he again beheld the same apparition asking whether he had paid sufficient penalty for having disregarded the command, he was carried in a litter to the Consuls, and after the whole matter had been set forth in the Senate, he recovered his bodily health and returned home on his own feet. That dream too was of no less wonder, by which Caesar Augustus is said to have been saved.

For when during the Brutian civil war, being afflicted by a severe illness, he had resolved to keep away from battle, the form of Minerva appeared to his physician Artorius, warning that Caesar should not confine himself to camp on account of bodily weakness. And so he was carried into the battle-line in a litter, and on that same day the camp was taken by Brutus. Many further similar examples can be brought forward; but I fear that if I linger too long in setting out matters on the opposing side, I may appear either to have forgotten my purpose or to incur the charge of talkativeness.

I shall therefore set forth the explanation of all these things, so that difficult and obscure matters may be more easily understood, and I shall reveal all these illusions of a counterfeit divinity, by which men have been led astray and have withdrawn far from the path of truth. But I shall begin from a point much further back, so that if anyone comes to read who is without experience and ignorant of the truth, he may be instructed and may understand what is at last the source and cause of these evils; and, having received the light, may discern his own errors and those of the whole human race. Since God was most provident in devising and most skilled in making, before He began this work of the world (because the fount of full and perfect good was in Him, as it always is), so that good might flow from Him as from a stream and flow far abroad, He produced a spirit like unto Himself, who was endowed with the virtues of God the Father.

In what manner He willed this, we shall endeavour to teach in the fourth book. Then He made another, in whom the character of the divine stock did not remain. And so he was infected by his own envy as by a poison, and passed over from good to evil; and by his own free choice, which had been given him freely by God, he took to himself a name contrary to his own. Hence it appears that the source of all evils is malice. For he envied that predecessor of his, who by persevering with God the Father was both approved and dear to Him. This one therefore, made evil of himself from good, the Greeks call διάβολον; we call him the accuser, because he brings before God the crimes into which he himself entices men.

God therefore, having begun the fashioning of the world, set that first and greatest Son over the whole work, and used Him at once as counsellor and as craftsman in devising, adorning, and perfecting all things, since He is perfect in providence, reason, and power: of whom I now speak more sparingly, because in another place both His power and His name and His nature will have to be set forth by us. Let no one ask from what materials God made works so great and so wonderful; for He made all things from nothing. Nor are the poets to be heeded, who say that in the beginning there was chaos, that is, a confusion of things and elements; and that afterwards God separated all that mass, and having divided the individual things from the confused heap and arranged them in order, furnished and adorned the world alike.

To these it is easy to reply that they do not understand the power of God, since they believe He can accomplish nothing unless material lies ready and prepared before Him; in which error the philosophers also were. For Cicero, disputing concerning the Nature of the Gods, speaks thus: "First, then, it is not probable that the material of things, from which all things arose, was produced by divine providence; but that it has and has had its own force and nature. As therefore a craftsman, when he is about to build something, does not himself make the material, but uses what is prepared, and a potter likewise uses clay: so for this divine providence material ought to have been at hand, not such as it itself made, but such as it had ready prepared. But if material was not made by God, then neither was earth, nor water, nor air, nor fire made by God." O how many faults there are in these ten lines!

First, that he who in other disputations and in nearly all his books had been an asserter of providence, and who with the keenest arguments had attacked those who said there was no providence, now like some traitor or deserter has attempted to abolish providence: in which matter, if you wish to contradict him, there is need neither of thought nor of labour; his own words must be recited to him. For Cicero can be refuted by no one more vigorously than by Cicero himself. But let us grant this to the custom and practice of the Academics, that men of very great freedom may say and think what they will. Let us consider the opinions themselves. It is not probable, he says, that the material of things was made by God. By what arguments do you teach this? For you have said nothing as to why this is not probable.

And so to me on the contrary it seems most probable: nor does it seem so rashly, when one reflects that there is something more in God, whom you assuredly reduce to the weakness of a man, conceding to Him nothing other than craftsmanship. In what respect, then, will that divine power differ from a man, if God, like a man, also stands in need of another's help? But He does stand in need, if He can accomplish nothing unless material is supplied to Him by another. If this is so, it is certainly the mark of imperfect power, and the one who established the material will now have to be judged more powerful. By what name, then, shall he be called who surpasses God in power? Since it is a greater thing to make from one's own resources than to arrange what belongs to another.

But if it cannot be that anything is more powerful than God, who must necessarily be of perfect power, authority, and reason: therefore the same one who fashioned the material is also the maker of the things consisting of material. For without God making it and willing it, nothing either could have existed or ought to have existed. But it is probable, he says, that the material of things has and has always had its own force and nature. What force could it have had, with no one giving it? What nature, with no one generating it? If it had force, it received that force from someone. But from whom could it have received it except from God? Furthermore, if it had nature, which is certainly derived from being born, it was born. But by whom could it have been brought forth except by God? For nature, by which you say all things arose, if it has no design, can accomplish nothing.

But if it is capable of generating and making, it therefore has design, and for that reason it must necessarily be God. Nor can that power, in which there resides both the providence of devising and the skill and ability of making, be called by any other name. Better therefore did Seneca, the most acute of all the Stoics, who saw that "nature is nothing other than God. Shall we not praise God, then," he says, "to whom virtue is natural?"—for He did not learn it from anyone. Nay, we shall praise Him: for although it is natural to Him, He gave it to Himself; since God Himself is nature. When therefore you attribute the origin of things to nature and take it away from God, you are stuck in the same mud; you are paying one debt with another, Geta. For what you deny to be done by one, you plainly confess to be done by the same one under a changed name. There follows a most absurd comparison.

"As a craftsman," he says, "when he is about to build something, does not himself make the material, but uses what is prepared, and a potter likewise uses clay: so for this divine providence material ought to have been at hand, not such as it itself made, but such as it had ready prepared." Nay, it ought not; for God will be of lesser power if He makes from what is prepared, which is the condition of a man. A craftsman will build nothing without wood, because he cannot make the wood itself; but not to be able is a mark of human weakness: God, however, makes material for Himself, because He can. For to be able is the property of God: for if He cannot, He is not God.

Man makes from what exists, because through mortality he is weak, and through weakness is of limited and moderate power: but God makes from what does not exist, because through eternity He is strong, and through strength is of immeasurable power, which lacks limit and measure, just as the life of the Maker. What wonder is it, then, if God, about to make the world, first prepared the material from which He would make it, and prepared it from what did not exist? Because it is impious for God to borrow anything from elsewhere, since all things are in Him or from Him. For if there is anything before Him, and if anything was made not by Him, He will now lose both the power and the name of God. But, it is said, material was never made, just as God, who made this world from material, was never made. Two eternal things are therefore posited, and indeed contrary to each other; which cannot happen without discord and destruction.

For those things whose force and nature are different must necessarily clash: and so both cannot be eternal if they are in conflict, because one must necessarily overcome the other. Therefore it cannot be but that the nature of the eternal is simple, so that all things descend from it as from a source. And so either God arose from material, or material arose from God. Which of these is more true is easy to understand. For of these two, one is capable of sensation, the other lacks sensation. The power of making something cannot exist except in that which feels, which is wise, which thinks, which moves. Nor can anything begin, or be made, or be completed, unless it has been foreseen by reason; both how it is to be made before it exists, and how it is to hold together after it has been effected. Finally, he makes something who has the will to make and hands to accomplish what he has willed.

But what is without sensation lies always inert and torpid, and nothing can arise from that in which there is no voluntary motion. For if every living being consists of reason, certainly that cannot be born from what is not endowed with reason; nor can that be received from elsewhere which is not present in the source from which it is sought. Nor, however, should anyone be troubled by the fact that certain animals appear to be born from the earth. For the earth does not generate these of itself, but the spirit of God, without which nothing is generated. Therefore God did not arise from material, because that which is endowed with sensation can never arise from what is without sensation, the wise from the brute, the impassible from the passible, the incorporeal from the corporeal: but material rather is from God. For whatever exists in solid and tangible body receives an external force. What receives force is dissoluble. What is dissolved has perished. What has perished must necessarily have had an origin.

What had an origin had a source from which it arose, that is, some maker who is sentient, provident, and skilled in making. That one is assuredly none other than God. Who, since He is endowed with sensation, reason, providence, power, and virtue, can create and produce both animate and inanimate things, because He knows how each thing is to be made. But material cannot have always existed, because it would not admit of change if it had. For what has always existed does not cease to always exist; and where a beginning was absent, an end must also necessarily be absent. Indeed it is easier for that which had a beginning to lack an end, than for that which lacked a beginning to have an end. If therefore material was not made, nothing can be made from it either. If nothing can be made from it, it will not even be material. For material is that from which something is made.

But everything from which something is made is destroyed, because it has received the hand of the craftsman, and begins to be something else. Therefore since material came to an end when the world was made from it, it also had a beginning. For what is destroyed was built; what is dissolved was bound; what is finished was begun. If therefore from the change and end of material it is gathered that it had a beginning, by whom other than God could it have been made? God alone, therefore, who was not made, and for that reason can destroy other things, cannot Himself be destroyed. He will remain always in what He was, because He was not generated from elsewhere, nor did He arise, nor does His birth depend on any other thing which, having changed, might dissolve Him. He is from Himself, as we said in the first book; and therefore He is such as He willed Himself to be, impassible, immutable, incorrupt, blessed, eternal. Now indeed that conclusion with which Tully ended his argument is much more absurd.

"But if material," he says, "was not made by God, then neither was earth, nor water, nor air, nor fire made by God." How cleverly he flew past the danger. For he assumed that earlier point as though it needed no proof; when it was far more uncertain than that for the sake of which it was assumed. If material, he says, was not made by God, neither was the world made by God. He preferred to draw a false conclusion from a false premise, rather than a true one from a true one. And whereas uncertain things ought to be proved from certain ones, here he took his proof from an uncertain thing, in order to overturn what was certain.

For that the world was produced by divine Providence (to say nothing of Trismegistus, who proclaims this, to say nothing of the verses of the Sibyls, which announce the same, to say nothing of the prophets, who testify to the work of the world and the craftsmanship of God with one spirit and equal voice) is agreed upon even among nearly all the philosophers; for the Pythagoreans, Stoics, and Peripatetics, who are the leaders of every school, hold this. Finally, from those first seven sages down to Socrates and Plato it was held as established and beyond doubt, until one deranged man arose many ages later, Epicurus, who dared to deny what is most evident, namely out of eagerness to discover novelties, so that he might establish a school under his own name. And because he could find nothing new: yet in order to appear to dissent from the rest, he wished to overturn the old. In this all the philosophers who bark around him have refuted him.

It is therefore more certain that the world was furnished by providence, than that providence was assembled from material. Wherefore one ought not to have supposed that the world was not made by divine providence because the material of it was not made by divine providence: but because the world was effected by divine providence, one ought to conclude that the material also was made by divine agency. For it is more credible that material was made by God, because God can do all things, than that the world was not made by God, because nothing can be made without mind, reason, and design. But this is not Cicero's fault, but that of his school. For when he had undertaken a disputation by which he might abolish the nature of the gods, about which the philosophers were chattering, he thought that all divinity was to be abolished through ignorance of the truth. And so he was able to abolish the gods, because they did not exist.

But when he attempted to overturn divine providence, which is in the one God, because he had begun to strive against the truth, with his arguments failing him, he necessarily fell into this pit, from which he could not extricate himself. Here therefore I hold him stuck, I hold him fixed, at which point Lucilius, who was arguing on the other side, fell silent. Here therefore is the hinge of things; here all things turn. Let Cotta extricate himself, if he can, from this abyss; let him bring forward arguments by which he may show that material always existed, which no providence brought into being. Let him show how anything heavy and weighty could either have existed without an author, or could have been changed, and ceased to be what it always was, so as to begin to be what it never was.

If he shall have shown these things, then at last I shall agree that the world also was not established by divine providence; and yet I shall agree in such a way that I hold him with other snares. For he will be brought back to the same point he will not want, so as to say that both the material from which the world is, and the world which is from the material, came into existence by nature: while I shall contend that nature itself is God. For He cannot perform wonders, that is, things consisting of the greatest reason, except one who has mind, providence, and power. Thus it will come about that God made all things, and nothing can exist at all which did not derive its origin from God. But the same man, whenever he is an Epicurean and does not wish the world to have been made by God, is accustomed to ask with what hands, with what machines, with what levers, with what effort He made this so great a work.

He would perhaps have seen, if he could have been present at the time when He made it. But lest a man should look upon the works of God, He did not wish to bring him into this world until all things were completed. But he could not even have been brought in: for how would he have stood firm while the sky was being fashioned above and the earth was being founded below; while perhaps moist things were congealing, stiffened by excessive cold, or were being hardened, baked and solidified by fiery heat? Or how would he have lived, with the sun not yet established, and with neither crops nor animals yet born? And so it was necessary for man to be made last, when the finishing touch had already been put to the world and the rest of things. Finally, the holy scriptures teach that man was the last work of God, and that he was thus brought into this world as into a house already prepared and furnished: for all things were made for his sake.

The poets also confess the same. Ovid (at the beginning of the Metamorphoses), with the world already completed and all the animals formed, added this: So impious is it considered to scrutinize those things which God willed to be hidden! But that man was not asking out of a desire to hear or to learn, but to refute; because he was confident that no one could answer it. As though indeed from this one ought to think that these things were not made by divine agency, because how they were made cannot be clearly seen. If you, having been raised in a house skillfully built and adorned, had never seen any building work, would you have thought that house was not built by a man, because you did not know how it was built?

You would assuredly ask the same about the house as you now ask about the world: with what hands, with what tools a man had laboured at so great a work; especially if you saw enormous stones, immense masses of masonry, vast columns, the whole work lofty and high—would not these things seem to you to exceed the measure of human strength, because you did not know that those things were made not so much by strength as by reason and skill?

But if man, in whom nothing is perfect, nevertheless accomplishes more by reason than his slender powers would allow, why should it seem incredible to you, when the world is said to have been made by God, in whom, because he is perfect, neither wisdom can have a limit, nor strength a measure? His works are seen by the eyes. But how he made them is not even perceived by the mind: because, as Hermes says, the mortal cannot draw near to the immortal, the temporal to the perpetual, the corruptible to the incorruptible—that is, cannot approach more closely and follow with understanding. And therefore the earthly creature, while still here, does not grasp the contemplation of heavenly things, because it is held enclosed by the body as by a prison, so that it cannot discern all things with a free and unbound sense. Let him know, therefore, how foolishly he acts who seeks after things that cannot be told.

For this is to transgress the limit of his own condition, and not to understand how far it is permitted for man to go. Finally, when God disclosed the truth to man, he willed us to know only those things which it concerned man to know for the attaining of life; but those things which pertained to curious and profane desire, he kept silent, so that they might remain secret. Why then do you seek what you can neither know, nor, if you should know it, become more blessed thereby? Wisdom is perfect in man if he both recognizes that God is one, and that all things have been made by him.

Now, since we have refuted those who think otherwise than the truth holds concerning the world and concerning God its maker, let us return to the divine fashioning of the world, concerning which it is handed down in the secret writings of holy religion. God therefore made first of all the heaven, and suspended it on high, that it might be the seat of God himself, the creator. Then he founded the earth, and placed it beneath the heaven, for man to inhabit together with the other kinds of animals. He willed it to be surrounded and contained by moisture.

His own dwelling-place he distinguished with bright lights and filled it, adorning it, namely, with the sun, and the orb of the shining moon, and the gleaming signs of the glittering stars; but darkness, which is the contrary of these, he established in the earth: for the earth contains no light of itself, unless it receives it from heaven, in which he placed perpetual light, and the gods above, and everlasting life, and contrariwise in the earth darkness, and the underworld, and death. For these things are as far removed from those higher things as evils are from goods, and vices from virtues. Of the earth itself also he established two parts contrary and diverse to each other, namely east and west: of which the east is reckoned to God, because he himself is the source of light and the illuminator of all things, and because he causes us to rise to everlasting life.

The west, however, is attributed to that troubled and wicked adversary, because it hides the light, because it always brings on darkness, and because it causes men to fall and perish through sins. For just as light belongs to the east, and in light the principle of life is found; so darkness belongs to the west: and in darkness both death and destruction are contained. Then he measured out the other two parts by the same principle, the south and the north: which parts are joined in fellowship with those two. For that which is more burning with the heat of the sun is nearest to and adjoins the east. But that which is numbed with cold and perpetual frost belongs to the same quarter as the farthest west. For just as darkness is contrary to light, so cold is contrary to heat. Therefore, as heat is nearest to light, so the south is nearest to the east; as cold is to darkness, so the northern region is to the west.

To each of these individual parts he assigned its own season: spring to the east, summer to the southern region; autumn belongs to the west, winter to the north. In these two parts also, the southern and the northern, the figure of life and death is contained: because life is in heat, death in cold. But as heat comes from fire, so cold comes from water. In accordance with the measurement of these parts, he also made day and night, which spaces, and the perpetual and revolving circuits of time that we call years, complete themselves by alternating succession in turn. The day, which the first east supplies, must belong to God, as do all things that are better. But the night, which the farthest west brings on, belongs, of course, to him whom we have called the rival of God. These two things also God, foreknowing the future, made for this purpose, that from them a certain image both of true religion and of false superstitions might be shown.

For just as the sun, which rises for the day, although it is one—whence Cicero wishes it to be seen that the sun received its name because, with the other stars obscured, it alone appears—yet because it is the true and perfect fullness of light, and illuminates all things with the most powerful heat and the brightest radiance: so in God, although he is one, both majesty and power and glory are perfect. But the night, which we say is attributed to that wicked adversary, demonstrates through its likeness his many and varied religions. For although innumerable stars are seen to glitter and shine, yet, because they are not full and solid lights, and carry no warmth, they do not overcome the darkness by their multitude. Those two principal things, therefore, are found to have a diverse and contrary power to each other: heat and moisture, which God wonderfully devised for sustaining and generating all things.

For since the power of God is in heat and fire, unless the admixture of moisture and cold had tempered his ardor and force, nothing could have been born or held together, but whatever had begun to exist would immediately perish in conflagration. Hence certain philosophers and poets also said that the world subsists by a discordant concord: but they did not see the reason at all. Heraclitus said that all things were born from fire; Thales of Miletus, from water. Each saw something, yet each nevertheless erred, because if either one alone had existed, neither could water have been born from fire, nor again fire from water. But it is truer that all things are generated simultaneously from both mixed together. Fire indeed cannot be mixed with water, because both are hostile to each other; and if they come into close contact, whichever one prevails must necessarily consume the other: but their substances can be mixed. The substance of fire is heat; of water, moisture.

Rightly therefore Ovid: for the one is as it were a masculine element, the other as it were feminine; the one active, the other passive. And therefore it was established by the ancients that the bonds of marriage should be ratified by the sacrament of fire and water, because the offspring of living creatures are given body and animated to life by heat and moisture.

For since every animal consists of soul and body, the matter of the body is in moisture, and that of the soul in heat: which is made known from the offspring of birds, which are full of thick moisture, and unless the working heat warms them, neither can the moisture be given body, nor the body be animated. It was also customary for fire and water to be forbidden to exiles: for it still seemed impious to afflict men, even wicked ones, with capital punishment. Therefore, by forbidding the use of those things by which the life of men subsists, it was held to be the same as if the one who had received that sentence had been punished with death. So greatly were these two elements considered primary, that they believed neither the birth of man nor his life could subsist without them. Of these two, one is common to us with the other living creatures, the other given to man alone.

For since we are a heavenly and immortal creature, we use fire, which has been given to us as a token of immortality, since fire is from heaven: whose nature, because it is mobile and strives upward, contains the principle of life. But the other animals, since they are wholly mortal, use only water, which is a bodily and earthly element. Whose nature, because it is mobile and tends downward, shows the image of death. Therefore cattle neither look up to heaven nor perceive religion, since the use of fire is foreign to them. But whence, or in what manner, God either kindled or melted these two principal things, fire and water, he alone can know who made them.

The world being thus completed, he commanded that animals of various kinds, of dissimilar forms, both great and small, should be made. And they were made in pairs; that is, each of a different sex: by whose offspring both the air, and the earth, and the seas were filled. And God gave to all of these, according to their kind, food from the earth, so that they might be of use to men; some, of course, for food, others for clothing: but those which are of great strength, to help in cultivating the earth; whence they are called beasts of burden. Thus, all things having been arranged with wonderful order, he resolved to prepare for himself an eternal kingdom, and to bring forth innumerable souls to whom he might give immortality. Then he made for himself a perceptible and intelligent likeness, that is, he fashioned man in the form of his own image, than which nothing can be more perfect, from the clay of the earth; whence man is named, because he was made from the soil.

Plato accordingly says that the human form is divine; and the Sibyl, who says: Concerning this fashioning of man, the poets also, though in a corrupted form, have handed it down in no other way: for they said that man was made from clay by Prometheus. The matter did not escape them, but the name of the maker did. For they had touched upon no writings of the truth: but those things which were handed down by the prophecy of the prophets and contained in the sanctuary of God, gathered from fables and obscure opinion and distorted—as truth, scattered by various reports among the common people, is wont to be corrupted, with everyone adding something to what he had heard—they comprised in their poems; and this indeed foolishly, in that they attributed so wonderful and so divine a work to a man. For what need was there for man to be fashioned from clay, when he could have been generated by the same means by which Prometheus himself was born from Iapetus?

Who, if he was a man, could beget a man, but could not make one. That he was not among the gods, moreover, his punishment on Mount Caucasus makes plain. But neither did anyone call his father Iapetus, nor his uncle Titan, gods, because the height of royal power rested with Saturn alone, through which he obtained divine honors together with all his posterity. This fiction of the poets can be refuted by many arguments. That a flood was made to destroy and remove wickedness from the face of the earth is agreed upon by all. For philosophers, poets, and writers of ancient history alike say the same; and in this they agree most closely with the words of the prophets. If therefore the deluge was made in order that the wickedness which had grown through excessive multitude might be destroyed, how was Prometheus the maker of man? Whose son Deucalion these same writers say was the only one preserved on account of his justice. How could one generation and one lineage fill the earth with men so quickly?

But evidently they corrupted this also in the same way as that earlier matter; since they did not know at what time the deluge was brought upon the earth, and who on account of his justice deserved to be saved while the human race perished, and how, or with whom, he was preserved: all of which things the prophetic writings teach. It is therefore apparent that what they relate concerning the handiwork of Prometheus is false. But because I had said that poets are not accustomed to lie altogether, but to wrap in figures and obscure what they say, I do not say they lied, but that first of all Prometheus fashioned a likeness of man from rich and soft clay, and that from him the art of fashioning statues and images was first born; since he lived in the times of Jupiter, when temples were first established and new cults of the gods began to exist.

Thus the truth was colored over with falsehood; and that which was reported to have been done by God began also to be attributed to the man who imitated the divine work. But the fashioning of the true and living man from clay belongs to God. This Hermes also handed down: who not only said that man was made by God in the image of God; but also attempted to explain with what subtle reasoning he formed each and every member in the body of man, since there is nothing among them which does not serve equally the necessity of use and beauty. This indeed the Stoics also attempt to do when they discourse on providence; and Cicero followed them in several places. But he touches only briefly upon so rich and abundant a subject; which I now pass over for this reason, that I recently wrote a separate book on this matter to my pupil Demetrianus.

This I cannot pass over in this place, which certain erring philosophers say: that men and the other animals arose from the earth without any maker; whence that passage of Virgil is: And the earth-born race of men raised their heads from the hard fields.

And those who deny the existence of providence were especially of this opinion. For the Stoics attribute the fashioning of living beings to divine skill. Aristotle, however, freed himself from toil and trouble by saying that the world has always existed; and so the human race, and all other things that are in it, have no beginning, but have always been, and always will be. But since we see that individual animals, which previously did not exist, begin to exist and cease to exist, it is necessary that the whole race at some point began to exist, and will at some point cease to exist, because it has begun. For all things must necessarily be contained within three times: past, present, and future. To the past belongs origin; to the present, substance; to the future, dissolution. All of these appear in individual human beings: for we begin when we are born; we exist when we live; and we cease when we perish.

Hence they also held that there are three Fates: one who spins out life for men; another who weaves it together; a third who breaks and ends it. But in the whole race of men, since only the present time is apparent, from it nevertheless both the past, that is, origin, and the future, that is, dissolution, are inferred. For since it exists, it is apparent that it once began (for no thing can exist without a beginning); and because it began, it is apparent that it will at some point cease. For that which consists of mortal things cannot itself be wholly immortal.

For just as we all perish individually, it is possible that by some calamity all may perish at once; either by the barrenness of the earth, which is wont to occur in particular places; or by a pestilence spread everywhere, which commonly lays waste individual cities and regions; or by a conflagration sent upon the world, such as is said to have already occurred under Phaethon; or by a flood of waters, such as is recorded under Deucalion, when all the race of men was destroyed save one man. If that flood happened by chance, it could certainly have happened that even that one who survived might have perished. But if he was preserved by the will of divine providence, as cannot be denied, for the purpose of restoring mankind, it is apparent that it lies in God's power to grant either life or destruction to the human race.

And if he can destroy it entirely, because he destroys it in parts, it is apparent that it once had its origin; and as fragility declares a beginning, so also it declares an end. If these things are true, Aristotle will not be able to defend the position that the world itself did not have a beginning. And if Plato and Epicurus wrest this from Aristotle, then Epicurus, though they be eloquent, will against their will wrest the same from both Plato and Aristotle, who thought the world would endure forever, because it follows that it also has an end. But these matters will be treated more fully in the last book. Now let us return to the origin of man.

They say that at certain revolutions of the heavens and movements of the stars a certain ripeness for sowing animals came about; and so the earth, being new and retaining the generative seed, put forth from itself certain pouches in the likeness of wombs, of which Lucretius speaks; and that these, when they had ripened and burst open under the compulsion of nature, poured forth tender animals. Then the earth itself overflowed with a certain moisture resembling milk, and by that nourishment the living creatures were fed. How then could they endure or avoid the force of cold or heat, or be born at all, when the sun was scorching and the cold was binding? In the beginning of the world, they say, there was neither winter nor summer, but a perpetual mildness and an equable spring. Why then do we see none of these things happening even now?

Because, they say, it was necessary for it to happen once, so that animals might be born; but after they had come into being, once the faculty of reproduction was granted to them, the earth also ceased to bring forth, and the condition of the seasons changed. Oh how easy it is to refute falsehoods! First, because nothing in this world can exist in such a way that it does not persist as it began. For the sun, the moon, and the stars were not then absent, or, being present, did not have their courses, nor did the divine governance which regulates and guides their courses not begin together with them. Then, because if it is as they say, there must be providence; and they fall into the very thing they most seek to avoid. For before animals were yet born, someone at any rate provided that they should be born, lest the earth lie desolate and uncultivated and wild.

Moreover, in order that they might be born from the earth without the service of parents, it is necessary that great reason should have provided for this; then that that moisture, congealed from the earth, should be shaped into the various forms of bodies; likewise that from the pouches in which they were enclosed, having received the principle of living and sensing, they should be poured forth as from a mother's womb—this is a wondrous and inextricable provision. But let us suppose that this too happened by chance: those things which follow certainly cannot be fortuitous; that the earth should continually flow with milk, that the temperature of the air should be equable. If it is agreed that these things were done for the purpose that newly born animals might either have nourishment or be free from danger, it is necessary that someone by some divine reason, I know not what, should have provided for this. But who can provide, except God?

Let us see, however, whether that very thing which they keep asserting could have come to pass: that men should be born from the earth. If anyone considers how long and by what means an infant is reared, he will surely understand that those earth-born children could not have been nourished without any one to rear them. For it was necessary for them to lie prostrate for very many months, until, their sinews being strengthened, they could move themselves and change their place: which can scarcely happen within the space of one year. Now consider whether an infant could have lain for many months in the same manner and in the same place where it was poured forth, and not have been overwhelmed and corrupted and died, buried under that moisture of the earth which it supplied for the purpose of nourishment, mixed together with the excretions of its own body.

Therefore it is in no way possible but that it was reared by someone; unless perhaps all animals were born not tender but fully grown: which never entered their minds to say. All that reasoning, therefore, is impossible and vain: if indeed it can be called reasoning, by which the aim is that there should be no reasoning at all. For he who says that all things were born of their own accord and attributes nothing to divine providence, assuredly does not assert reason but overthrows it. But if nothing can either come to pass or be born without reason, it is apparent that there is divine providence, whose proper name is what we call reason. God, therefore, the maker of all things, made man.

This Cicero, though ignorant of the heavenly writings, nevertheless perceived; who in the first book On the Laws handed down this same teaching as the prophets, whose words I have appended: "This creature, provident, sagacious, manifold, keen, mindful, full of reason and counsel, whom we call man, was generated under a certain glorious condition by the supreme God; for he alone of so many kinds and natures of living beings is a partaker of reason and thought, while all the rest are wholly without it." Do you see that a man, though far removed from the knowledge of truth, yet, because he maintained the image of wisdom, understood that man could not have been generated except by God? But divine testimonies are nevertheless needed, lest human ones suffice too little. The Sibyl bears witness that man is the work of God: the same holy scriptures contain this. God therefore performed the office of a true father. He himself fashioned the body; he himself breathed in the soul by which we breathe. All that we are belongs to him.

How he did this, if it were fitting for us to know, he would have taught us, just as he taught the other things which brought us knowledge both of our former error and of the true light.

When therefore he had first fashioned the male in his own likeness, he then also formed the female in the image of man himself, so that the two sexes, mingled together, might propagate offspring and fill the whole earth with a multitude. Moreover, in the very fashioning of man himself, he enclosed and perfected the principle of those two materials which we said are contrary to each other, fire and water. For when the body was fashioned, he breathed into it a soul from the living fount of his spirit, which is everlasting, so that it might bear the likeness of the world itself, which consists of contrary elements. For it consists of soul and body, that is, as it were of heaven and earth: inasmuch as the soul by which we live arises, as it were from heaven, from God, while the body is from the earth, of whose clay we said it was formed.

Empedocles, whom you would not know whether to count among the poets or among the philosophers, because he wrote about the nature of things in verse, as among the Romans did Lucretius and Varro, established four elements, that is, fire, air, water, and earth; having followed perhaps Trismegistus, who said that our bodies were constituted by God from these four elements: for they contain within themselves something of fire, something of air, something of water, something of earth; and yet are neither fire, nor air, nor water, nor earth: which things indeed are not false. For the principle of earth is in the flesh; of moisture, in the blood; of air, in the breath; of fire, in the vital heat. But neither can blood be separated from the body, as moisture from earth; nor vital heat from breath, as fire from air: so thoroughly are only two elements found in all things, whose entire principle is enclosed in the fashioning of our body.

Man was therefore made from things diverse and contrary, just as the world itself is made from light and darkness, from life and death: these two he commanded to contend with each other in man, so that if the soul, which springs from God, should prevail, it would be immortal and dwell in perpetual light; but if the body should overcome the soul and bring it under its dominion, it would be in everlasting darkness and in death. The force of which is not such as to extinguish unjust souls altogether, but to punish them eternally. That punishment we call the second death, which is itself also perpetual, just as immortality is. The first we define thus: Death is the dissolution of the nature of living beings; or thus: Death is the separation of body and soul. The second, however, thus: Death is the endurance of eternal pain; or thus: Death is the condemnation of souls to eternal torments according to their deserts.

This does not touch the dumb beasts, whose souls, not consisting of God but of the common air, are dissolved by death. In this fellowship therefore of heaven and earth, whose likeness is expressed in man, the higher part is held by those things which are of God, namely the soul, which has dominion over the body; but the lower by those things which are of the devil, namely the body: which, because it is earthly, ought to be subject to the soul, as earth to heaven. For it is as a vessel, in which this heavenly spirit may use it as a temporary dwelling. The duties of each are such that that which is from heaven and God should command, while that which is from earth and the devil should serve. Which indeed did not escape that wicked man Sallust, who says: But all our strength lies in mind and body; we make more use of the mind for command, of the body for service. Rightly said, if he had lived as he spoke.

For he was enslaved to the most shameful pleasures, and dissolved his own maxim by the depravity of his life. But if the soul is fire, as we have shown, it ought to strive toward heaven, just as fire does, lest it be extinguished, that is, toward immortality, which is in heaven. And just as fire cannot burn and live unless it is held by some rich material in which it has fuel: so the material and food of the soul is justice alone, by which it is sustained unto life. After these things God placed man, generated in the manner I have set forth, in paradise, that is, in a most fertile and most pleasant garden: which he planted in the regions of the East with every kind of tree and shrub, so that he might be nourished by their various fruits, and, free from all labors, might serve God the Father with the highest devotion.

Then he gave him certain commandments: which if he observed, he would remain immortal; if he transgressed them, he would be visited with death. The commandment was this: that he should not taste of one tree, which was in the midst of paradise, in which he had placed the Knowledge of good and evil. Then that accuser, envying the works of God, directed all his deceits and cunning to beguiling man, so as to rob him of immortality. And first he lured the woman by guile to take the forbidden food; and through her he also persuaded the man himself to transgress the law of God. Having therefore gained the knowledge of good and evil, he began to be ashamed of his nakedness, and hid himself from the face of God, which he had not been accustomed to do before.

Then God cast man out of paradise, pronouncing sentence upon the sinner, that he should obtain his sustenance by labor, and surrounded paradise itself with fire, lest man should be able to approach, until he shall render the final judgment upon the earth, and recall his righteous worshippers to that same place, death being removed; as the sacred utterances teach, and the Erythraean Sibyl, when she says: Those who honor the true God inherit everlasting life, dwelling for all time in paradise, a flourishing garden. But since these are the last things, we shall treat of them in the last part of this work. Now let us set forth those things which are first. Death therefore followed upon man according to the sentence of God; which the Sibyl also teaches in her poem, saying: Thus the life of man was made temporary: yet long, being extended to a thousand years.

Since Varro was not ignorant of this, which has been recorded in the divine writings and made known through the knowledge of all, he attempted to argue why the ancients were thought to have lived a thousand years. For he says that among the Egyptians months are reckoned for years, so that not the sun's circuit through the twelve signs makes the year, but the moon, which traverses that zodiacal circle in the space of thirty days: which argument is manifestly false. For no one at that time exceeded the thousandth year. But now those who reach the hundredth year, which happens very frequently, certainly live a thousand and two hundred months. And competent authorities record that one hundred and twenty years is the usual limit. But because Varro did not know why or when the life of man had been shortened, he shortened it himself; although he knew that a man could live a thousand and four hundred months.

But God afterwards, when he saw the world filled with wickedness and crimes, resolved to destroy the human race by a flood: yet for the purpose of restoring the multitude he chose one man, who, when all were corrupted, remained as a singular example of justice. This man, when he was six hundred years old, built an ark, as God had commanded him, in which he was preserved together with his wife, three sons, and as many daughters-in-law, when the water had covered all the highest mountains. Then, the world having dried, God, having execrated the injustice of the former age, lest the length of life should again be the occasion for devising evils, gradually diminished the age of man through successive generations, and set a limit at one hundred and twenty years, which it should not be permitted to exceed. But that man, when he had gone forth from the ark, as the holy scriptures teach, diligently cultivated the earth and planted a vineyard with his own hand.

Hence those are refuted who think Liber to be the author of wine. For he preceded not only Liber, but also Saturn and Uranus by many ages. When he had taken the first fruit from that vineyard, made glad, he drank to the point of drunkenness, and lay naked. When one of his sons, whose name was Ham, saw this, he did not cover his father's nakedness: but going out, he also told his brothers. But they, taking a garment, entered with faces turned away, and covered their father. When the father had recognized what had been done, he disowned and expelled his son. But he, a fugitive, settled in that part of the land which is now called Arabia; and that land was called Canaan from his name, and his descendants were called Canaanites. This was the first people that was ignorant of God; because its founder and originator did not receive the worship of God from his father, having been cursed by him: and so he left ignorance of the divine to his descendants.

From this people all the neighboring peoples flowed, as their numbers increased. But the descendants of the father himself were called Hebrews, among whom the religion of God remained. But from these also afterwards, when their number had multiplied immensely, since the narrowness of their own lands could not contain them, young men either sent by their parents, or of their own accord, when scarcity of resources compelled them, as fugitives seeking new settlements for themselves, scattered hither and thither, filled all the islands and the whole world; and torn away from the stock of the holy root, they established for themselves new customs and institutions according to their own will. But of all, those who first occupied Egypt began to look up at and adore the heavenly bodies. And because they were not sheltered by dwellings on account of the quality of the air, nor is the sky in that region covered by any clouds, they observed the courses of the stars and their eclipses, while venerating them frequently and gazing upon them with greater curiosity and freedom.

Afterwards they devised the forms of animals to worship, induced by certain prodigies: the authors of which we shall presently disclose. But the rest, who were dispersed throughout the land, admiring the elements of the world, the sky, the sun, the earth, the sea, worshipped them without any images or temples, and celebrated sacrifices to them in the open; until in the course of time they built temples and images to the most powerful kings, and instituted the practice of worshipping them with victims and incense; thus the nations began to go astray from the knowledge of God. Those therefore err who contend that the worship of the gods existed from the beginning of things, and that paganism is prior to the religion of God: which they think was invented later, because they are ignorant of the source and origin of truth. Now let us return to the beginning of the world.

When therefore the number of men had begun to increase, God, foreseeing lest the devil, to whom he had given power over the earth from the beginning, should by his deceits either corrupt men or destroy them, as he had done at the outset, sent angels for the protection and cultivation of the human race: to whom, since free will had been given them, he commanded above all things that they should not, defiled by the contagion of earth, lose the dignity of their heavenly substance. He forbade them, that is, to do what he knew they were going to do, so that they could not hope for pardon. And so, while they were dwelling among men, that most deceitful ruler of the earth gradually enticed them by familiarity itself to vices, and defiled them by intercourse with women. Then, not received back into heaven on account of the sins in which they had immersed themselves, they fell to earth. Thus the devil made them, from angels of God, his own satellites and ministers.

But those who were begotten of them, since they were neither angels nor men, but bearing a certain intermediate nature, were not received into the underworld, just as their parents were not into heaven. Thus two kinds of demons were made, one heavenly, the other earthly. These are the unclean spirits, the authors of the evils that are done, of whom the same devil is the prince. Hence Trismegistus calls him δαιμονιάρχην. Grammarians say that demons are so called as if from δαήμονας, that is, skilled and knowing of things, for they think these to be gods. They indeed know many future things, but not all, since it is not permitted to them to know the counsel of God fully: and therefore they are accustomed to frame their responses toward ambiguous outcomes. The poets both know them to be demons and speak of them as such.

Hesiod hands down thus: Which was said for this reason, that God had sent them as guardians to the human race: but they themselves, since they are destroyers of men, yet wish to be seen as guardians, so that they themselves may be worshipped, and God may not be worshipped. Philosophers also discourse about them. For Plato even attempted to describe their natures in the Symposium. And Socrates used to say that there was a demon constantly about him, who had attached himself to him as a boy, by whose judgment and nod his life was governed. The whole art and power of magicians also consists in the inspirations of these, by whom, when invoked, they deceive the sight of men with blinding illusions; so that they do not see what is, and think they see what is not. These, as I say, defiled and ruined spirits wander throughout the whole earth, and work the consolation of their own ruin by ruining men.

And so they fill all things with snares, deceits, tricks, and errors; for they attach themselves to individual men, and occupy all houses door by door, and assume for themselves the name of genii: for so they interpret demons in the Latin tongue. Men consecrate these in their inner chambers: upon these they pour unmixed wine daily; and knowingly worship demons as earthly gods, and as averters of the evils which they themselves cause and inflict. Since they are subtle spirits and incomprehensible, they insinuate themselves into the bodies of men, and working secretly in their entrails, impair their health, stir up diseases, terrify their minds with dreams, shake their wits with madness, so that men, compelled by these afflictions, may run to seek their aid.

The reason for all these deceptions is obscure to those without knowledge of the truth. For they think that those beings benefit them when they cease to harm, who are capable of nothing other than harming. Perhaps someone will say that they must therefore be worshipped, lest they do harm, since they are able to do harm. They do indeed harm, but only those who fear them, whom the mighty and exalted hand of God does not protect, who are profane from the sacrament of truth.

But the just, that is, the worshippers of God, they fear, in whose name, when adjured, they depart from bodies: beaten by whose words as if by lashes, they not only confess that they are demons, but also reveal their own names—those names which are adored in temples—and this they do most often in the presence of their own worshippers; not at all to the reproach of their religion and honor, because they are able to lie neither to God by whom they are adjured, nor to the just, by whose voice they are tormented. And so, having often uttered the greatest howlings, they cry out that they are being beaten and burned and are about to depart: such power does the knowledge of God and justice possess! To whom, then, can they do harm, except to those whom they hold in their own power? Finally, Hermes affirms that those who have come to know God are not only safe from the assaults of demons, but are not even held by fate.

"One," he says, "is the safeguard: piety; for over a pious man neither an evil demon nor fate has power. For God delivers the pious man from every evil; for the one and only good among men is piety." What piety is, however, he attests in another place with these words, saying: "For piety is the knowledge of God." Asclepius also, his disciple, explained the same thought more fully in that perfect discourse which he wrote to the king. Both indeed affirm that demons are enemies and tormentors of men; whom for this reason Trismegistus calls "wicked angels": so little did he fail to know that, having been corrupted from heavenly beings, they had begun to be earthly.

Their inventions are astrology, and haruspicy, and augury, and those things which are called oracles, and necromancy, and the magical art, and whatever other evils men practice, either openly or in secret. All of which things are in themselves false, as the Erythraean Sibyl attests: [lacuna] For all these things are wandering errors, Which foolish men search out day by day. But those same authors, by their presence, cause these things to be believed true. Thus they mock the credulity of men with a counterfeit divinity, because it does not serve their interest to reveal the truth to them. These are they who taught men to fashion images and likenesses; who, in order to turn the minds of men away from the worship of the true God, caused the fabricated faces of dead kings, adorned with exquisite beauty, to be set up and consecrated, and put on their names as if they were certain masks.

But magicians, and those whom the common people rightly call sorcerers, when they practice their execrable arts, summon them by their true names, those heavenly names which are read in the holy scriptures. These wandering and unchaste spirits, in order to throw everything into confusion and pour errors into human hearts, sow and mingle falsehoods with truths. For they themselves invented the fiction that there are many heavenly beings, and that Jupiter is the one king of all; because there are many spirits of angels in heaven, and one father and lord of all, God: but they removed the truth, wrapped in false names, from men's eyes. For God, as I taught at the beginning, has no need of a name, since he is alone; nor do the angels, since they are immortal, either suffer or wish to be called gods: whose one and only office is to serve the nods of God, and to do absolutely nothing except by his command.

For thus we say that the world is governed by God, as a province by a governor: whose attendants no one would say are partners in governing the province, even though affairs are conducted by their ministry. And yet these attendants can do something beyond the commands of the governor, through his ignorance, which is a condition of human nature. But that ruler of the world and governor of the universe, who knows all things, whose divine eyes nothing is hidden from, alone holds power over all things together with his Son; nor is there in the angels anything except the necessity of obeying. And so they wish no honor to be paid to themselves, whose every honor is in God.

But those who have defected from the service of God, because they are enemies of truth and transgressors against God, strive to claim for themselves the name and worship of gods; not because they desire any honor (for what honor is there for the lost?), nor in order to harm God, who cannot be harmed: but in order to harm men, whom they strive to turn away from the worship and knowledge of the true majesty, lest they be able to attain immortality, which they themselves lost by their own wickedness. They therefore spread darkness and cover the truth with obscurity, so that men may not know their lord and father; and in order to entice them easily, they hide themselves in temples and are present at all sacrifices, and often produce prodigies, by which men, struck with amazement, give credence to images of divinity and divine power.

Hence it is that a stone was cut by an augur's razor; that Juno of Veii answered that she wished to migrate to Rome; that the Fortune of Women announced a danger; that a ship followed the hand of Claudia; that Juno when stripped, and the Locrian Proserpina, and the Milesian Ceres took vengeance on sacrilegious persons; and Hercules upon Appius, and Jupiter upon Atinius, and Minerva upon Caesar. Hence also that the serpent brought from Epidaurus freed the city of Rome from pestilence. For the lord of demons himself was conveyed thither in his own form without any disguise; since the envoys sent for that purpose brought back with them a dragon of wondrous size.

But in oracles they deceive most of all, whose illusions those who are profane from the truth cannot understand: and therefore they suppose that empires, and victories, and riches, and prosperous outcomes of affairs are bestowed by them; and finally that the commonwealth has often been delivered from threatening dangers by their nod: which dangers they both announced by responses and, when appeased by sacrifices, averted. But all these things are deceptions. For since they have foreknowledge of the dispositions of God, inasmuch as they were once his ministers, they interpose themselves in these matters, so that whatever things have been done or are being done by God, they themselves may appear to have done or to be doing them above all others.

And whenever some good thing is impending for any people or city, according to God's decree, they promise that they will bring it about, either by prodigies, or by dreams, or by oracles, if temples, if honors, if sacrifices are granted to them: which being given, when that which must happen has come to pass, they win for themselves the highest veneration. Hence temples are vowed, and new images consecrated, and herds of victims slaughtered. But when these things have been done, nonetheless the life and safety of those who have done them are sacrificed all the same. But whenever dangers are threatening, they declare themselves angered on account of some foolish and trivial cause: as Juno was against Varro, because he had placed a handsome boy, with eyes fixed upon Jupiter, to hold his spoils; and on this account the Roman name was nearly destroyed at Cannae. But if Juno feared another Ganymede, why did Roman youth pay the penalty?

Or if the gods care only for commanders and neglect the rest of the multitude, why did Varro alone escape, who did this, while Paulus, who deserved nothing, was slain? Evidently nothing happened to the Romans at that time when Hannibal destroyed two armies of the Roman people by both cunning and valor. For Juno did not dare either to defend Carthage, where her arms and chariot were, or to harm the Romans. But those are the sports of those beings who, lurking under the names of the dead, lay snares for the living. And so whether the danger that threatens can be avoided, they wish to appear to have averted it when appeased; or if it cannot be avoided, they contrive that it may seem to have occurred on account of contempt for them. Thus they win for themselves authority and fear among men who do not know them. By this cunning and by these arts they have caused the knowledge of the true and singular God to grow old and be forgotten among all nations.

For, ruined by their own vices, they rage and press on to destroy. For this reason also they themselves, the enemies of the human race, devised human sacrifices, so that they might devour as many souls as possible.

Someone will say: Why then does God permit these things to happen, and not come to the aid of such great errors? So that evils may contend with goods; so that vices may be opposed to virtues; so that he may have some whom he punishes, others whom he honors. For in the last times he has determined to judge the living and the dead: concerning which judgment I shall have a discussion in the final book. He therefore delays until the end of the ages comes, when he will pour out his wrath in heavenly power and might. But now he permits men to err, and to be impious even against himself, being himself just, and mild, and patient. For it cannot be that he in whom virtue is perfect should not also have perfect patience. Hence some think that God does not become angry at all, because he is not subject to the passions, which are disturbances of the soul; since every creature that is affected and moved is fragile. This persuasion utterly destroys truth and religion.

But let this topic of discussing the anger of God be set aside for the present, since the subject matter is more abundant and must be treated more fully in a separate work (namely, the book On the Anger of God). Whoever, therefore, shall have worshipped and followed those most wicked spirits, shall obtain neither heaven nor light, which belong to God: but shall fall into that which we have argued was assigned in the distribution of things to the very principle of evils; namely, into darkness, and the underworld, and everlasting punishment.

I have shown that the religions of the gods are vain in a threefold manner: first, because those images which are worshipped are likenesses of dead men; and it is perverse and incongruous that a likeness of a man should be worshipped by a likeness of God: for it worships that which is inferior and weaker; and furthermore it is an inexpiable crime to abandon the living in order to serve the monuments of the dead, who can give life or light to no one, since they themselves lack these things; and there is no other God except the one, to whose judgment and power every soul is subject. Second, because those sacred images themselves, to which the most empty-headed men are enslaved, are entirely without sense, since they are earth. For who would not understand that it is a sin for an upright creature to be bent down to adore the earth?

Which is therefore placed beneath our feet, so that it may be trodden upon by us, not adored, since we have been raised up from it and have received an upright posture beyond other living creatures, so that we may not be bent downward, nor cast this heavenward face to the ground; but may direct our eyes to where the condition of our nature has pointed them, and may adore nothing else, worship nothing else, except the sole divine power of our one maker and father: who for this reason fashioned man upright, so that we might know we are called toward things above and heavenly. Third, because the spirits who preside over those very religions, condemned and cast down by God, roll about through the earth: who not only can provide nothing for their worshippers, since the power over things belongs to the one God, but also destroy them with deadly enticements and errors; since this is their daily work, to spread darkness over men, lest the true God be sought from them.

They must not therefore be worshipped, because they are subject to the judgment of God. For it is the greatest impiety to surrender oneself to the power of those over whom, if you follow justice, you could be more powerful, and drive and put them to flight by the adjuration of the divine name. But if it is clear that these religions are vain in so many ways as I have shown, it is manifest that those who either supplicate the dead, or venerate the earth, or enslave their souls to impure spirits, do not maintain the reason of men, and that they shall pay the penalties of their impiety and wickedness, who, rebelling against God the parent of the human race, and having taken up inexpiable rites, have violated all that is sacred.

Whoever, therefore, strives to preserve the mystery of man and to maintain the principle of his own nature, let him raise himself up from the ground, and with uplifted mind direct his eyes toward heaven: let him not seek God beneath his feet, nor dig from his own footprints something to worship (for whatever lies beneath man must of necessity be below man); but let him seek in the heights, let him seek in the summit; for nothing can be greater than man, unless it be that which is above man; but God is greater than man; therefore He is to be sought above, not below, and not rather in the lowest regions, but in the highest. Wherefore there is no doubt that there is no religion wherever there is an image. For if religion derives from divine things, and nothing is divine except in heavenly things, then images are devoid of religion, because nothing can be heavenly in that which is made from earth. This indeed can be apparent to a wise man from the very name itself.

For whatever is simulated must of necessity be false; nor can that which counterfeits truth by artifice and imitation ever receive the name of truth. But if every imitation is not so much a serious matter as a kind of play and jest, then what is found in images is not religion, but a mime of religion. Therefore the true must be preferred above all false things: earthly things must be trampled underfoot, so that we may attain heavenly things. For the matter stands thus: whoever has cast down his soul, whose origin is from heaven, to the infernal and lowest regions, falls to the place to which he has hurled himself. And therefore it is fitting that one who is mindful of reason and of his own condition should always strive and tend toward nothing but the things above.

Whoever has done this will plainly be judged wise, just, truly human, and finally worthy of heaven: whom his own parent will recognize not as lowly, nor as cast down to the earth after the manner of four-footed beasts, but rather as standing upright and erect, just as He made him.

The great and difficult portion of the work I have undertaken is therefore completed (unless I am mistaken); and with heavenly majesty supplying us the faculty of speech, we have driven away long-established errors. But now a greater and more difficult contest with the philosophers is set before us: whose supreme learning and eloquence is opposed to me like some great mass. For just as there (that is, in the second book) we were pressed by the multitude and near-universal agreement of all nations, so here we are pressed by the authority of men distinguished in every kind of praise. But who does not know that there is more weight in a few learned men than in many ignorant ones? Yet we must not despair that these too can be dislodged from their opinion, with God and truth as our guides: nor do I think they will be so stubborn as to deny that they see the brightest sun with sound and open eyes.

Provided only that what they themselves are accustomed to profess be true—that they are held by zeal for investigating truth—I shall surely bring it about that they believe the truth long sought has at last been found, and confess that it could not have been found by human minds.

I could wish, since truth is still thought to lie hidden in obscurity—whether through the error and ignorance of the common people, who serve various and foolish superstitions, or through the philosophers who disturb it with the perversity of their minds rather than illuminate it—that there might fall to me, if not such eloquence as was in Marcus Tullius, for that was exceptional and admirable, yet at least some faculty of speech approaching it; so that, to whatever degree truth prevails by its own proper force, it might also, supported by the powers of intellect, at last exert itself, and, having refuted and overcome both the common errors and those of men who are thought wise, might bring the clearest light to the human race.

This indeed I would wish for two reasons: either because men might more readily believe adorned truth, who even believe falsehood when captivated by the ornament of speech and the allurement of words; or certainly, so that the philosophers themselves might be overcome by us with their own weapons, with which they are accustomed to please themselves and feel confident.

But since God has willed this to be the nature of the matter—that simple and unadorned truth should be more luminous, because it is sufficiently adorned in itself, and therefore is corrupted when tainted by ornaments added from without; whereas falsehood pleases by a borrowed appearance, because, being corrupt in itself, it fades and dissolves unless it has been coated and polished with ornament sought from elsewhere—I bear with equanimity that a moderate intellect has been granted to me.

But I have undertaken this work not in confidence of eloquence, but of truth; a work perhaps greater than can be sustained by my own powers: which, however, even if I should fail, truth itself will complete, with the help of God, whose gift this is. For since I know that even the greatest orators have often been defeated by mediocre pleaders, such is the power of truth that it defends itself by its own clarity even in small matters: why should I suppose that truth, in the greatest of causes, will be suppressed by those men who are indeed talented and eloquent, yet speak falsehood? And should it not appear clear and illustrious by its own light, if not by our speech, which flows in a very thin stream from a slender source? Nor, even if the philosophers have been remarkable for their learning in letters, shall I therefore concede to them the knowledge and understanding of truth, which no one can attain by thinking or disputing.

Nor do I now censure the zeal of those who wished to know the truth, because God made the nature of man most desirous of attaining truth: but I charge and refute this—that the result did not follow their honorable and excellent intention; because they neither knew what truth itself was, nor how, nor where, nor with what mind it was to be sought. Thus, while desiring to relieve human errors, they led themselves into snares and the greatest errors. To this work of refuting philosophy, therefore, the very order of the subject matter I have undertaken has brought me.

For since every error arises either from false religion or from false wisdom, it is necessary in refuting it to overthrow both. For since it has been handed down to us in the divine writings that the thoughts of the philosophers are foolish, this very thing must be shown by fact and argument: lest anyone, led by the honorable name of wisdom, or deceived by the splendor of empty eloquence, should prefer to believe human rather than divine things; which indeed have been handed down briefly and plainly. Nor was it fitting that it should be otherwise, so that when God spoke to man, He should support His words with arguments, as though He were not to be believed: but, as was fitting, He spoke as the supreme judge of all things, whose part it is not to argue but to pronounce. But He Himself spoke as God.

We, however, since we have the testimonies of the divine voice for each individual matter, shall surely show by how much more certain arguments true things can be defended, when even false things are so defended as to appear true. Wherefore there is no reason for us to hold the philosophers in such great honor, or to stand in awe of their eloquence. For they were able to speak well, as learned men, but to speak truly they were in no way able, because they had not learned truth from Him who had power over it. Nor shall we accomplish anything very great by convicting them of ignorance, which they themselves very frequently confess—in this alone, that they are not believed in the one matter in which alone they ought to have been believed; I shall endeavor to show that they were never more truthful than when they pronounced judgment on their own ignorance.

Now since in the two preceding books the falsity of religions has been demonstrated, and the very origin of all error has been set forth, the task of this book is also to show how empty and false philosophy is; so that, with all error removed, the truth, once laid bare, may shine forth. Let us therefore begin from the common name of philosophy, so that, with the head itself destroyed, easier access may lie open to us for cutting down the whole body: if indeed that can be called a body whose parts and members are at variance, and cohere together by no bond, but, as though scattered and dispersed, seem rather to palpitate than to live. Philosophy is (as the name indicates, and as they themselves define it) the pursuit of wisdom. From what source, then, shall I better prove that philosophy is not wisdom, than from the very meaning of its name? For he who pursues wisdom does not yet possess wisdom, but pursues it in order that he may be able to possess it.

In the other arts, it is apparent what pursuit accomplishes and toward what it tends. When someone has attained them by learning, he is called no longer a student of the art, but an artisan. But indeed out of modesty they called themselves students of wisdom, not wise men. Nay rather, Pythagoras, who first invented this name, since he was somewhat wiser than those earlier men who thought themselves wise, understood that wisdom could not be reached by any human pursuit, and that therefore a perfect name ought not to be given to a thing incomprehensible and imperfect. And so when he was asked what he professed himself to be, he answered: a philosopher, that is, a seeker of wisdom. If therefore philosophy seeks wisdom, and is not itself wisdom, because that which seeks must necessarily be one thing, and that which is sought another: nor is the seeking itself on the right track, because it can find nothing. Indeed I would not even concede that philosophers are students of wisdom, because by that pursuit wisdom is not attained.

For if the capacity to find truth were subject to this pursuit, and if that pursuit were as it were a road to wisdom, it would at some point have been found. But since, through so many ages and so many minds worn out in its investigation, it has not been grasped, it is apparent that there is no wisdom there. Therefore those who philosophize are not students of wisdom: but they think themselves to be students; because they do not know where or of what kind is the thing they seek. Whether therefore they pursue wisdom or do not pursue it, they are not wise; because that can never be found which is either not sought rightly, or not sought at all. Let us see, however, whether anything can be found by this pursuit, or nothing.

Philosophy seems to consist of two things, knowledge and opinion, and of nothing else. Knowledge cannot come from the intellect, nor be grasped by thought; for to have proper knowledge within oneself belongs not to man but to God. But mortal nature does not receive knowledge except what comes from without. For this reason divine wisdom opened eyes, ears, and the other senses in the body, so that through these channels knowledge might flow through to the mind. For to inquire into the causes of natural things, or to wish to know: whether the sun is as large as it appears, or many times larger than this whole earth; likewise, whether the moon is spherical or concave; and whether the stars are fixed to the sky or are carried through the air in free course; of what size and of what material the sky itself consists, whether it is still and motionless, or revolves with incredible speed; how great is the thickness of the earth, or upon what foundations it is balanced and suspended.

To wish to grasp these things, I say, by disputation and conjecture, is surely just like wishing to discourse about what we might suppose to be the city of some most remote nation, which we have never seen, and of which we have heard nothing but the name. If we claim knowledge in a matter which cannot be known, do we not seem to be mad, who dare to affirm that in which we can be refuted? How much more are those to be judged frenzied and demented who think they know natural things which cannot be known by man. Rightly therefore did Socrates, and the Academics who followed him, do away with knowledge, which belongs not to one who disputes but to one who divines. It remains that opinion alone exists in philosophy. For where knowledge is absent, opinion possesses everything. For each person forms an opinion about what he does not know. But those who dispute about natural things form the opinion that things are as they dispute.

They do not therefore know the truth; since knowledge belongs to certainty, opinion to uncertainty.

Let us return to that earlier example. Come, let us form an opinion about the condition and character of that city which is unknown to us in all things save its name. It is probable that it is situated on a plain, with stone walls, lofty buildings, many streets, and magnificent and adorned temples. Let us describe, if you please, the customs and appearance of its citizens. But when we have said these things, another will argue the contrary; and when he too has finished speaking, a third will rise, and then others in succession, and they will hold opinions far more various than those we have held. What then, out of all these, will be the more true? Perhaps nothing. Yet all things have been said that fall within the nature of things, so that it is necessary that some one of them be true. But it will not be known who has spoken the truth. It may happen that all have erred in some part and touched the truth in some part.

We are therefore foolish if we seek this by disputation; for someone may come along who laughs at our opinions and counts us as madmen for wishing to form opinions about what we do not know, what its nature may be. But there is no need to seek out things placed far away, from which perhaps no one will come to refute us. Come, let us form an opinion about what is now being done in the forum, what in the senate-house; that too is a lengthy matter: let us say, with one wall between us, what is happening; no one can know that unless he has heard or seen it. No one therefore dares to say it, because he will immediately be refuted not by words but by the present reality itself. And yet this is exactly what the philosophers do, who dispute about what goes on in the heavens: but they think they do this with impunity, because no one arises to convict them of their errors.

But if they supposed that someone would descend who would show them to be raving and lying, they would never dispute about those matters which they cannot know. And yet their impudence and audacity is not therefore to be thought the more fortunate because they are not refuted: for God refutes them, to whom alone the truth is known, though he may seem to wink at it, and he reckons that wisdom of men as the height of folly.

Rightly therefore did Zeno and the Stoics repudiate opinion. For to think you know what you do not know is not the mark of a wise man, but rather of a rash and foolish one. If therefore nothing can be known, as Socrates taught, nor ought one to hold opinions, as Zeno held, then all philosophy is done away with. What of the fact that it is overthrown not only by these two, who were the foremost in philosophy, but by all; so that it now appears to have long since been destroyed by its own weapons. Philosophy has been divided into many sects, and all hold varying views. In which shall we place the truth? Certainly it cannot be in all of them. Let us designate any one we please: surely in all the rest there will be no wisdom. Let us pass to each in turn: in the same way, whatever we grant to one, we take away from the rest.

For each sect overthrows all the others in order to confirm itself and its own positions, and concedes wisdom to no other, lest it confess its own folly: but just as it overthrows the others, so it is itself likewise overthrown by all the others. For there are nonetheless philosophers who accuse it of folly. Whatever sect you praise and call true is censured by the philosophers as false. Shall we then believe the one sect praising itself and its own teaching, or the many faulting the ignorance of one or another? That which the majority hold must of necessity be more correct than that which one holds. For no one can rightly judge of himself, as a noble poet attests. For such is the nature of all men, that they see and judge the affairs of others better than their own.

Since therefore all things are uncertain, either all must be believed or none: if none, then they are not wise, because each, affirming different things, thinks himself wise: if all, equally they are not wise, because each is denied to be wise by all the others. All therefore perish in this way, and like those Sparti of the poets, they cut one another's throats so that none of all of them remains: which happens because they have a sword but have no shield. If therefore individual sects are convicted of folly by the judgment of many sects, then all are found to be vain and empty: and so philosophy consumes and destroys itself. When Arcesilaus, the founder of the Academy, understood this, he gathered together the mutual refutations of all, and the confession of ignorance of the celebrated philosophers, and armed himself against all. Thus he established a new philosophy of not philosophizing.

By his authority, therefore, two kinds of philosophy came to exist: one, that old kind which claims knowledge for itself; the other, a new opposing kind, which takes it away. In these two kinds I see discord, and as it were civil war. Wisdom, which cannot be taken away, in which part shall we place it? If the nature of things can be known, this crowd of recruits will perish; if it cannot, the veterans will be destroyed: if they are equal, philosophy, the leader of all, will nonetheless perish, because it has been taken away; for nothing can be contrary to itself without destruction. But if, as I have shown, there can be no internal and proper knowledge in man, on account of the frailty of the human condition, the side of Arcesilaus wins. But not even that side will stand, because it is not possible that nothing at all be known.

For there are many things which nature itself, and frequent use, and the necessity of life compels us to know. And so one must perish unless one knows what things are useful for life, so as to seek them, and what things are dangerous, so as to flee and avoid them. Moreover there are many things which use has discovered. For the varied courses of the sun and moon, and the movements of the stars, and the reckoning of the seasons have been discerned, and the nature of bodies by physicians, and the properties of herbs, and by farmers the nature of soils, and likewise the signs of coming rains and storms have been gathered. There is finally no art which does not consist in knowledge. Arcesilaus therefore ought, if he had any wisdom, to have distinguished what things can be known and what cannot. But if he had done this, he would have reduced himself to the level of the common people.

For the common folk are sometimes wiser; because they are wise only to the extent that is needful. If you ask them whether they know something or nothing, they will say they know what they know, and will confess they do not know what they do not know. He was therefore right to overthrow the disciplines of others, but not right in founding his own. For ignorance of all things cannot be wisdom, whose proper function is to know. And so, though he has defeated the philosophers and shown them to know nothing, he himself has also lost the name of philosopher; because his teaching is to know nothing. For he who reproaches others for not knowing ought himself to be one who knows. But since he knows nothing, what perversity, what insolence is it, to establish himself as a philosopher for the very reason for which he removes the others?

For they can answer thus: If you prove that we know nothing, and are therefore not wise because we know nothing; are you then indeed wise, because you too confess you know nothing? What then did Arcesilaus accomplish, except that, having destroyed all the philosophers, he also ran himself through with the same blade?

Is wisdom then nowhere to be found? Nay, it was indeed among them: but no one saw it. Some thought all things could be known; these were certainly not wise; others thought nothing could be known; neither were these wise; the former because they attributed too much to man; the latter because they attributed too little: both lacked measure, each in their respective direction. Where then is wisdom? It lies in neither thinking yourself to know all things, which belongs to God, nor to know nothing, which belongs to a beast. For there is a certain middle ground which belongs to man, that is, knowledge joined and tempered with ignorance. Knowledge in us comes from the soul, which arises from heaven; ignorance from the body, which is from the earth: whence we have some community both with God and with the animals. And so since we are composed of these two elements, of which the one is endowed with light and the other with darkness, a part of knowledge and a part of ignorance has been given to us.

Across this bridge, as it were, one may pass without danger of falling; for all those who have leaned toward one side or the other have fallen, either to the right or to the left. Now I will tell how each side has erred. The Academics argued from obscure matters against the Physicists that there is no knowledge, and, content with examples of a few incomprehensible things, embraced ignorance; as though they had done away with knowledge entirely because they had done away with it in part. The Physicists on the contrary drew their argument from those things which are evident, that all things can be known, and, content with what is clear, retained knowledge; as though they had defended it entirely because they had defended it in part. And so neither did the latter see what was clear, nor the former what was obscure: but both, while with joined hands they either retain or snatch away knowledge alone, did not see that there would stand in the middle that which would conduct them to wisdom.

But Arcesilaus, the master of ignorance, when he was disparaging Zeno the chief of the Stoics in order to overthrow all philosophy, took up, following the authority of Socrates, this position, that he should affirm that nothing can be known. And so he convicted of presumption those philosophers who had thought that the truth had been dug out and discovered by their own talents: evidently, because that wisdom had been mortal and established only a few ages before, it had already reached its highest growth, so that it must now of necessity grow old and perish, when suddenly the Academy arose, like the old age of philosophy, to destroy it now already fading. And Arcesilaus rightly saw that those are arrogant, or rather foolish, who think that knowledge of the truth can be grasped by conjecture. Yet one cannot refute a person saying false things unless one has first known what is true: which Arcesilaus, attempting to do without having known the truth, introduced a kind of philosophy that is ἀσύστατον, which in Latin we may call unstable or inconsistent.

For in order that nothing be known, it is necessary that something be known. For if you know absolutely nothing, this very thing, that nothing can be known, will be taken away. And so he who pronounces as a kind of maxim that nothing is known, professes and declares it as a precept and something known; therefore something can be known.

Similar to this is that which is commonly proposed in the schools as an example of the inconsistent kind: that someone dreamed he should not trust dreams. For if he believes it, it follows that it should not be believed. But if he does not believe it, then it follows that it should be believed. So if nothing can be known, it is necessary that this very thing be known, that nothing is known. But if it is known that nothing can be known, then it is false what is said, that nothing can be known. Thus a dogma is introduced that contradicts itself and dissolves itself. But the cunning man wished to snatch knowledge from the other philosophers in order to hide it at home. For he certainly does not take it from himself, who affirms something in order to take it from others: but he accomplishes nothing; for he is apparent and betrays himself as a thief.

How much more wisely and truly would he have acted, if, making an exception, he had said that only the causes and principles of heavenly or natural things, because they are hidden, cannot be known, because no one teaches them, and ought not to be sought, because they cannot be found by seeking. By interposing this exception, he would both have warned the Physicists not to seek those things which exceed the measure of human thought, and would have freed himself from the odium of calumny, and would certainly have given us something to follow. But as it is, since he has drawn us back from following those others, lest we wish to know more than we can, he has no less drawn us back from himself as well. For who would wish to labor in order to know nothing? Or to take up a teaching of such a kind as to lose even common knowledge?

If this is a teaching, it must consist in knowledge; if it is not, who is so foolish as to think that ought to be learned in which either nothing is learned or even what was learned is unlearned? Wherefore if neither can all things be known, as the Physicists supposed, nor nothing, as the Academics held, then all philosophy is extinguished.

Let us now pass to the other part of philosophy, which they themselves call moral, in which the whole rationale of philosophy is contained; inasmuch as in that physical part there is only delight, whereas in this there is also utility. And since in ordering the condition of life and forming character, error is committed with greater danger, it is necessary that greater diligence be applied, so that we may know how we ought to live. For there, pardon can be granted; because whether they say something, they profit nothing, or whether they rave, they harm nothing. But here there is no place for disagreement, no place for error. All ought to think the same thing, and philosophy itself ought to prescribe with one voice, as it were; because if anything has gone wrong, the whole of life is overturned. In that former part, as there is less danger, so there is more difficulty; because the obscure nature of things compels men to hold diverse and varied opinions.

Here, as there is more danger, so there is less difficulty; because the very experience of things and daily experiments can teach what is truer and better. Let us see, therefore, whether they agree, or what they offer us by which life may be lived more rightly. It is not necessary to go around everything. Let us choose one thing, and that the most important, which is the chief and principal matter, upon which the hinge of all wisdom turns. Epicurus holds that the highest good consists in pleasure of the mind; Aristippus, in pleasure of the body; Callipho and Dinomachus joined moral worth with pleasure; Diodorus joined it with the absence of pain. Hieronymus placed the highest good in freedom from pain; the Peripatetics, however, in the goods of mind, body, and fortune. For Herillus the highest good is knowledge; for Zeno, to live in conformity with nature; for certain Stoics, to follow virtue; Aristotle placed the highest good in moral worth and virtue. These are roughly the opinions of all. Amid such great diversity, whom do we follow?

Whom do we believe? The authority is equal in all. If we are able to choose what is better, then philosophy is no longer necessary for us, because we are already wise, being such as can judge among the opinions of the wise. But since we come for the purpose of learning wisdom, how can we judge, we who have not yet begun to be wise? Especially when the Academic is at hand, who pulls us back by the cloak and forbids us to believe anyone, yet himself brings forward nothing for us to follow.

What then remains, except that, leaving aside those frenzied and obstinate disputants, we come to that judge, namely the giver of simple and quiet wisdom? Which wisdom can not only form us and lead us into the way, but can also pronounce judgment upon their controversies. This teaches us what is the true and highest good of man: before I begin to speak of this, all those opinions must be refuted, so that it may appear that none of them was wise. Since the duty of man is under discussion, the highest good of the highest animal ought to be established in that which cannot be common with other animals. But just as teeth are proper to wild beasts, horns as weapons, feathers to birds, so something proper ought to be ascribed to man, without which he loses the rationale of his condition. For that which has been given to all for the sake of living or of reproduction is indeed a natural good; yet it is not the highest, except that which is proper to each kind.

Therefore he was not wise who believed the highest good to be pleasure of the mind, since that, whether it be security or joy, is common to all. I do not think Aristippus even deserves a reply—he who was always rushing into bodily pleasures and serving nothing but his belly and Venus—no one doubts that he was not a man; for he so lived that nothing distinguished him from a beast save one thing, that he spoke. But if the faculty of speech were granted to an ass, or a dog, or a pig, and you were to ask them what they want when they pursue females so madly that they can scarcely be torn away, and neglect even food and drink; why they either violently drive away other males, or, even when defeated, do not desist, but, often crushed by stronger ones, pursue all the more; why they fear neither rains nor cold, undertake toil, and do not refuse danger? What else will they answer, but that the highest good is bodily pleasure?

That they seek it in order to be affected by the most delightful sensations; and that these are of such great worth that for the sake of obtaining them they think neither toil, nor wounds, nor death itself ought to be refused. Shall we then seek precepts for living from those who hold the same opinion as souls devoid of reason? The Cyrenaics say that virtue itself is to be praised for this reason, that it is productive of pleasure. True, says that obscene dog, or that mud-wallowing pig. For I fight with my adversary with the utmost exertion of my strength for this reason, that my virtue may bring me pleasure, of which I must necessarily be deprived if I withdraw defeated. Shall we then learn wisdom from those whom not opinion but tongue distinguishes from cattle and beasts? To regard the absence of pain as the highest good is the view not plainly of the Peripatetics and Stoics, but of clinical philosophers.

For who does not understand that this was argued by the sick and those placed in some pain? What is so ridiculous as to hold as the highest good that which a physician can give? We must therefore suffer pain, in order that we may enjoy the good, and indeed severely and often, so that afterwards the absence of pain may be more pleasant. Most wretched, therefore, is he who has never suffered pain; because he lacks the good: he whom we thought most happy, because he lacked the evil. Not far from this vanity was he who said that to feel no pain at all is the highest good. For besides the fact that every animal flees pain, who can secure for himself this good, which we can do nothing but wish may befall us? Moreover, the highest good cannot make anyone happy unless it has always been within his own power: but this is provided not by virtue, not by learning, not by toil, but by nature itself to all living beings.

Those who joined pleasure with moral worth wished to escape this commonality, but they produced a contradictory good; since he who is devoted to pleasure must necessarily lack moral worth, and he who pursues moral worth must lack pleasure.

The good of the Peripatetics is excessively manifold, and, setting aside the goods of the mind—about which there is itself great controversy as to what they are—it can appear to be common with beasts. For the goods of the body, that is, soundness, freedom from pain, health, are no less necessary to dumb animals than to man; and I know not whether even more so, because man can be relieved by remedies and ministrations, but dumb animals cannot. Likewise, what they call the goods of fortune; for just as man needs resources to sustain life, so they need prey and fodder. Thus, by introducing a good that is not in man's power, they subjected the whole man to the dominion of another. Let us hear Zeno also; for he sometimes dreams of virtue. The highest good, he says, is to live in conformity with nature. We must therefore live after the manner of beasts.

For all those things which ought to be absent from man are found in them: they seek pleasures, they fear, they deceive, they lay ambushes, they kill; and, what is most relevant to the matter, they know not God. What then does he teach me, that I should live according to nature, which is itself inclined toward the worse, and by certain softer allurements precipitates into vices? Or if he says that the nature of dumb animals is one thing and that of man another, namely that man is born for virtue, he says something of value: but nevertheless it will not be a definition of the highest good; because there is no animal that does not live according to its own nature.

He who made knowledge the highest good gave something proper to man: but men seek knowledge for the sake of something else, not for its own sake. For who is content to know, without seeking some fruit of knowledge? Arts are learned in order to be practiced: and they are practiced either for the support of life, or for pleasure, or for glory. The highest good, therefore, is not that which is not sought for its own sake. What difference is there, then, whether we regard knowledge as the highest good, or those very things which knowledge produces from itself, that is, livelihood, glory, pleasure? Which are not proper to man, and therefore are not even the highest goods. For the appetite for pleasure and livelihood belongs not to man alone, but also to dumb animals. What of the desire for glory? Is it not found in horses, when the victors exult and the vanquished grieve?

So great is the love of praise, so great the concern for victory. And not without reason does the greatest poet say that one must experience Both what pain belongs to each when vanquished, and what glory in the palm. But if those things which knowledge produces are common with other animals, then knowledge is not the highest good. Furthermore, there is no small defect in this definition, in that bare knowledge is posited. For all who have known some art will begin to seem happy, or rather even those who have known evil things; so that he who has learned to compound poisons is as happy as he who has learned to heal. I ask, therefore, to what end knowledge is to be referred? If to the causes of natural things, what happiness will be set before me if I have learned whence the Nile rises, or whatever the natural philosophers rave about the heavens? What of the fact that of those matters there is not knowledge but opinion, which varies according to individual minds?

It remains that knowledge of good and evil be the highest good. Why then did he prefer to say knowledge rather than wisdom itself is the highest good, since the meaning and force of both are the same? Yet no one up to this point has said that wisdom is the highest good, which could have been said more fittingly. For knowledge is insufficient for undertaking good and fleeing evil unless virtue also be added. For many philosophers, though they discoursed about goods and evils, nevertheless lived otherwise than they spoke, compelled by nature, because they lacked virtue. But virtue joined with knowledge is wisdom. It remains that we also refute those who thought virtue itself to be the highest good, in which opinion Marcus Tullius also was; in which they were very inconsiderate. For virtue itself is not the highest good, but is the maker and mother of the highest good; since it cannot be reached without virtue. Both points are easy to understand.

For I ask whether they think that illustrious good is reached easily, or with difficulty and toil. Let them deploy their acuteness and defend their error. If it can be reached easily and without toil, it is not the highest good. For why should we torment ourselves, why exhaust ourselves, striving day and night? Since that which we seek lies so ready to hand that anyone may grasp it without any exertion of mind. But if even any common and middling good is attained only by toil, since the nature of goods is placed on a steep height and that of evils on a precipice, then the highest good must be attained by the highest toil. But if this is most true, then another virtue is needed in order that we may arrive at that virtue which is called the highest good: which is incongruous and absurd, that virtue should arrive at itself through itself.

If no good can be reached except through toil, it is apparent that virtue is that through which it is reached; since in undertaking and enduring toils, the force and function of virtue consists. Therefore the highest good cannot be that through which it is necessary to arrive at something else. But they, not knowing what virtue effects or whither it tends, and finding nothing more honorable, substituted the very name of virtue, saying it ought to be sought with no proposed reward, and established as their good that which stood in need of a good. Aristotle did not depart far from them, who thought virtue together with moral worth to be the highest good: as though any virtue could exist that is not honorable, and as though, if it had anything base in it, it would not cease to be virtue.

But he saw that it could happen that virtue might be ill regarded through a perverse judgment; and therefore he thought that the opinion of men must be served, and he who does this departs from the right and the good, because it is not in our power that virtue be honored according to its merits. For what is moral worth, but perpetual honor conferred upon someone by the favorable report of the people?

What then will happen, if through the error and depravity of men, an evil reputation follows? Shall we cast aside virtue, because it is judged shameful and base by the foolish? Since virtue can be oppressed and vexed by envy, in order that it may itself be a proper and perpetual good, it ought to need no assistance from without, but rather to stand firm and subsist by its own strength through itself. And so neither ought any good to be hoped for it from man, nor any evil to be refused.

I come now to the highest good of true wisdom, whose nature must be defined in this manner. First, that it belong to man alone, and fall to no other animal; then, that it belong to the soul alone, and cannot be shared with the body; lastly, that it cannot come to anyone without knowledge and virtue. This definition excludes and dissolves all those opinions; for nothing of what they have said is of such a kind. I will now say what it is, so that I may show (as I have undertaken) that all the philosophers were blind and foolish, who could never see, nor understand, nor even suspect what the highest good appointed for man might be. Anaxagoras, when asked for what purpose he had been born, answered, to behold the heavens and the sun. All men admire this saying and judge it worthy of a philosopher. But I think that he, not finding what to answer, poured this out at random, lest he should be silent.

Which indeed, if he had been wise, he ought to have pondered and meditated within himself: because if anyone does not know the reason for his own existence, he is not even a man. But let us suppose that saying was not poured out on the spur of the moment. Let us see how many and how great errors he committed in three words. First, because he placed the whole duty of man in the eyes alone, referring nothing to the mind, but all things to the body. What if he had been blind—would he lose the duty of man, which cannot happen without the ruin of the soul? What of the other parts of the body? Will they each be without their own functions? What of the fact that more is situated in the ears than in the eyes; since both learning and wisdom can be received by the ears alone, but not by the eyes alone? You were born to behold the heavens and the sun? Who brought you into this spectacle?

Or what does your seeing contribute to the heavens and the nature of things? Doubtless, that you may praise this immense and wonderful work. Confess therefore that God is the maker of all things, who brought you into this world as a witness and praiser of so great a work of his. You believe it is a great thing to see the heavens and the sun: why then do you not give thanks to him who is the author of this benefit? Why do you not measure in your mind his virtue, providence, and power, whose works you admire? For it is necessary that he who accomplished wonderful things should be far more wonderful. If someone had invited you to a banquet, and you had been most excellently received there, would you seem sane if you valued the pleasure itself more than the author of the pleasure? So thoroughly do the philosophers refer all things to the body, nothing at all to the mind; nor do they see further than what comes before the eyes.

And yet, with all the functions of the body set aside, the reason of man must be placed in the mind alone. We are not born therefore to see the things that have been made, but to contemplate the very maker of all things, that is, to perceive him with the mind. Wherefore if anyone should ask a man who is truly wise for what purpose he was born, he will answer without hesitation and ready, that he was born for the sake of worshipping God, who begot us for this purpose, that we might serve him. But to serve God is nothing other than to guard and preserve justice by good works. But that man, as one ignorant of divine things, reduced the greatest matter to the least, by choosing only two things which he said were to be looked upon.

But if he had said he was born to behold the world, even though he had comprehended all things and used a grander expression, he would still not have fulfilled the duty of man: because by as much as the soul is worth more than the body, by so much is God worth more than the world, because God made and governs the world. Therefore the world is not to be contemplated with the eyes, since both are body, but God is to be contemplated with the mind: because God, as he himself is immortal, so willed the mind to be everlasting. And the contemplation of God is to venerate and worship the common parent of the human race. But if this was absent from the philosophers, and they lay prostrate on the ground through ignorance of divine things, Anaxagoras must be judged to have seen neither the heavens nor the sun, to the beholding of which he said he was born. The reason of man is therefore clear, if he is wise: and humanity is his own proper quality.

For what is humanity itself, if not justice? What is justice, if not piety? And piety is nothing other than the acknowledgment of God as Father.

The highest good of man therefore consists in religion alone; for the other things, even those which are thought to be proper to man, are found in other animals as well. For when they distinguish and recognize their own voices among themselves by their own signs, they seem to converse; a certain manner of laughing also appears in them, when with ears laid back, mouth drawn in, and eyes relaxed into playfulness, they either sport with a man, or each with their own mates and offspring. Do they not bestow something resembling mutual love and tenderness? Then those things whereby they provide for themselves in the future and store up food—they certainly have foresight. Signs of reason also are detected in many of them. For when they seek what is useful to themselves, avoid evils, shun dangers, and prepare lairs for themselves with several exits, they assuredly understand something. Can anyone deny that reason is present in them, when they often outwit man himself?

For those whose office is the making of honey, when they inhabit their assigned dwellings, fortify their camp, build their homes with inexpressible art, and serve their king—I know not whether perfect prudence is not present in these. It is therefore uncertain whether those things attributed to man are not common to other living creatures: but they are certainly without religion. For my part I think thus: that reason has been given to all animals, but to the mute only for the preservation of life, and to man also for its propagation. And because in man reason itself is perfect, it is called wisdom: which makes man exceptional in this, that to him alone it has been given to understand divine things. On this matter the opinion of Cicero is true.

"Among so many kinds," he says, "there is no animal except man that has any knowledge of God; and among men themselves there is no nation, however uncivilized or savage, which does not know that a God must be worshipped, even if it is ignorant of what kind of God ought to be held." From which it follows that he acknowledges God who, as it were, remembers whence he sprang. Those philosophers therefore who wish to free minds from all fear also take away religion, and strip man of his own proper and singular good, which is separated from right living and from all humanity: because God, as he subjected all living things to man, so subjected man himself to himself. For what reason do those same men argue that the mind ought to be directed toward that which our upright countenance faces? For if we are to look toward heaven, it is surely for no other reason than religion. If religion is taken away, we have no relation with heaven.

Therefore either we must look toward heaven, or prostrate ourselves on the ground. To prostrate ourselves on the ground we cannot do even if we wished, since our posture is upright. We must therefore look toward heaven, to which the nature of our body calls us. But if it is agreed that this must be done, it must be done either in order to serve religion, or in order to know the reason of heavenly things. But the reason of heavenly things we can in no way know: because nothing of that kind can be found by thinking, as I showed above. We must therefore serve religion; and whoever does not undertake it prostrates himself on the ground, and following the life of beasts, renounces his humanity. The unlearned are therefore wiser, who, even if they err in choosing their religion, yet remember their own nature and condition.

It is established therefore, by the consent of the whole human race, that religion ought to be undertaken: but how men err in it must be explained. God willed the nature of man to be such that he should be desirous and eager for two things, religion and wisdom. But men err for this reason, that they either undertake religion while omitting wisdom, or devote themselves to wisdom alone while omitting religion, when neither can be true without the other. They fall therefore into manifold religions, but false ones for this reason, that they have abandoned wisdom, which could have taught them that there cannot be many gods: or they devote themselves to wisdom, but a false wisdom, because they have omitted the religion of the most high God, who could have instructed them in the knowledge of truth. Thus men who undertake either one alone follow a devious path full of the greatest errors, since in these two inseparably joined together, both the duty of man and all truth are enclosed.

I marvel therefore that no philosopher at all has arisen who could find the seat and dwelling-place of the highest good. For they could have inquired thus. Whatever the highest good is, it must necessarily be set before all. Pleasure is what is sought by all: but this is both common to beasts, and has not the force of what is honorable, and brings satiety, and when excessive is harmful, and diminishes with the advance of age, and does not fall to many; for those who lack wealth, whose number is the greater, must necessarily also lack pleasure. Pleasure therefore is not the highest good, nor even a good at all. What of riches? Far less so. For they fall to fewer people, and mostly by chance, and often to the idle, and sometimes through crime, and are desired by those who already possess them. What of sovereignty itself? Not even that. For not all men can reign; and it is necessary that all be capable of the highest good.

Let us seek therefore something that is set before all. Is it virtue? It cannot be denied that it is both a good, and certainly a good for all. But if it cannot be happy, because the force and nature of it consists in the endurance of evils, it is assuredly not the highest good. Let us seek something else. But nothing more beautiful than virtue, nothing more worthy of a wise man, can be found. For if vices are to be fled on account of their baseness, virtue therefore is to be sought on account of its beauty. What then? Can it come to pass that what is agreed to be good and honorable should lack reward and recompense, and be so barren as to produce no benefit from itself? That great labor, and difficulty, and struggle against the evils with which this life is full, must necessarily bring forth some great good. But what shall we say that is? Is it pleasure? But nothing base can arise from what is honorable. Is it riches? Is it powers?

But these are fragile and perishable. Is it glory, honor, the memory of one's name? But all these are placed not in virtue itself, but in the estimation and judgment of others. For virtue is often both hated and afflicted with evil. But the good that arises from it ought to cohere so closely that it can neither be torn away nor taken from it; nor can the highest good be seen to be such, unless it is both proper to virtue and of such a kind that nothing can be added to it or taken from it. What of the fact that the duties of virtue consist in despising all these things? For not to covet, not to seek, not to love pleasures, wealth, power, honors, and all those things which are held to be goods—which others do, overcome by desire—that is assuredly the work of virtue.

It therefore produces something else more sublime and excellent; nor does it struggle against these present goods in vain, unless because it desires greater and truer ones: let us not despair that they can be found, provided that thought ranges over all things. For the prizes sought are neither slight nor trivial.

But the question is what it is for the sake of which we are born; what virtue accomplishes, we can investigate thus. There are two things of which man is composed, soul and body.

Many things are proper to the soul, many proper to the body, many common to both, as virtue itself is: whenever it is referred to the body, it is called fortitude by way of distinction. Since, therefore, fortitude is subject to both, the contest is set before both, and victory from the contest belongs to both: the body, because it is solid and tangible, must necessarily contend with things solid and tangible; but the soul, because it is subtle and invisible, engages with those enemies who cannot be seen or touched. Now what are the enemies of the soul, if not desires, vices, sins? If virtue shall have conquered and put these to flight, the soul will be spotless and pure. From what source, then, can we gather what the fortitude of the soul accomplishes? Surely from what is joined and equal to it, that is, from the fortitude of the body: when the latter has entered into some encounter and contest, what else does it seek from victory but life?

For whether you fight with a man or with a beast, the struggle is for safety. Therefore, as the body by conquering achieves this, that it does not perish: so also the soul, that it may endure; and just as the body, overcome by its enemies, is punished with death: so the soul overcome by vices must necessarily die. What difference, then, will there be between the contest of the soul and that of the body, except that the body seeks temporal life, the soul eternal?

If, therefore, virtue is not blessed through itself, since its whole force consists (as I said) in enduring evils; if it neglects all things that are coveted as goods; if its highest degree opens toward death, inasmuch as it often spurns the life that others desire, and bravely embraces the death that others fear; if it must necessarily bring forth from itself some great good, because labors sustained and overcome even unto death cannot be without reward; if no reward worthy of it is found on earth, since it despises all things that are fragile and perishable, what else remains but that it should produce something heavenly, because it despises all earthly things, and strives toward higher things, because it looks down upon what is lowly? And that can be nothing other than immortality. With good reason, therefore, the not obscure philosopher Euclid, who was the founder of the Megarian school, dissenting from the rest, said that the highest good is that which is like itself and always the same.

He clearly understood what the nature of the highest good is, though he did not explain what it is: but it is immortality, and absolutely nothing else; because it alone can neither be diminished, nor increased, nor changed. Seneca also unwittingly fell into acknowledging that there is no other reward of virtue than immortality. For praising virtue in that book which he wrote on untimely death: "Virtue," he says, "is the one thing that can bestow immortality upon us and make us equal to the gods." But also the Stoics, whom he followed, deny that anyone can be made happy without virtue. Therefore the reward of virtue is the blessed life, if virtue (as has been rightly said) makes the blessed life. Virtue, therefore, is not to be sought for its own sake, as they say, but for the sake of the blessed life, which necessarily follows virtue. This argument could have taught them what the highest good is. But this present and bodily life cannot be blessed, because it is subject to evils through the body.

Epicurus calls God blessed and incorruptible, because he is eternal. For blessedness must be perfect, so that there is nothing that can trouble, diminish, or change it. Nor can anything be deemed blessed in any other way, unless it shall have been incorruptible. But nothing is incorruptible except what is immortal. Immortality alone, therefore, is blessed, because it cannot be corrupted and dissolved. But if virtue falls to man's lot, which no one can deny, blessedness also falls to his lot. For it cannot be that one who is endowed with virtue should be wretched. If blessedness falls to his lot, then immortality also falls to man's lot, which is blessed. The highest good, therefore, is found in immortality alone, which neither any other living creature nor the body attains, nor can it come to anyone without the virtue of knowledge, that is, without the knowledge of God and justice.

How true and right the desire for it is, the very longing for this present life indicates: which, though it is temporal and full of toil, is nevertheless sought and desired by all; for both old and young, both kings and the lowliest, both the wise and the foolish desire it. So great is the worth (as Anaxagoras thought) of the contemplation of heaven and of light itself, that one is willing to endure whatever miseries. Since, therefore, this laborious and brief life is reckoned a great good not only by the consent of men but also of the other living creatures: it is manifest that the same life becomes the highest and perfect good, if it both lacks an end and is free from all evil. Finally, no one would ever have existed who would despise this brief life itself, or would undergo death, except in hope of a longer life.

For those who offered themselves to voluntary death for the safety of their citizens, such as Menoeceus at Thebes, Codrus at Athens, Curtius and the two Mures at Rome, would never have preferred death to the advantages of life, unless they had thought that they were obtaining immortality in the opinion of their fellow citizens: and though they did not know the life of immortality, yet the reality did not deceive them. For if virtue despises riches and wealth because they are fragile, and pleasures because they are brief; then it also despises a fragile and brief life in order to obtain one that is solid and perpetual. The very process of thought, proceeding in order and considering all things, leads us to that surpassing and singular good for the sake of which we are born. If the philosophers had done this; if they had not preferred to defend stubbornly what they had once seized upon: they would assuredly have arrived at this truth, as I have just shown.

And if this was not within the reach of those who extinguish heavenly souls together with their bodies, yet those who dispute about the immortality of the soul ought to have understood; that virtue is set before us for this reason, that, with lusts subdued and the desire for earthly things overcome, pure and victorious souls might return to God, that is, to their origin. For this reason alone among living creatures are we raised upright to look upon the sky, that we may believe our highest good to be in the highest place. For this reason alone do we receive religion, that from this we may know that the human spirit is not mortal, because it both desires and acknowledges God, who is immortal. Therefore, of all the philosophers who embraced either knowledge or virtue as the highest good, they held indeed the path of truth, but did not arrive at the summit. For these two things together produce that which is sought.

Knowledge provides that we may know how and whither we must arrive; virtue, that we may arrive. The one without the other avails nothing, for from knowledge virtue is born, and from virtue the highest good. The blessed life, therefore, which philosophers have always sought and seek, whether in the worship of the gods or in philosophy, does not exist; and therefore it could not be found by them, because they did not seek the highest good in the highest place, but in the lowest. But what is the highest, if not heaven and God, from whom the soul arises? What is the lowest, if not the earth, from which the body comes? And so, although some philosophers assigned the highest good not to the body but to the soul, yet, because they referred it to this life, which ends with the body, they reverted to the body, to which belongs all this time that is spent on earth.

Wherefore not without reason did they fail to comprehend the highest good; because whatever pertains to the body and is devoid of immortality must necessarily be the lowest. Blessedness, therefore, does not fall to man in the manner that the philosophers supposed: but it falls to him thus, not so that he is blessed when he lives in the body, which must necessarily be corrupted in order to be dissolved; but when the soul, freed from the fellowship of the body, lives in spirit alone. In this one way can we be blessed in this life, if we appear to be in no way blessed; if, fleeing the allurements of pleasures and serving virtue alone, we live amid all labors and miseries, which are the exercises and strengthenings of virtue; if finally we hold to that rough and difficult path which has been opened to us toward blessedness. The highest good, therefore, which makes men blessed, can exist only in that religion and teaching to which the hope of immortality is joined.

The subject seems to require at this point that, since we have shown immortality to be the highest good, we should prove that the soul itself is immortal. Concerning this matter there is an immense dispute among philosophers, and yet those who held the true view about the soul were unable to explain or prove anything; for, being without this divine learning, they brought forward neither true arguments by which to prevail, nor testimonies by which to prove their case. But we shall treat this question more suitably in the last book, when we shall have to discourse about the blessed life. There remains that third part of philosophy which they call λογική, in which all dialectic and the whole method of discourse is contained. Divine learning does not require this: because wisdom is not in the tongue but in the heart; nor does it matter what manner of speech one uses: for things, not words, are what is sought.

And we are not discoursing about the grammarian or the orator, whose knowledge concerns how one ought to speak, but about the wise man, whose teaching concerns how one ought to live. But if neither that physical method is necessary, nor this logical one, because they cannot make one blessed: it remains that the whole force of philosophy is contained in ethics alone, to which Socrates is said to have devoted himself, having cast aside all else. And since in this part also I have shown that the philosophers erred, who did not comprehend the highest good for the sake of obtaining which we are born; it is apparent that all philosophy is false and empty, because it neither equips one for the duties of justice, nor establishes the duty and purpose of man. Let those therefore know that they err, who think philosophy to be wisdom: let them not be drawn by the authority of anyone; but let them rather favor the truth and draw near to it.

There is no place here for rashness: the punishment of folly must be endured for eternity, if either an empty persona or a false opinion shall have deceived one. But a man, of whatever sort he is, if he trusts himself, that is, if he trusts a man (not to say he is foolish, who does not see his own error) is certainly arrogant, who dares to claim for himself what the human condition does not admit.

That supreme master of the Roman tongue himself, how greatly he errs, may be clearly seen from that passage: who, having said in his books on duties that philosophy is nothing other than the pursuit of wisdom, and wisdom itself the knowledge of things divine and human, then added: "I cannot at all understand what he who censures the pursuit of it thinks worthy of praise. For if delight of the mind is sought, and rest from cares, what can be compared with the pursuits of those who are always inquiring into something that bears upon and avails for living well and blessedly? Or if a guide to consistency and virtue is sought, either this is the art, or there is none at all, by which we attain them. To say that there is no art for the greatest matters, when there is no matter however small that is without art, is the speech of men who reflect too little and err in the greatest things.

But if there is some discipline of virtue, where will it be sought, when you have departed from this kind of learning?" For my part, although I have taken pains to acquire whatever small capacity for learning I could, for the sake of the pursuit of teaching, yet I have never been eloquent; seeing that I have not even touched the forum: but the very goodness of the cause must make me eloquent; for the defense of which, ably and copiously, the knowledge of divinity and truth itself suffices.

I would therefore wish Cicero to rise for a moment from the dead, so that the most eloquent of men might be taught by an uneloquent little man: first, what it is that he who censures the pursuit called philosophy thinks worthy of praise; then, that neither is that the art by which virtue and justice are learned, nor any other, as he supposed; and finally, since there is a discipline of virtue, where it is to be sought, when you have departed from that kind of learning: which he sought not for the sake of hearing and learning. For from whom could he have heard it, since no one knew it? But as he was accustomed to do in cases at law, he wished to press by questioning and to lead to a confession; as though he were confident that absolutely nothing could be answered to prevent philosophy from being the mistress of virtue.

Which indeed he openly professed in the Tusculan Disputations, turning his speech to philosophy itself, as though he were displaying himself in a declamatory style of speaking. "O philosophy, guide of life," he says, "O seeker of virtue and expeller of vices: what could not only we, but the life of man altogether, have been without you? You have been the discoverer of laws, the mistress of morals and discipline." As though philosophy itself perceived something through itself, and not rather he who bestowed it were to be praised. He could in the same manner have given thanks to food and drink, because without these things life cannot subsist; in which, as there is no sensation, so there is no benefit. Yet as those are nourishments of the body, so wisdom is of the soul.

More correctly, therefore, does Lucretius praise him who first discovered wisdom: but this is foolish, that he supposed it was discovered by a man. As if indeed that man whom he praised had found it lying somewhere, like pipes at a spring, as the poets say. But if he praised the discoverer of wisdom as a god—for he says thus: No one (I think) will be born of mortal body. For if, as the known majesty of things itself demands, It must be said: that man was a God, a God, illustrious Memmius: yet God ought not to have been praised in this way, for having discovered wisdom, but for having made man, who could be capable of wisdom. For he who praises a part out of the whole diminishes the praise. But he praised him as a man, who nevertheless for that very reason ought to be held as a God, because he discovered wisdom. For he says thus: Will it not be fitting To deem this man worthy of a place among the number of the gods?

From this it appears that he wished to praise either Pythagoras, who first, as I said, called himself a philosopher; or Thales of Miletus, who is recorded to have been the first to dispute concerning the nature of things. Thus, while seeking to exalt a man, he diminished the thing itself. For it is not great, if it could be discovered by a man. Indeed, as to a poet, pardon may be granted. But that same perfect orator, that same supreme philosopher, both reproaches the Greeks, whose frivolity he always accuses, and yet follows them; and praises wisdom itself, which he elsewhere calls now a gift, now a discovery of the gods, praised in its aspect as poetically figured. He also complains gravely that there were some who disparaged it.

"Would anyone," he says, "dare to disparage the parent of life, and to defile himself with this parricide, and to be so impiously ungrateful?" We therefore, Marcus Tullius, are parricides, and by your judgment deserve to be sewn into a sack, we who deny that philosophy is the parent of life? Or are you, who are so impiously ungrateful toward God—not that God whose image you venerate seated on the Capitol, but that one who made the world and begat man, who also bestowed wisdom itself among his heavenly gifts—do you call her the teacher of virtue, or the parent of life, to whom if anyone draws near, he must needs be far more uncertain than he was before? Of what virtue? Which the philosophers themselves have not yet settled where it resides. Of what life? Since the teachers themselves were worn out by old age and death before they established how one ought to live. As an investigator of what truth can you profess her?

You who so often testify that, though so great a multitude of philosophers has existed, no wise man has yet appeared. What then did that teacher of life teach you? Was it to assail with abuse a most powerful consul, and by your poisoned speeches to make him an enemy of his country? But let us pass over those things which can be excused in the name of fortune. You devoted yourself to philosophy, and indeed so diligently as no one ever did more; since you came to know all the disciplines, as you yourself are accustomed to boast, and you illuminated that very philosophy in Latin letters, and showed yourself an imitator of Plato. Tell me, therefore, what you learned, or in what sect you discovered the truth. In the Academy, of course, which you followed, which you approved. But this teaches nothing, except that you may know that you know nothing. Your own books therefore prove how nothing can be learned from philosophy for life.

These are your words: "But to me we seem blind not only toward wisdom, but even toward those very things which seem to be perceived in some degree, dull and obtuse." If therefore philosophy is the teacher of life, why did you seem to yourself blind, and dull, and obtuse, you who ought, with her as teacher, both to perceive and to be wise and to move in the clearest light? But how much you confessed the truth of philosophy, the precepts composed for your son teach, in which you advise that the precepts of philosophy are indeed to be learned, but that one must live as a citizen. What can be said so contradictory? If the precepts of philosophy are to be learned, they are certainly to be learned for this reason, that we may live rightly and wisely. Or, if one must live as a citizen, then philosophy is not wisdom; since it is better to live as a citizen than as a philosopher.

For if what is called philosophy is wisdom, he surely lives foolishly who does not live according to philosophy. But if he who lives as a citizen does not live foolishly, it follows that he who lives as a philosopher lives foolishly. By your judgment, therefore, philosophy is condemned as folly and emptiness. The same man, in the Consolation, that is, in a work not jocular, passed this judgment on philosophy: "But I know not what error holds us, or a miserable ignorance of truth." Where then is the teaching of philosophy? Or what did that parent of life teach you, if you miserably do not know the truth? But if this confession of error and ignorance was wrung from you almost against your will from the depths of your heart, why do you not at some point confess the truth to yourself, that philosophy, which you extolled to the skies with praises while it teaches nothing, cannot be the teacher of virtue?

Led by the same error, Seneca (for who would hold the true path, when Cicero was wandering?) says: "Philosophy is nothing other than the right reason of living, or the knowledge of living honorably, or the art of conducting a right life. We shall not err if we say that philosophy is the law of living well and honorably. And whoever has called it the rule of life has rendered to it its own." Here he plainly did not look to the common name of philosophy, which, since it is spread into many sects and disciplines, and has nothing certain, nothing finally upon which all agree with one mind and voice, what can be so false as for philosophy to be called the rule of life, in which the diversity of precepts impedes and confounds the right path? Or the law of living well, whose chapters are widely discordant? Or the knowledge of conducting life, in which nothing else is accomplished, by often saying contrary things, than that no one knows anything?

For I ask whether he thinks the Academy is philosophy or not? I do not suppose he will deny it: but if it is, then none of those things applies to philosophy, which renders all things uncertain, abrogates the law, holds there is no art, subverts reason, perverts the rule, utterly destroys knowledge. All those things are therefore false, because they cannot apply to a matter always uncertain and as yet explaining nothing. There is therefore no reason, or knowledge, or law of living well, unless it is established in this one, true, and heavenly wisdom, which was unknown to the philosophers. For that earthly wisdom, since it is false, becomes varied and manifold, and is wholly contrary to itself. And just as there is one God who is the founder and ruler of this world, one truth: so it is necessary that wisdom be one and simple, because whatever is true and good cannot be perfect unless it is singular.

But if philosophy could instruct life, none other than philosophers would be good, and those who had not learned it would all be always evil. But since innumerable persons exist, and have always existed, who are or have been good without any learning, while from among philosophers it has very rarely happened that anyone did anything in life worthy of praise, who is there at last who does not see that those men are not teachers of the virtue which they themselves lack? For if anyone inquires diligently into their conduct, he will find them wrathful, covetous, lustful, arrogant, insolent, and concealing their vices under the pretense of wisdom, doing at home those things which they would have censured in their schools. Perhaps I lie for the sake of accusation. Does not Tullius himself both confess and complain of this very thing? "How few philosophers are found," he says, "who are so formed in character, so constituted in mind and life as reason demands? Who regard true discipline not as a display of knowledge but as a law of life?

Who obey themselves and comply with their own decrees? One may see some of such great frivolity and boastfulness that it would have been better for them not to have learned: others greedy for money, others for glory; many slaves of lusts, so that their discourse wonderfully conflicts with their life." Cornelius Nepos also writes thus to the same Cicero: "So far am I from thinking philosophy the teacher of life and the perfecter of a happy life, that I think no one stands more in need of teachers of living than most of those who are engaged in disputing about it." For I see that a great part of those who in the school give the most subtle precepts concerning modesty and continence, those same men live in the desires of all lusts.

Likewise Seneca in his Exhortations: "Most philosophers," he says, "are such—eloquent for their own banquet—that if you hear them declaiming against avarice, against lust, against ambition, you would think they had given evidence against themselves, so abundantly do the reproaches sent forth in public rebound upon themselves; whom one ought to regard no differently than physicians, whose placards contain remedies, whose boxes contain poisons. Some indeed are not even held back by shame for their vices, but devise defenses for their baseness, so that they may seem to sin even honorably. The wise man will do," says the same Seneca, "even things he does not approve, in order to find a passage to greater things: nor will he abandon good conduct, but will adapt it to the time; and what others use for glory or pleasure, he will use for the sake of getting things done." Then a little after: "All things that the luxurious do, and that the ignorant do, the wise man will also do, but not in the same manner and with the same purpose.

And yet it makes no difference in what spirit you do what it is vicious to have done: because deeds are seen, the spirit is not." With Aristippus, the master of the Cyrenaics, there was an intimacy with Lais, a famous harlot, which disgrace that grave teacher of philosophy defended thus, saying that there was a great difference between himself and the other lovers of Lais, in that he possessed Lais, while the others were possessed by Lais. O splendid wisdom, worthy of imitation by the good! Would you entrust your children to this man for instruction, that they might learn to keep a harlot? He said there was some difference between himself and the dissolute; namely, that they wasted their goods, while he indulged in luxury for free. In which matter the harlot was plainly wiser, who had the philosopher for a procurer, so that all the youth, corrupted by the example and authority of their teacher, might flock to her without any shame.

What difference was there, then, in what spirit the philosopher frequented a most notorious harlot, when the people and his rivals saw him more wicked than all the dissolute? Nor was it enough to live thus: but he began also to teach lusts, and transferred his conduct from the brothel to the school, arguing that bodily pleasure is the highest good. Which execrable and shameful doctrine was born not in the heart of a philosopher, but in the bosom of a harlot. For what shall I say of the Cynics? For whom it was the custom to cohabit with their wives in public. What wonder if they also drew their designation and name from dogs, whose life they imitate? There is therefore no teaching of virtue in this discipline, since even those who prescribe more honorable things either do not themselves do what they urge, or if they do (which rarely happens) it is not discipline that leads them to what is right, but nature, which more often impels even the unlearned toward praise.

They seek from philosophy, therefore, not utility but amusement. Cicero indeed testified to this: "Assuredly," he said, "all the disputation of those men, although it contains the most abundant springs of virtue and knowledge, yet when compared with the deeds and accomplishments of these men, I fear it may not seem to have brought as much utility to the affairs of men as amusement to their leisure." He ought not to have feared, since he was speaking the truth: but as though he were afraid of being summoned by the philosophers as guilty of betraying a mystery, he did not dare to pronounce confidently what was true—that they dispute not in order to teach, but to amuse themselves in leisure; and since they are advocates of action yet themselves do nothing, they are to be reckoned as mere talkers. But assuredly, because they brought nothing good to life, neither did they themselves comply with their own decrees, nor was anyone found through so many ages who lived by their laws.

All philosophy must therefore be cast aside, because one ought not to study wisdom—which has no end or limit—but to be wise, and indeed betimes. For no other path is granted to us, such that while we seek wisdom in this life we may be wise in the next: both must be accomplished in this life. It must be found quickly, so that it may be taken up quickly, lest anything be lost from a life whose end is uncertain. Cicero's Hortensius, arguing against philosophy, is caught in a clever dilemma: for when he said that one ought not to philosophize, he was nonetheless seen to be philosophizing, since it is the part of a philosopher to dispute what in life ought or ought not to be done. We are free and exempt from this charge, we who abolish philosophy because it is an invention of human thought; we defend sophia because it is a divine tradition, and we testify that it ought to be embraced by all.

He, when he abolished philosophy and offered nothing better in its place, was thought to be abolishing wisdom, and was the more easily driven from his position: because it is agreed that man is born not for folly but for wisdom. Moreover, that argument also avails greatly against philosophy, of which the same Hortensius made use; that it can be understood from this that philosophy is not wisdom, because its beginning and origin is apparent. "When," he says, "did philosophers begin to exist? Thales, I think, was the first—a recent age indeed; where then, among the ancients, lay hidden that love of investigating truth?" Likewise Lucretius says: Finally, this nature of things and its principle was discovered but lately; and I myself was first found among the first who am now able to render it in the words of my native tongue. And Seneca: "Not yet," he says, "have a thousand years passed since the beginnings of wisdom were set in motion." For many ages, therefore, the human race lived without reason.

Persius mocks this: After wisdom came to the city, he says, along with pepper and palm-dates; as though wisdom had been imported along with merchandise of flavour: which if it is according to the nature of man, it must have begun with man himself; but if it is not, human nature could not even receive it. But because it did receive it, therefore wisdom must have existed from the beginning; therefore philosophy, because it did not exist from the beginning, is not that same true wisdom. But evidently the Greeks, because they had not touched the sacred writings of truth, did not know in what way wisdom had been corrupted. And therefore, since they thought human life was devoid of wisdom, they devised philosophy; that is, they wished to draw out by disputation the truth that lay hidden and unknown to them—which pursuit, through ignorance of the truth, they took to be wisdom.

I have spoken of philosophy itself as briefly as I could: now let us come to the philosophers; not to contend with those who cannot stand their ground, but to pursue them as they flee and are driven from our field. The school of Epicurus has always been far more celebrated than the rest; not because it offers anything true, but because the popular name of pleasure attracts many. For everyone is prone to vices. Moreover, in order to draw the multitude to himself, he speaks in a manner suited to each individual's character. He forbids the idle man to learn letters; he frees the miser from popular generosity; he forbids the cowardly to approach public life; the slothful to exercise; the fearful to serve in war. The irreligious man hears that the gods care for nothing; the inhuman man, who serves his own interests, is told to give nothing to anyone; for the wise man does all things for his own sake. Solitude is praised for one who flees the crowd.

He who is excessively frugal learns that life can be sustained on water and porridge. He who hates his wife is taught the advantages of celibacy; to one who has bad children, childlessness is extolled; against impious parents there is said to be no bond of nature. To the impatient and delicate it is said that pain is the greatest of all evils; to the brave, that even under torture the wise man is happy. He who strives for fame and power is instructed to cultivate kings; he who cannot bear trouble is told to flee the court. Thus this cunning man draws together a circle from varied and diverse characters, and while he strives to please all, he has fought with himself in greater discord than all others among themselves. But from what source his entire school descends, and what origin it has, must be explained.

Epicurus observed that adversities always befell the good—poverty, labours, exiles, the loss of dear ones; that the wicked on the contrary were prosperous, grew in power, and were loaded with honours; he observed that innocence was less safe, that crimes were committed with impunity; he observed that death raged without regard for character, without order or distinction of years: but that some reached old age, others were snatched away as infants, others perished in the full vigour of life, others were cut off by untimely deaths in the first flower of youth, and that in wars the better men were more often both defeated and slain. But what moved him most was that men who were especially religious were afflicted with heavier evils; while those who either entirely neglected the gods or did not worship them piously suffered either lesser misfortunes or none at all; and that even the temples themselves were often set ablaze by lightning.

This Lucretius laments, when he speaks of God: But if he could have gathered even a slight breath of truth, he would never have said that he destroys his own dwellings; since he destroys them for the very reason that they are not his own. The Capitol, which is the supreme head of the Roman city and religion, was struck by lightning and burned not once but several times. What men of intelligence thought of this is apparent from a saying of Cicero, who states that that flame arose by divine will, not to destroy that earthly dwelling of Jupiter, but to demand one more lofty and magnificent. On this matter he also said in the books of his Consulship the same things as Lucretius: With stubborn folly they not only failed to understand the power and majesty of the true God, but even increased the impiety of their error, those who strove against all right to restore a temple repeatedly condemned by heavenly judgment.

When Epicurus therefore pondered these things, led as it were by the injustice of those circumstances (for so it seemed to one ignorant of the cause and reason), he concluded that there was no providence. And when he had persuaded himself of this, he undertook also to defend it: thus he shut himself up in inextricable errors. For if there is no providence, how was the world made in so orderly and so well-arranged a fashion? There is no arrangement, he says; for many things have been made otherwise than they ought to have been. And this inspired man found things to criticize. If it were possible to refute each of these individually, I would easily show that this man was neither wise nor sane. Likewise, if there is no providence, how are the bodies of living creatures so providently ordered that each and every member, arranged with wonderful design, fulfils its own function?

The principle of providence, he says, laboured at nothing in the procreation of animals; for neither were eyes made for seeing, nor ears for hearing, nor the tongue for speaking, nor feet for walking; since these things came into being before there was speaking, hearing, seeing, walking. Therefore these were not born for use: but use was born from them. If there is no providence, why do rains fall, crops grow, trees put forth leaves? These things, he says, do not always flow for the sake of living creatures, since they are of no benefit to providence: but all things must come about of their own accord. Whence then are they born and how do all the things that occur come to be? It is not the work of providence, he says; for there are seeds flying through the void, from whose random clustering together all things are generated and grow. Why then do we not feel or see them?

Because they have no colour, he says, no heat, no smell; they are also devoid of taste and moisture, and so minute that they cannot be cut or divided.

Thus, because he had taken up a falsehood at the outset, the necessity of consequent matters led him to ravings. For where are they, and whence come these little bodies? Why did no one but Leucippus alone dream of them? From whom Democritus, having been instructed, left the inheritance of his folly to Epicurus. If these are little bodies, and indeed solid ones, as they say, they can certainly come under the eyes. If the nature of all of them is the same, how do they produce varied things? They come together, he says, in varied order and position: just as letters, which though few in number, yet variously arranged, make up innumerable words. But letters have varied shapes. So too, he says, do these very first-beginnings; for some are rough, some are hooked, some are smooth. They can therefore be cut and divided, if there is something in them that projects. But if they are smooth and lack hooks, they cannot cohere. They must therefore be hooked, so that they can be linked together in a chain.

But since they are said to be so minute that they cannot be split by any blade of iron, how do they have hooks or angles? Which, because they project, must necessarily be capable of being torn off. Then by what bond, by what understanding do they come together among themselves, so that something is constructed from them? If they lack sense, they cannot come together in so orderly a fashion; because nothing rational can be accomplished except by reason.

By how many arguments can this vanity be refuted! But my discourse hastens on. This is that man—verses which I for my part can never read without laughter. For he was not saying this of Socrates or Plato, who are held as it were kings among the philosophers: but of a man, compared to whose sanity and vigour no sick person ever raved more foolishly. And so the most empty of poets did not adorn a mouse with the praises of a lion, but overwhelmed and crushed it. But the same man frees us from the fear of death, concerning which these are his own expressed words: "When we exist, death is not; when death is, we do not exist; death therefore is nothing to us." How cleverly he deceived us! As though indeed it were the death already past that is feared, in which sense has already been taken away, and not the very act of dying, by which sense is taken away.

For there is a certain time when we still exist, and yet death is not yet; and this very moment seems to be the wretched one, when death begins to be and we begin to cease to be.

Nor was it said in vain: Death is not a wretched thing. The approach to death is wretched: that is, to waste away with disease, to endure a blow, to receive a sword into the body, to burn in fire, to be torn by the teeth of beasts. These are the things that are feared, not because they bring death, but because they bring great pain. Rather, bring it about that pain is not an evil. The greatest of all evils, he says. How then can I not fear, if that which precedes or causes death is an evil? What of the fact that the whole argument is false? Because souls do not perish. But souls do perish, he says. For what is born with the body must necessarily perish with the body. I have already said above that I am deferring this topic to a better place, and reserving it for the final work, so that I may refute this persuasion of Epicurus—or whether it was that of Democritus or Dicaearchus—both by arguments and by divine testimonies.

But perhaps he pledged impunity to his own vices; for he was the champion of the most shameful pleasure, for the sake of obtaining which he thought man was born. Who, upon hearing this affirmed, would abstain from vices and crimes? For if souls are to perish, let us pursue riches, so that we may be able to seize all pleasures: and if these are lacking to us, let us take them from those who have them, secretly, by guile, by force; and all the more so, if no God cares for human affairs, whenever the hope of impunity smiles upon us, let us seize, let us slay. For it is the part of a wise man to do evil, if it be both profitable and safe; since if there is any God in heaven, he is angry with no one. It is equally the part of a fool to do good; because just as he is not moved by anger, so neither is he touched by gratitude. Let us therefore serve pleasures in whatever way we can.

For in a short time we shall be nothing at all. Therefore let us suffer no day, no moment of time, to pass without pleasure; lest, because we ourselves are at some point to perish, even that very life which we have lived should perish. This he does not say in so many words, yet he teaches it by the very substance of his doctrine. For when he argues that the wise man does all things for his own sake, he refers everything he does to his own advantage. Thus whoever hears these shameful teachings will think that nothing good is to be done, since doing good looks to another's advantage, nor that crime is to be avoided, since plunder is joined to wrongdoing. If some arch-pirate, or leader of brigands, were to exhort his men to robbery, what other language could he use than to say the same things that Epicurus says?

That the gods care for nothing; that they are moved neither by anger nor by gratitude; that the punishments of the underworld are not to be feared, because souls perish after death, and there are no underworld regions at all; that pleasure is the greatest good; that there is no human society; that each man looks out for himself; that no one loves another except for his own sake; that death is not to be feared by a brave man, nor any pain, since even if he is tortured, even if he is burned, he says he cares nothing for it. There is plainly reason for anyone to think that this is the voice of a wise man, which can most aptly be put to use by brigands.

Others, however, argue the contrary of these things, that souls survive after death; and these are chiefly the Pythagoreans and the Stoics: whom, even if they are to be forgiven because they perceive the truth, I cannot nevertheless refrain from reproving, because they fell upon the truth not by design but by chance. And so in the very thing which they rightly perceived they erred in some respect. For when they feared that argument by which it is concluded that souls must necessarily perish with bodies, because they are born with bodies, they said that souls are not born, but rather are introduced into bodies, and migrate from some bodies into others. They did not think it could otherwise come about that souls survive after bodies, unless they were seen to have existed before bodies. The error of each side is therefore equal and nearly alike. But the one is false with respect to the past, the other with respect to the future.

For no one perceived what is most true: both that souls are born, and that they do not perish; because they did not know why this should be so, or what the purpose of man was. Many of them, therefore, because they suspected that souls are eternal, as though they were about to migrate to heaven, laid violent hands upon themselves: as Cleanthes, as Chrysippus; as Zeno, as Empedocles, who cast himself into the crater of burning Etna in the dead of night, so that, when he suddenly failed to appear, he might be believed to have gone to the gods; and among the Romans, Cato, who throughout his whole life was an imitator of the vanity of Socrates.

For Democritus held a different persuasion. Yet he of his own accord offered his head to death to meet it, than which nothing more wicked can be done. For if a murderer is impious because he is the destroyer of a man, he who kills himself is bound by the same crime, because he kills a man. Nay, this deed must be judged the greater, the vengeance for which belongs to God alone. For just as we did not come into this life of our own will, so again we must depart from this dwelling of the body, which has been assigned to us to be kept, at the command of the same one who brought us into this body, and we are to remain in it as long as he commands us to be released; and if some violence is inflicted, it must be endured with an even mind, since the soul of an innocent person once destroyed cannot go unavenged, and we have a great judge, to whom alone vengeance is always intact.

All those philosophers are therefore murderers, and Cato himself, the chief of Roman wisdom, who is said to have read through Plato's book, which is written on the immortality of souls, before he killed himself, and was driven to the height of wickedness by the authority of a philosopher; and yet this man seems to have had some reason for dying, namely hatred of servitude. What of that man of Ambracia, who, when he had read through the same book, threw himself headlong, for no other reason than that he believed Plato? A doctrine truly execrable and to be shunned, if it drives men away from life. But if Plato had known and taught by whom, and how, and to whom, and for what deeds, and at what time immortality is granted, he would not have driven Cleombrotus to voluntary death, nor Cato, but would rather have instructed them toward life and justice.

For Cato seems to me to have sought a reason for dying, not so much to flee Caesar as to comply with the decrees of the Stoics whom he followed, and to make his name illustrious by some great deed: what evil could have befallen him if he had lived, I do not find. For Caesar, as he was clement, wished nothing else, even in the very heat of the civil war, than to be seen to deserve well of the Republic, with two of its best citizens, Cicero and Cato, preserved. But let us return to those who praise death as a good. You complain of life, as though you had truly lived, or as though you had ever arrived at a settled understanding of why you were born at all.

Would not therefore that true and common father of all rightly have rebuked you with that saying of Terence: You are indignant that you are subject to evils, as though you deserved any good—you who do not know your father, your lord, your king; who, though you behold the clearest light with your eyes, are yet blind in mind, and lie in the deep darkness of ignorance. This ignorance has caused some not to blush to say that we were born for this purpose, to pay the penalties for our crimes: than which I see nothing more delirious that can be said. For where, or what crimes could we have committed, who did not exist at all? Unless perhaps we shall believe that foolish old man, who falsely claimed that in a former life he had been Euphorbus. He, I suppose, because he was born of ignoble stock, adopted a family for himself from the poems of Homer. O the wonderful and singular memory of Pythagoras!

O the wretched forgetfulness of all the rest of us, who do not know who we were before! But perhaps it came about through some error or favour that he alone did not touch the Lethean gulf, nor taste the water of oblivion: that is to say, the vain old man (as idle old women are wont to do) invented tales as for credulous children.

But if he had thought rightly of those to whom he spoke these things, if he had considered them to be men, he would never have claimed for himself so impudently the licence of lying. But the vanity of this most frivolous man is to be laughed at. What shall we do with Cicero? Who, when at the beginning of his Consolation he had said that men are born for the purpose of expiating crimes, repeated the same thing afterwards, as though rebuking one who does not think life to be a punishment. Rightly therefore did he preface his work by saying that he was held in error and in a pitiable ignorance of truth.

But those who dispute about the good of death, because they know nothing true, argue thus: If there is nothing after death, death is not an evil; for it takes away the sense of evil. But if souls survive, it is even a good, because immortality follows. This opinion Cicero explained in his work On Laws as follows: "Let us congratulate ourselves, since death will bring either a better condition than that which exists in life, or certainly not a worse one. For without the body, with the mind vigorous, life is divine; but with sense absent, there is assuredly nothing evil." Cleverly, as it seemed to him, as though nothing else were possible. Yet both of these positions are false. For the divine Scriptures teach that souls are not extinguished, but are either rewarded for righteousness or punished with everlasting penalty for their crimes.

For it is neither right that he who has lived wickedly in prosperity should escape what he deserves, nor that he who has been most wretched on account of justice should be defrauded of his reward. This is so true that the same Tully, in his Consolation, declared that the just and the unjust do not inhabit the same abodes. For not to all, he says, did those same wise men think that the same path to heaven lies open; for they taught that those defiled by vices and crimes are thrust down into darkness and lie in filth; but that pure souls, clean, whole, uncorrupted, and polished also by good pursuits and arts, fly with a certain light and easy gliding to the gods, that is, to a nature like unto themselves. This opinion conflicts with that earlier argument. For that argument was assumed as though it were necessary that every man born should be granted immortality.

What distinction then will there be between virtue and wickedness, if it makes no difference whether someone is an Aristides or a Phalaris? Whether a Cato or a Catiline? But this contradiction of facts and opinions is not perceived except by one who holds the truth. If anyone therefore asks us whether death is a good or an evil, we shall answer that its quality depends upon the manner of one's life. For just as life itself is a good if lived with virtue, and an evil if lived with wickedness, so also death must be weighed according to the past deeds of one's life. Thus it comes about that if life has been spent in the worship of God, death is not an evil, because it is a passage to immortality. But if not, it must necessarily be an evil, since it transmits one to eternal punishments, as I have said. What then shall we say, except that those err who either seek death as a good, or flee life as an evil?

Except that they are most unjust who do not weigh fewer evils against more numerous goods. For though they pass their whole life through exquisite and varied pleasures, they desire to die if by chance any bitterness befalls them; and they reckon it as though things had never gone well for them, if at some point things go ill. They therefore condemn all of life and suppose it to be filled with nothing but evils. Hence arose that foolish saying, that this is death which we think is life, and that is life which we fear as death: so that the first good is not to be born, and the second is to die as quickly as possible. Which saying, that it may carry greater authority, is attributed to Silenus.

Cicero, in his Consolation: "Not to be born," he says, "is by far the best, and not to fall upon these rocks of life; but the next best, if one has been born, is to die as soon as possible, as though to flee the violence of fortune from a conflagration." That he believed this most vain saying is apparent from the fact that he added something of his own to embellish it. I ask, therefore, for whom he thinks it best not to be born, since there is no one at all who can feel it; for it is sense that makes something either good or evil. Then, why he should have thought all of life to be nothing but rocks and a conflagration; as though it were in our power not to be born, or as though fortune grants us life rather than God, or as though the manner of living should seem to have anything resembling a conflagration.

Not unlike this is that saying of Plato, who said that he gave thanks to nature: first, because he had been born a man rather than a dumb animal; then, because he was born male rather than female; because he was Greek rather than Barbarian; and lastly, because he was an Athenian, and because he lived in the times of Socrates. It cannot be said how great a blindness of mind, and how great errors, ignorance of truth produces. I would plainly contend that nothing more delirious was ever said in human affairs. As though, if he had been born a Barbarian, or a woman, or even an ass, he would still have been the same Plato, and not rather that very thing which had been born. But evidently he believed Pythagoras, who, in order to forbid men from eating animals, said that souls pass from bodies into the bodies of other animals: which is both vain and impossible.

Vain, because there was no need to introduce old souls into new bodies, since the same craftsman who had once made the first souls could always make new ones. Impossible, because a soul of right reason can no more change the nature of its condition than fire can strive downward, or spread its flame sideways after the manner of a river. That wise man therefore supposed it could have come about that the soul which was then in Plato might have been enclosed in some dumb animal, and being endowed with human sense, might understand and grieve that it was burdened with an incongruous body. How much more soundly would he have acted, if he had said he gave thanks because he had been born gifted and teachable, and in such circumstances of wealth as to be liberally educated. For as to his having been born at Athens, what benefit was there in that? Were there not very many men in other cities of excellent talent and learning, who individually were better than all the Athenians together?

How many thousands of men must we believe there were who, born both at Athens and in the times of Socrates, were nevertheless unlearned and foolish? For neither walls nor the place where anyone is brought forth from the womb bestows wisdom upon a man. And what was the point of congratulating himself on having been born in the times of Socrates? Could Socrates lend his genius to his students? It did not occur to Plato that Alcibiades and Critias were also constant hearers of the same Socrates; of whom the one was the most bitter enemy of his country, and the other the most cruel of all tyrants.

Let us now see what was so great in Socrates himself, that a wise man might rightly give thanks for having been born in his times. I do not deny that he was somewhat more sensible than the rest, who thought that the nature of things could be comprehended by the intellect. In this I consider them to have been not only foolish but also impious, in that they wished to thrust curious eyes into the secrets of that heavenly providence. We know that at Rome, and in very many cities, there are certain sacred rites which it is held unlawful for men to behold. Those therefore abstain from looking upon them who are not permitted to defile them; and if by chance any man has looked upon them, whether by error or by some accident, the offense is expiated first by his punishment and then by the renewal of the sacrifice. What shall you do with those who wish to pry into forbidden things?

Assuredly they are far more wicked who seek to profane the secrets of the world and this heavenly temple with impious disputations, than those who have entered the shrine of Vesta, or of the Bona Dea, or of Ceres. For although it is not lawful for men to enter those inner sanctuaries, they were nevertheless built by men. Yet these men not only escape the charge of impiety, but, what is far more unworthy, they gain a reputation for eloquence and a glory for genius. What if they could investigate anything? For they are as foolish in asserting as they are wicked in inquiring; since they can neither discover anything, nor defend it even if they have discovered it. For if they have seen the truth even by chance, which happens quite often, they bring it about that it is refuted by others as false. For no one descends from heaven to pronounce judgment on the opinions of individuals; wherefore no one would hesitate to say that those who pursue such inquiries are foolish, inept, and mad.

Socrates therefore had something of human good sense, in that when he understood that these things could not be discovered, he withdrew himself from questions of this kind; and I fear that in this alone. For there are many things in him not only unworthy of praise but most deserving of censure, in which he was very like his contemporaries. Of these I will choose one which has been approved by all. Socrates had this celebrated maxim: "What is above us is nothing to us." Let us therefore prostrate ourselves on the ground and turn to use as feet the hands given us for noble works. Heaven, to the contemplation of which we have been raised up, is nothing to us; in short, even light itself is nothing to us: yet certainly the cause of our sustenance comes from heaven. But if he meant that there should be no disputation about heavenly things, he could not even comprehend the reason of those things which were beneath his feet. What then? Did he err in his words?

That is not likely; but doubtless he meant what he said, that religion is by no means to be served: which if he had said openly, no one would have tolerated it. For who does not perceive that this world, completed by such wonderful design, is governed by some providence? Since there is nothing that can subsist without any governor. Thus a house abandoned by its inhabitant falls to ruin; a ship without a helmsman goes to destruction; and a body, forsaken by the soul, dissolves: much less should we think that so great a mass could either have been constructed without a craftsman, or have stood so long without a ruler. But if he wished to overthrow those public religions, I do not disapprove, nay I will even praise him, if he himself had found something better. Yet the same man used to swear by a dog and a goose.

O what a buffoon of a man (as Zeno the Epicurean says)—inept, lost, desperate—if he wished to mock religion; demented, if he did this in earnest, so as to hold the most base of animals in place of God! Who now would dare to censure the superstitions of the Egyptians, which Socrates confirmed at Athens by his own authority? And is not that the height of vanity, that before his death he asked his intimates to sacrifice on his behalf to Aesculapius a cock which he had vowed? He feared, evidently, lest before Rhadamanthus the judge he should be held liable to Aesculapius for an unfulfilled vow. I would think him a most demented man if he had died from disease. But since he did this in sound mind, he himself is mad who thinks that man was wise. Behold, in whose times a wise man congratulates himself on having been born.

Let us see, however, what Socrates taught that man, who, having rejected the whole of natural philosophy, betook himself to inquiring about virtue and duty. And so I do not doubt that he instructed his hearers in the precepts of justice. While Socrates was teaching, it did not escape Plato that the force of justice consists in equality; since indeed all are born under the same condition. Therefore, he says, let them have nothing private and their own; but that they may be equal, as the principle of justice requires, let them hold all things in common. This can be tolerated so long as it seems to be said about money. How impossible and how unjust this very thing is, I could show by many arguments. Yet let us grant that it can be done. For all will be wise and will despise money. To what point then did that community lead him?

Marriages also, he says, ought to be held in common: so that many husbands may flock to the same woman, as dogs do, and he certainly obtains her who has prevailed by strength; or if they are patient, as philosophers are, they wait to visit her in turns, as though frequenting a brothel. O the wonderful equity of Plato! Where then is the virtue of chastity? Where is conjugal fidelity? Which if you remove, all justice is removed. Yet the same man said that states would have been happy if either philosophers were kings, or kings were philosophers. Would you give sovereignty to this man so just, so equitable, who would have taken away from some what was their own, and bestowed upon others what belonged to others; who would have prostituted the chastity of women—a thing which no king, not even a tyrant, has ever done? And what reason did he bring forward for this most base design?

He says thus: The state will be harmonious and bound by the bonds of mutual love, if all are husbands, and fathers, and wives, and children of all. What a confusion of the human race is this! How can affection be preserved where there is nothing certain to be loved? What husband will love a woman, or what woman a husband, unless they have always dwelt together, unless devoted minds and faith kept mutually toward each other have made their love inseparable?—a virtue which has no place in that promiscuous pleasure. Likewise, if all children belong to all, who will be able to love children as his own, when he either does not know or doubts that they are his own? Who will pay honor to one as to a father, when he does not know from whom he was born? From which it follows that he not only has a stranger in place of a father, but also has his father in place of a stranger.

Furthermore, a wife can be held in common, but a son cannot, since he must necessarily be conceived from one man only. That community therefore fails for that one man, with nature herself protesting against it. It remains that he wishes wives to be held in common solely for the sake of harmony. But there is no more violent cause of discord than the pursuit of one woman by many men. In this matter Plato, if he could not be warned by reason, could certainly have been warned by examples—both of dumb animals, which fight most fiercely on this very account, and of men, who have always waged the most grievous wars among themselves for this reason.

It remains that this community has nothing else in it but adulteries and lusts; for the uprooting of which, virtue is above all necessary. And so he did not find the concord he was seeking, because he did not see whence it arises. For justice has no weight in external things, not even in the body: but it dwells entirely in the mind of man. He therefore who wishes to make men equal ought not to take away marriages or wealth, but arrogance, pride, and puffed-up conceit, so that the powerful and the exalted may know themselves to be equals even of the most destitute. For when insolence and iniquity are stripped from the rich, it makes no difference whether some are rich and others poor, provided their souls are equal; which nothing else but the religion of God can bring about. He therefore thought he had found justice, when he had in fact utterly overthrown it; because the community ought to be one not of fragile things but of minds.

For if justice is the mother of all virtues, when those individual virtues are taken away, justice itself is subverted. Now Plato took away first of all frugality: which assuredly has no place where nothing is held as one's own. He took away abstinence: since there would be nothing belonging to another from which to abstain. He took away temperance, he took away chastity; which are the greatest virtues in both sexes. He took away modesty, shame, and decency, if those things begin to be considered honourable and lawful which are usually judged disgraceful and base. Thus, while wishing to give virtue to all, he takes it away from all. For the ownership of things contains the material both of vices and of virtues: but community contains nothing other than licence for vices. For men who have many women can be called nothing other than wanton and profligate. Likewise women who are possessed by many are not exactly adulteresses, since there is no fixed marriage, but they must necessarily be prostitutes and harlots.

He therefore reduced human life to the likeness, I will not say of dumb creatures, but of cattle and beasts. For almost all birds contract marriages, and are joined in pairs, and defend their nests as bridal beds with harmonious spirit; and they love their offspring because they are certain they are their own; and if you place before them the young of others, they drive them away. But the wise man, contrary to the custom of men and contrary to nature, chose for himself things more foolish to imitate. And because he saw that in other animals the duties of males and females are not divided, he thought it fitting that women too should serve as soldiers, take part in public councils, hold magistracies, and assume commands. And so he assigned to them arms and horses: the consequence being that wool-working and weaving and the carrying of infants should fall to men.

Nor did he see that what he was saying was impossible; from the fact that up to that time there had existed in the whole world no nation so foolish or so vain as to live in this manner.

Since therefore the very princes of the philosophers are found in such great vanity, what shall we think of those lesser ones, who never seem so wise to themselves as when they glory in their contempt of money? A brave spirit. But I wait to see what they do, and to what that contempt leads. The patrimonies handed down to them by their parents they flee and abandon as an evil. And lest they suffer shipwreck in a storm, they cast themselves headlong of their own accord in calm weather, brave not by virtue but by perverse fear; like those who, fearing to be slaughtered by an enemy, slaughter themselves, so as to avoid death by death. So these men lose without honour, without gratitude, that from which they might have gained the glory of generosity. Democritus is praised for having abandoned his fields and allowed them to become public pasture. I would approve, if he had given them away. But nothing is done wisely which, if done by all, would be useless and harmful. But this negligence is tolerable.

What of him who, having converted his patrimony into coin, poured it into the sea? I doubt whether he was sane or mad. Away with you into the deep, he said, evil desires; I will drown you, lest I myself be drowned by you. If there is such great contempt for money, make it a benefit, make it an act of humanity, bestow it upon the poor: what you are about to throw away can help many, lest they die of hunger, or thirst, or nakedness. Imitate at least the madness and frenzy of Tuditanus; scatter it among the people to be seized. You can both escape money and yet put it to good use; because whatever has benefited many is preserved. Who approves of the equal faults of Zeno? But let us pass over what has always been ridiculed by all. It is enough to convict the error of this frenzied man, that he places compassion among vices and diseases. He takes from us the affection by which almost the entire rationale of human life is held together.

For since the nature of man is more feeble than that of other animals, which the heavenly providence has armed with natural defences either for enduring the violence of the seasons or for warding off attacks upon their own bodies, and since none of these things was given to man, he received in place of all of them the affection of pity, which is plainly called humanity, by which we protect one another. For if man were to become savage at the sight of another man, as we see happens among animals whose nature is solitary, there would be no society of men, no care or reason for founding cities. Thus not even life itself would be sufficiently safe, since the weakness of men would be exposed both to other animals and they themselves would rage against one another after the manner of beasts. The madness in others is no less. For what can be said of him who declared snow to be black? From which it followed consistently that he should also say pitch is white!

This is the man who said he had been born for the purpose of seeing the sky and the sun, who saw nothing on earth while the sun was shining. Xenophanes most foolishly believed the mathematicians when they said the orb of the moon is eighteen times larger than the earth; and, as was consistent with this levity, he said that within the hollow curve of the moon there is another earth, and that there another race of men lives in the same manner as we live on this earth. Those lunatic men therefore have another moon, which provides them with nocturnal light, just as this one provides it for us. And perhaps this orb of ours is the moon of another lower earth. Seneca says there was among the Stoics one who deliberated whether to assign peoples to the Sun as well: foolishly indeed, since he hesitated. For what would he have lost by doing so?

But, I believe, the heat deterred him, lest he commit so great a multitude to danger; lest, if they had perished from excessive heat, so great a calamity should be said to have come about through his fault.

What of those who think there are Antipodeans with feet opposite to ours—do they say anything at all? Or is there anyone so foolish as to believe that there are men whose feet are higher than their heads? Or that the things which lie flat among us hang inverted there? That crops and trees grow downward? That rains, and snows, and hail fall upward onto the earth? And does anyone marvel that hanging gardens are numbered among the seven wonders, when philosophers make fields, and seas, and cities, and mountains hang in the air? The origin of this error too must be laid open by us. For they always go astray in the same way. For when they have assumed something false at the outset, led on by the appearance of truth, they necessarily fall into the consequences that follow. Thus they stumble into many absurdities; because what agrees with false things must itself be false.

But when they have put faith in their first principles, they do not look around to see what sort of things follow from them, but defend them by every means; when they ought rather to judge from the consequences whether those first principles are true or false.

What reasoning then led them to the Antipodeans? They observed the courses of the stars moving toward the west; they saw the sun and moon always setting in the same direction and always rising from the same direction. But since they could not perceive what mechanism regulated their courses, nor how they returned from the west to the east, and since they thought the sky itself was sloping in all directions, as it necessarily appears to be on account of its immense breadth, they concluded that the world was round like a ball, and from the motion of the stars they supposed that the sky revolves, and that thus the stars and the sun, when they have set, are carried back to the east by the very rotation of the world. And so they also constructed spheres of bronze, as if in the likeness of the world, and engraved upon them certain monstrous figures which they called stars. This roundness of the sky was then followed by the consequence that the earth was enclosed within its central hollow.

And if that were so, the earth itself would also be similar to a globe; for it could not be that what was enclosed within a round thing should not itself be round. But if the earth too were round, it would necessarily present the same face to all parts of the sky, that is, it would raise up mountains, spread out plains, and lay out seas. And if that were so, there followed also that final consequence, that there is no part of the earth which is not inhabited by men and other animals. Thus the roundness of the sky invented these suspended Antipodeans.

But if you ask those who defend these monstrosities how it is that all things do not fall into that lower part of the sky, they answer that it is the nature of things that heavy bodies are carried toward the centre and are all connected toward the centre, just as we see spokes in a wheel; while things that are light, such as mists, smoke, and fire, are carried away from the centre, so as to seek the sky. What I should say about those who, having once gone astray, persist steadfastly in their folly and defend vain things with vain arguments, I do not know; unless I sometimes think that they philosophize either for the sake of jest, or that they knowingly and deliberately undertake to defend falsehoods, as if to exercise their wits in bad causes, or to show them off.

But I could prove by many arguments that it is in no way possible for the sky to be lower than the earth, were it not that the book must now be brought to a close, and there still remain some things which are more necessary to the present work. And since to run through the errors of each individual is not the work of one book, let it suffice to have enumerated a few, from which the character of the rest may be understood.

Now we must say a few words about philosophy in general, so that we may conclude our argument with the cause confirmed. That greatest imitator of Plato among us held that philosophy is not for the common people, because only learned men can attain it. "Philosophy," says Cicero, "is content with few judges, and deliberately shuns the multitude." It is not therefore wisdom, if it recoils from the company of men: for if wisdom has been given to man, it has been given to all without any distinction, so that there is absolutely no one who cannot receive it. But those men embrace virtue as given to the human race in such a way that they alone of all people seem to wish to enjoy the common good, as envious as if they wished to bind the eyes of others or gouge them out, lest they see the sun. For what else is it to deny wisdom to men, than to take away from their minds the true and divine light?

But if the nature of man is capable of wisdom, it was fitting that craftsmen, and farmers, and women, and all finally who bear the human form should be wise; and that a people should be gathered from every tongue, and condition, and sex, and age. The greatest proof, therefore, that philosophy neither tends toward wisdom nor is itself wisdom, is that its mystery is celebrated by beard and cloak alone. The Stoics perceived this so clearly that they said both slaves and women ought to philosophize; Epicurus likewise, who invites those ignorant of all letters to philosophy; and Plato too, who wished to compose a state out of wise men. They indeed attempted to do what truth demanded: but it could not be carried beyond words. First, because many arts are needed before one can approach philosophy. Those common letters must be learned for the purpose of reading, because in so great a variety of subjects, not everything can be learned by hearing, nor retained in memory.

No small labor must also be given to the grammarians, so that you may know the correct rule of speaking. This must necessarily take away many years. Nor indeed must rhetoric be neglected, so that you may be able to set forth and express what you have learned. Geometry also, and music, and astrology are necessary, because these arts have some fellowship with philosophy: all of which you must learn thoroughly. Neither women can do this, who within their girlhood years must learn duties soon to be of use in domestic service; nor slaves, for whom during those very years they must serve most, in which they are able to learn; nor the poor, or craftsmen, or farmers, who must seek their daily sustenance by labor. For this reason Cicero says that philosophy recoils from the multitude. But Epicurus will receive the unlearned. How then do they understand those things which are said about the principles of things, which are so intricate and involved that even polished men can scarcely follow them?

In matters therefore wrapped in obscurity, confused by the variety of minds, and adorned with the refined speech of eloquent men, what place is there for the unskilled and unlearned? In the end, no one ever taught women to philosophize, except one Themiste in all of recorded memory; nor slaves, except one Phaedo, whom they report that Cebes redeemed from wretched servitude and taught. They also enumerate Plato and Diogenes; who however were not slaves, but slavery had befallen them, for they were captured. Plato indeed is reported to have been redeemed by a certain Anniceris for eight sesterces. And so Seneca attacked with reproaches this same redeemer, because he had valued Plato too cheaply. A madman, as it seems to me, who was angry at a man because he did not lose a great deal of money: forsooth he ought to have weighed out gold, as for dead Hector, or to have poured in as many coins as the seller did not even demand.

From the Barbarians truly not one, except Anacharsis the Scythian alone, who would never have so much as dreamed of philosophy, had he not first learned the language and letters.

What therefore those men perceived must be done at nature's demand, but yet could neither do themselves nor saw could be done by philosophers, this heavenly doctrine alone accomplishes; because it alone is wisdom. Could those men persuade anyone, who persuade not even themselves? Or will they suppress anyone's desires, temper anger, restrain lust, when they themselves both yield to vices and confess that nature has the greater power? But the precepts of God, because they are both simple and true, daily experience shows how great their power is in the minds of men. Give me a man who is wrathful, abusive, unbridled: with very few words of God: I will render him as gentle as a sheep. Give me one who is covetous, miserly, grasping: presently I will give him back to you liberal, and lavishing his money with open hands. Give me one who is fearful of pain and death: presently he will despise crosses, and fires, and the bull.

Give me one who is lustful, an adulterer, a glutton: presently you will see him sober, chaste, continent. Give me one who is cruel and thirsting for blood: presently that fury will be changed into true clemency. Give me one who is unjust, foolish, a sinner: straightway he will be both equitable, and prudent, and innocent. For by one washing all wickedness is abolished. So great is the power of divine wisdom, that poured into the breast of man, it expels with one single onset the mother of sins, folly. To accomplish this, neither fee, nor books, nor midnight study is needed. These things are done freely, easily, quickly; provided only the ears be open and the breast thirst for wisdom. Let no one be afraid: we do not sell water, nor do we supply the sun for a price. The most abundant and fullest fountain of God lies open to all: and this heavenly light rises for all, whoever have eyes. Has any philosopher ever furnished these things, or can he furnish them if he wishes?

Those who wear out their whole lives in the study of philosophy can make neither any other person nor themselves (if nature has offered the slightest resistance) better. And so their wisdom, to accomplish its utmost, does not root out vices, but conceals them. But the few precepts of God so wholly transform a man, and rendering him new after the old is put off, that you would not recognize him as the same person.

What then? Do those men prescribe nothing similar? On the contrary, very much; and they frequently approach the truth. But those precepts carry no weight, because they are human, and lack the greater, that is the divine, authority. No one therefore believes; because he who hears considers himself to be as much a man as he who prescribes. Moreover among them there is nothing certain, nothing that comes from knowledge. But since everything is conducted by conjecture, and many things also diverse and varied are put forward, it is the act of the most foolish of men to wish to obey their precepts, of which it is doubted whether they are true or false; and therefore no one obeys, because no one wishes to labor toward an uncertainty. The Stoics say that virtue is what alone makes life happy. Nothing truer can be said. But what if one is tortured or afflicted with pain? Can anyone be happy among executioners?

Nay rather, pain inflicted on the body is the material of virtue: and so not even in torments is he wretched. Epicurus speaks far more boldly. The wise man, he says, is always happy; and even shut up in the bull of Phalaris he will utter this cry: "It is pleasant, and I care nothing." Who would not laugh at him? Especially because a man devoted to pleasure put on the mask of a brave man, and indeed beyond measure, for it cannot be that anyone should count bodily tortures as pleasures, when it is enough, for the fulfillment of the duty of virtue, to endure and sustain them. What do you say, Stoics? What do you say, Epicurus? The wise man is happy even when he is tortured. If for the glory of patience; he will not enjoy it; for in torments he will perhaps die. If for the sake of memory; either he will feel nothing, if souls perish, or if he feels, he will gain nothing from it.

What other fruit then is there in virtue? What happiness of life? That one may die with equanimity? You offer me a good of one hour, or perhaps of a moment, for the sake of which it is not worth being worn out by miseries and labors throughout one's whole life. But how much time does death occupy? When it comes, it matters nothing at all whether you have met it with equanimity or not. Thus it comes about that nothing else is sought from virtue but glory. But this is either superfluous and brief, or it will not follow by reason of the perverse judgments of men. There is therefore no fruit from virtue, where virtue is mortal and perishable. Thus those who spoke these things saw a certain shadow of virtue, but did not see virtue itself. For they were fixed upon the earth, and did not raise their faces on high, so that they could behold it.

This is the reason why no one obeys their precepts: because either they instruct in vices, if they defend pleasure; or if they assert virtue, they neither threaten sin with any punishment save that of baseness alone, nor promise virtue any reward save that of honor and praise alone, while they say that virtue is not to be sought for its own sake. The wise man therefore is happy in torments: but when he is tortured for faith, for justice, for God, that endurance of pain will make him most blessed.

For there is a God, who alone can honor virtue; whose reward is immortality alone: those who do not seek it, and do not hold to religion, to which eternal life is subject, assuredly neither know the power of virtue, whose reward they are ignorant of; nor do they look toward heaven, which they think they do when they seek things that cannot be tracked down, because there is no other reason for looking toward heaven, except either to take up religion, or to believe that one's soul is immortal. For whoever either understands that God must be worshipped, or has the hope of immortality set before him, his mind is in heaven; and though he does not behold it with his eyes, yet he beholds it with the light of the soul. But those who do not take up religion are earthly; religion is from heaven, and those who think the soul perishes with the body equally look toward the earth, because beyond the body which is earth they see nothing further that is immortal.

It profits nothing therefore that man is so fashioned as to look toward heaven with upright body; unless with upright mind he discerns God, and his thought is wholly occupied with the hope of everlasting life.

Wherefore there is nothing else in life upon which our reason, upon which our condition may rest, except the knowledge of God who begat us, and reverent and pious worship of him: from which since the philosophers have gone astray, they were assuredly not wise. They indeed sought wisdom: but because they did not seek it rightly, they slipped further away; and fell into such great errors that they did not even retain common wisdom. For not only did they refuse to assert religion: but they also destroyed it; being led on by the appearance of false virtue, they endeavor to free minds from all fear: which overturning of religion found the name of nature. For those men, since they either did not know by whom the world had been made, or wished to persuade that nothing had been accomplished by divine mind, said that nature is the mother of all things, as if they were saying that all things came into being of their own accord: by which word they plainly confess their own ignorance.

For nature, with providence and divine power removed, is absolutely nothing. But if they call God nature, what perversity it is to name nature rather than God! If however nature is reason, or necessity, or the condition of being born, it is not of itself capable of sensation: but there must needs be a divine mind, which by its providence furnishes to all things the principle of being born. Or if nature is heaven and earth, and everything that has been born, then nature is not God, but the work of God.

With no dissimilar error they believe fortune to exist, as though she were a certain goddess mocking human affairs with various chances; because they do not know whence good and evil befall them. They think themselves drawn up to fight against her; yet they render no account of by whom and for what cause: but they glory at every moment only in doing battle with fortune. Now whoever has consoled others for the death and loss of dear ones has assailed the name of fortune with the bitterest accusations; nor is there any disputation of theirs concerning virtue in which fortune is not harassed. M. Tullius, in his Consolation, says that he always fought against fortune and overcame her, when he had bravely repelled the attacks of his enemies; that not even then was he broken by her, when driven from his home he was deprived of his country: but then, when he lost his most beloved daughter, he confesses that he was shamefully conquered by fortune.

"I yield," he says, "and raise my hand." What is more wretched than this man, who lies prostrate in such a way? Foolishly, one says: but he professes himself to be a wise man. What then is the point of assuming that name? What is that contempt of things which is put forward in magnificent words? What is that manner of life different from others? Or why do you give precepts of wisdom at all, if no one who is wise has yet been found? And does anyone bring reproach upon us because we deny that philosophers are wise? When they themselves confess that they neither know anything nor are wise. For whenever they have so failed that they cannot even fabricate anything, as they do in other matters, then indeed they are reminded of their ignorance, and leap up as if frenzied, and cry out that they are blind and witless. Anaxagoras declares that all things are surrounded by darkness.

Empedocles complains that the pathways of the senses are narrow, as though he needed a carriage and four horses for thinking. Democritus says that truth lies sunk as in a certain pit so deep that it has no bottom; foolishly, no doubt, as in other things. For truth is not sunk as in a pit, into which he could either descend or even fall, but as on the topmost summit of a lofty mountain, or rather in heaven, which is most true. For what reason is there why he should say it is pressed down into the depths rather than raised to the heights? Unless perhaps he preferred to place the mind also in the feet, or in the very heels, rather than in the breast or in the head. So very far removed were they from truth itself, that not even the posture of their own body warned them that truth was to be sought by them in the highest place.

From this despair was born that confession of Socrates, by which he said he knew nothing, save this one thing, that he knows nothing. Hence flowed the discipline of the Academy; if indeed it can be called a discipline, in which ignorance is both learned and taught. But not even those who claimed knowledge for themselves were able to defend consistently that very thing which they thought they knew. Who, because their reasoning did not square, were, through ignorance of divine things, so varied, so uncertain, and so often arguing things contrary to themselves, that you cannot determine and judge what they thought or what they wished. Why then do you fight against those men who perish by their own sword? Why do you labor to destroy those whom their own discourse destroys and afflicts?

Aristotle, says Cicero, accusing the ancient philosophers, says that they were either most foolish or most vainglorious who thought that philosophy had been perfected by their own talents: but that he himself saw that, since great progress had been made in a few years, philosophy would in a short time be fully complete. What then was that time? In what manner? When and by whom was it completed? For what he says, that those were most foolish who thought wisdom had been perfected by their own talents, is true: but not even he himself was sufficiently prudent, who thought it either begun by the ancients, or enlarged by the moderns, or soon to be perfected by those who came after. For that can never be investigated which is not sought by its own proper way.

But let us return to what we omitted. Fortune, therefore, is nothing in itself; nor is it to be regarded as though it possessed any sense. For fortune is the sudden and unexpected outcome of things that happen by chance. But philosophers, lest they should ever not err, wish to be wise in a foolish matter; they change the sex of fortune, and say she is not a goddess, as the common people hold, but a god.

Yet they sometimes call the same thing nature, sometimes fortune; "because," says the same Cicero, "it brings about many things unexpected by us, on account of the obscurity and ignorance of causes." Since therefore they are ignorant of the causes by which something is done, they must also be ignorant of the one who does it. The same man, in a very serious work, in which he was giving his son precepts of life drawn from philosophy, says: "Who does not know that the power of fortune is great in either direction? For both when we enjoy her favorable breeze, we arrive at our desired ends; and when she blows against us, we are cast down." First, he who denies that anything can be known has spoken this as though both he himself and all men know it. Then, he who strives to make even clear things doubtful, thought this to be clear, which ought to have been most doubtful to him; for to a wise man it is altogether false.

"Who," he says, "does not know?" I for my part do not know. Let him teach me, if he can, what that power is, what that breeze and counter-breeze may be.

It is therefore shameful for a man of talent to say that which, if you deny it, he cannot prove. Finally, he who says that assents are to be withheld, because it is the mark of a foolish man to assent rashly to things unknown, has plainly believed the opinions of the common people and the ignorant, who think that fortune exists and distributes good and evil to men.

For they fashion her image with a cornucopia and a rudder, as though she both bestows riches and holds the governance of human affairs. To this opinion Virgil also assents, who calls fortune all-powerful; and the historian, who says: But assuredly fortune rules in every matter. What place then remains for the other gods? Why is she not said to reign alone, if she has more power; or worshipped alone, if she governs all things? Or, if she sends only evils, let them bring forward some reason why, if she be a goddess, she envies men and desires their ruin, when she is devoutly worshipped by them: why she is more favorable to the wicked, but more unfavorable to the good: why she lays snares, afflicts, deceives, and destroys: who appointed her as a perpetual tormentor of the human race: why finally she has obtained so evil a power as to celebrate and obscure all things more by caprice than by truth.

These things, I say, the philosophers ought to have inquired into rather than rashly accusing innocent fortune: who, even if she exists in some way, yet nothing can be brought forward by them to show why she is so hostile to men as she is thought to be. And so all those speeches in which they tear apart the injustice of fortune, and most arrogantly boast of themselves and their virtues against fortune, are nothing other than the ravings of inconsiderate frivolity. Wherefore let them not envy us, to whom God has opened the truth: who, as we know that fortune is nothing, so we know that there is a wicked and crafty spirit, who is the enemy of the good and the foe of justice; who does the contrary of what God does, whose cause of envy we explained in the second book.

This spirit therefore lays snares for all; but those who do not know God he hinders with error, overwhelms with folly, surrounds with darkness, lest anyone be able to arrive at the knowledge of the divine name, in which alone both wisdom is contained and everlasting life. But those who know God he attacks with wiles and cunning, so that he may ensnare them with desire and lust, and, having corrupted them with alluring sins, drive them to death; or, if his deceit has availed nothing, he attempts to cast them down by force and violence. For this reason he was not immediately thrust down to punishment by God at the beginning of the transgression, so that he might exercise man through his malice unto virtue: which, unless it be stirred up, unless it be strengthened by continual vexation, cannot be perfect; for virtue is the brave and unconquered endurance of evils to be borne. From this it follows that there is no virtue if there is no adversary.

Therefore, since they felt the power of this perverse force fighting against virtue, but did not know its name, they fashioned for themselves the empty word of fortune. How far this is removed from wisdom, Juvenalis declares in these verses: Folly therefore, and error, and blindness, and, as Cicero says, ignorance of things and their causes, introduced the names of Nature and Fortune. But as they do not know their adversary, so neither do they know virtue, the knowledge of which descends from the knowledge of the adversary. Which, if it is joined with wisdom, or, as they themselves say, is the very same as wisdom, they must necessarily be ignorant of the things in which it consists. For no one can be armed with true weapons if he does not know the enemy against whom he is to be armed; nor can he conquer an adversary who, in fighting, aims not at the true enemy but at a shadow.

For he will be struck down who, intent upon another direction, has neither foreseen beforehand nor guarded against the blow coming upon his vital parts.

I have shown, as far as my modest ability allowed, that the path of the philosophers has been far astray from the truth. Yet I feel how much I have passed over, because a proper disputation against the philosophers was not my purpose. But it was necessary to make this digression, in order to show that so many and such great talents have been spent on false things; lest anyone, perhaps, excluded from corrupt religions, should wish to betake himself to them, as though he would find something certain there. One hope therefore for man, one salvation, is placed in this teaching which we defend. All the wisdom of man consists in this one thing, to know and worship God: this is our doctrine, this our conviction. Therefore with as great a voice as I can, I testify, I proclaim, I declare. Here, here is that which all philosophers sought throughout their whole life, yet were never able to track down, comprehend, or hold fast, who either retained a corrupt religion or removed all religion entirely.

Let all those therefore depart who do not instruct human life but disturb it. For what do they teach? Or whom do they instruct, who have not yet instructed themselves? Whom can the sick heal, whom can the blind guide? Let us therefore all betake ourselves hither, we who have a care for wisdom. Shall we wait until Socrates knows something? Or until Anaxagoras finds light in the darkness? Or until Democritus draws truth out of the pit? Or until Empedocles widens the pathways of his mind? Or until Arcesilas and Carneades see, perceive, and comprehend? Behold, a voice from heaven teaching truth, and showing us a light clearer than the sun itself. Why are we unjust to ourselves? And do we hesitate to receive wisdom, which learned men, having worn out their years in seeking it, were never able to find?

He who wishes to be wise and blessed, let him hear the voice of God, let him learn justice, let him know the mystery of his birth; let him despise human things, let him embrace divine things, so that he may be able to attain that highest good for which he was born. With all religions dissolved, and all things that were wont or could be said in their defense refuted, and then the disciplines of philosophy convicted, we must come to the true religion and wisdom, since, as I shall show, both are joined together; so that we may assert it both by arguments, by examples, and by fitting witnesses, and show that the folly which these worshippers of gods never cease to cast at us belongs in no way to us, but entirely to themselves. And although in the earlier books, when I was refuting false religions, and in this one, when I was removing false wisdom, I have shown where truth lies; yet the next book will more plainly indicate what religion and what wisdom is true.

When I reflect, Emperor Constantine, and often turn over in my mind that former state of the human race, it seems to me at once wonderful and unworthy that through the folly of a single age, which embraced various religions and believed in many gods, men fell so suddenly into such great ignorance of themselves that, with truth removed from their eyes, neither the religion of the true God nor the principle of humanity was maintained, since men sought the highest good not in heaven but on earth. For this reason, assuredly, the happiness of former ages was changed. For they began, having abandoned God the parent and founder of all things, to venerate the insensible images of their own fingers. What that wickedness brought about, or what evils it introduced, the matter itself declares.

For turning away from the highest good—which is therefore blessed and everlasting, because it cannot be seen, touched, or grasped—and from the virtues befitting that good, which are equally immortal, they fell to these corrupt and fragile gods, and devoting themselves to those things by which the body alone is adorned, nourished, and delighted, they sought for themselves perpetual death together with their gods and their bodily goods; because every body is subject to death. Injustice and impiety therefore followed upon religions of this kind, as was inevitable. For men ceased to lift their faces to heaven; but the minds of men, pressed downward, clung to earthly goods just as to earthly religions. There followed the discord of the human race, and fraud, and every wickedness; because, having despised eternal and incorruptible goods, which alone ought to be desired by man, they preferred temporal and fleeting ones, and men placed greater trust in evil, since they preferred the crooked to the straight because it was more immediately at hand.

Thus darkness and shadow seized upon human life, which in former ages had moved in the clearest light; and what was consistent with this wickedness was that, after wisdom had been taken away, men then at last began to claim for themselves the name of wise men. Yet in that earlier time no one was called wise, when all were so. Would that that name, though reduced to a few, had at some point retained its force even as a public designation. For perhaps those few might have been able, either by talent, or by authority, or by continual exhortations, to free the people from vices and errors. But wisdom had so utterly perished that from the very arrogance of the name it is apparent that none of those who were so called was truly wise. And yet before this thing which is called philosophy was discovered, it is recorded that there were seven men who, being the first of all to dare to inquire and dispute about natural things, deserved to be held and called wise.

O wretched and calamitous age, in which throughout the whole world there were only seven who could be addressed by the name of men; for no one can rightly be called a man unless he is wise. But if all the rest, apart from those seven, were fools, then not even those seven were wise, because no one can truly be judged wise by the judgment of fools. So far was wisdom from these men, that not even afterward, with learning increasing and many great intellects always intent upon that very thing, could truth be discerned and grasped. For after the glory of those seven wise men, it is incredible with what zeal all Greece burned in the search for truth. And first, they thought the very name of wisdom arrogant, and called themselves not wise men but lovers of wisdom. By this act they both condemned those who had rashly assumed the name of wise men as guilty of error and folly, and condemned themselves as well of ignorance, which indeed they did not deny.

For wherever the nature of things had, as it were, set its hand against their intellects so that they could give no account of it, they were accustomed to testify that they knew nothing, that they perceived nothing. Hence those who saw themselves to some degree are found to be far wiser than those who had believed themselves to be wise.

If, therefore, neither those were wise who were so called, nor those later ones who did not hesitate to confess their lack of wisdom: what remains, except that wisdom must be sought elsewhere, since it was not found where it was being sought? And what do we suppose was the reason why, with so many intellects and so many ages seeking it with the greatest zeal and labor, it was not found; unless because the philosophers sought it outside their own boundaries? Since they, having traversed and explored everything, nowhere grasped any wisdom, and yet it must exist somewhere; it is apparent that it is to be sought above all there where the mark of folly appears; under whose veil God, lest the secret of his divine work be in the open, has hidden the treasure of wisdom and truth.

Hence I am accustomed to wonder that, although Pythagoras and afterward Plato, inflamed by love of searching out the truth, had penetrated as far as the Egyptians, and the Magi, and the Persians, in order to learn the rites and sacred practices of those peoples (for they suspected that wisdom resided in religion), they nevertheless did not approach the Jews, among whom alone it then existed, and to whom they could more easily have gone. But I think they were turned away by divine providence, so that they might not be able to know the truth; because it was not yet permitted for men of foreign nations to come to know the religion of the true God and his justice. For God had determined, as the last age drew near, to send from heaven a great leader, who would reveal to foreign nations that religion which had been taken away from a faithless and ungrateful people.

Concerning this matter I shall undertake to dispute in this book, if I first show that wisdom coheres with religion in such a way that the two cannot be separated.

Where, then, is wisdom joined with religion? There, namely, where one God is worshipped; where all of life and conduct is referred to one head and one sum; in short, the same men are teachers of wisdom who are also priests of God. Nor should anyone be moved by the fact that it has often happened, and can happen, that some philosopher takes up the priesthood of the gods: when this occurs, philosophy is nevertheless not joined with religion; but philosophy will fall silent amid the sacred rites, and religion when philosophy is being treated. For that religion is mute, not only because it belongs to the mute, but because its rite consists in the hand and fingers, not in the heart or tongue, as ours which is true. For this reason both religion is in wisdom, and wisdom is in religion. Therefore they cannot be separated; because to be wise is nothing other than to honor the true God with just and pious worship.

Moreover, that the worship of many gods is not according to nature can be gathered and understood from this argument as well: Every god who is worshipped by man must necessarily be addressed as father in solemn rites and prayers, not only for the sake of honor, but also of reason; because he is both more ancient than man, and because he provides life, safety, and sustenance, as a father does. And so Jupiter is called father by those who pray, and Saturn, and Janus, and Liber, and all the rest in turn; which Lucilius mocks in the council of the gods: But if nature does not permit that one man have many fathers (for one is begotten from one), therefore to worship many gods is also contrary to nature and contrary to piety. Therefore one must be worshipped who can truly be called father. He must also be lord; because just as he can show indulgence, so also he can restrain.

He is to be called father because he bestows many and great things upon us; lord because he has the greatest power of chastising and punishing. Moreover, that the same one who is father is also lord, the principle of civil law likewise demonstrates.

For who will be able to raise children unless he has over them the power of a lord? And not without reason is he called paterfamilias, even if he has only children: clearly the name of father embraces also slaves, because the household follows, and the name of household embraces also children, because the father precedes: whence it appears that the same person is both father of the slaves and lord of the children. Finally, a son is also emancipated as a slave, and a freed slave receives the name of patron, as a son. But if he is called paterfamilias in order to show that he is endowed with a twofold power—because he is a father, and ought to show indulgence because he is a father, and to restrain because he is a lord—then the same person is both slave and son; the same lord and father.

Just as therefore by the necessity of nature there can be but one father, so also but one lord; for what would a slave do if many lords commanded different things? Therefore the religions of many gods are contrary to reason and contrary to nature; since neither can there be many fathers, nor many lords: and yet gods must necessarily be called both fathers and lords. Truth therefore cannot be maintained where the same man is subject to many fathers and lords, where the mind, scattered among many things, wanders hither and thither. Nor can religion have any firmness when it lacks a fixed and stable dwelling. The worship of the gods therefore cannot be true, in the same way that a marriage cannot be called such where one woman has many husbands—but she will be called either a harlot or an adulteress; for she from whom modesty, chastity, and fidelity are absent must necessarily lack virtue.

So too the religion of the gods is immodest and unchaste, because it lacks fidelity, because that unstable and uncertain honor has no head or origin.

From these things it is apparent how closely joined to each other are wisdom and religion: wisdom looks to sons, which demands love; religion to slaves, which demands fear. For just as the former ought to love and honor their father, so the latter ought to worship and revere their lord. But God, who is one, since he sustains both persons, that of father and that of lord, we ought both to love him, because we are his sons, and to fear him because we are his servants. Therefore neither can religion be separated from wisdom, nor wisdom be severed from religion; because the same God is both to be understood, which belongs to wisdom, and to be honored, which belongs to religion. But wisdom comes first, religion follows: because it is prior to know God, and consequent to worship him. Thus in two names there is one force, although it may seem to be different. For the one is placed in perception, the other in action. Yet they are like two streams flowing from one source.

The source of wisdom and religion, however, is God: from whom if these two streams stray, they must necessarily dry up; and those who do not know him can be neither wise nor religious. Thus it comes about that philosophers, and those who worship the gods, are like either disowned sons or runaway slaves; because neither do the former seek their father, nor the latter their lord: and just as the disowned do not obtain the inheritance of their father, and runaways do not obtain impunity; so neither will philosophers receive immortality, which is the inheritance of the heavenly kingdom, that is, the highest good, which they seek above all, nor will the worshippers of gods escape the punishment of everlasting death, which is the chastisement of the true lord against the runaways from his majesty and name.

That God is father and likewise lord, both parties have been ignorant of—both the worshippers of gods and the very professors of wisdom themselves: because either they thought nothing at all was to be worshipped, or they approved false religions, or, even if they understood the power and authority of the highest God, as Plato, who says that there is one God the maker of the world, and M. Tullius, who acknowledges that man was created by the highest God under a certain distinguished condition; yet they did not render to him the worship due as to the highest father, which was the consequent and necessary thing to do.

Moreover, that the gods can be neither fathers nor lords is shown not only by their multiplicity, as I showed above (namely, in the preceding chapter), but also by reason: because neither is it handed down that man was fashioned by the gods, nor is it found that the gods themselves preceded the origin of man; since it is apparent that men existed on earth before Vulcan, and Liber, and Apollo, and Jupiter himself were born. But neither is the fashioning of man customarily assigned to Saturn, nor to his father Caelus.

But if none of those who are worshipped is recorded to have formed and established man from the beginning; then none of them can be called the father of man, and thus not God either. Therefore it is not right to venerate those by whom man was not begotten; because he cannot be begotten by many. Therefore one alone must be worshipped, who preceded Jupiter, who preceded Saturn, who preceded Heaven itself and earth. For it is necessary that he fashioned man who, before man existed, completed heaven and earth. He alone is to be called father who created; he alone is to be named lord who governs, who has the true and perpetual power of life and death; and he who does not adore him is both a foolish slave, who either flees or does not know his lord, and an impious son, who either hates or is ignorant of his true father.

Now, since I have shown that wisdom and religion cannot be separated, it remains that we treat of religion and wisdom themselves. I am well aware how difficult is the disputation concerning heavenly things: yet it must be attempted, so that the truth, once illuminated, may be made plain, and many may be freed from error and destruction, who spurn and reject it as it lies hidden beneath the veil of foolishness. But before I begin to speak of God and His works, I must first say a few things about the prophets, whose testimonies it is now necessary to use; from doing which in the earlier books I refrained. Above all, one who is eager to grasp the truth ought not only to direct his mind to understanding the words of the prophets, but also to inquire most diligently into the times in which each of them lived; so that he may know both what things they foretold as future, and after how many years the things foretold were fulfilled.

Nor is there any difficulty in gathering these facts; for each of them has testified under which king he received the impulse of the divine Spirit. And many have published written books on chronology, beginning with the prophet Moses, who preceded the Trojan War by nearly seven hundred years. He, after having ruled the people for forty years, had as his successor Joshua, who held the leadership for twenty-seven years.

Thereafter they were under Judges for three hundred and seventy years. Then, their condition having changed, they began to have kings: while these held power for four hundred and fifty years, down to the reign of Zedekiah, the Jews, attacked and captured by the king of Babylon, endured long servitude; until in the seventieth year after that, Cyrus the Great restored them to their lands and homes, he who assumed dominion over the Persians at the same time as Tarquinius Superbus reigned at Rome. Wherefore, since the entire series of chronology is gathered both from Jewish and from Greek and Roman histories, the times of the individual prophets can also be gathered; of whom the last was certainly Zechariah, who is known to have prophesied under King Darius, in the second year of his reign, in the eighth month. So thoroughly are the prophets found to be more ancient even than the Greek writers.

All these things I set forth for this reason: that those who strive to refute Holy Scripture as new and recently fabricated may recognize their error, being ignorant of the source from which the origin of the holy religion has flowed. But if anyone, having collected and examined the chronology, shall have laid the foundation of saving doctrine, he will both comprehend the truth thoroughly, and, with the truth once known, will lay aside his error.

God, therefore, the architect and establisher of all things, as we said in the second book, before He undertook this glorious work of the world, begot a holy and incorruptible spirit, whom He would call His Son. And although He afterwards created through Him innumerable others, whom we call angels, yet He deemed this one alone worthy of the appellation of the divine name as the firstborn, endowed as he was with the Father's own power and majesty. Now that there is a Son of the most high God, who is endowed with the greatest power, is shown not only by the voices of the Prophets agreeing together, but also by the proclamation of Trismegistus and the oracles of the Sibyls.

Hermes, in the book which is entitled The Perfect Word, used these words: The Lord and maker of all things, whom we are accustomed to call God, since He made the second god, visible and perceptible—perceptible, I say, not because He Himself perceives, for whether He Himself perceives is a question, but because He sends forth into perception and into mind. Since He made this one first, and alone, and one, and He appeared to Him beautiful and most full of all good things, He hallowed Him and loved Him exceedingly as His own offspring. The Erythraean Sibyl, at the beginning of her poem, which she began from the most high God, proclaims the Son of God as Leader and Commander of all in these verses: The all-nourishing Creator, who placed sweet breath in all things, And made God the guide of all. And again at the end of the same poem: But him whom God gave to faithful men to honor.

And another Sibyl commands that He must be known: Know Him as your God, being the Son of God. He is indeed the Son of God, who spoke through Solomon, the most wise king, full of the divine spirit, those things which we have set down below: "God founded me at the beginning of His ways, in His works before the ages. He established me in the beginning, before He made the earth, and before He set up the abysses; before the springs of waters came forth: before all the hills the Lord begot me; He made the regions and the uninhabitable bounds beneath the sky. When He prepared the heavens, I was present with Him; and when He separated His seat, when He made the strong clouds above the winds, and when He set the mountains firm beneath the sky: when He was making the strong foundations of the earth, I was beside Him ordering.

I was the one in whom He rejoiced; and daily I was glad before His face, when He rejoiced in the completed world." Now Trismegistus called Him the demiurge of God, and the Sibyl calls Him the counsellor, because He was endowed by God the Father with such wisdom and power that He used both His counsel and His hands in the fashioning of the world.

Perhaps someone will ask at this point, who is this one so powerful, so dear to God, and what name He bears, whose first birth not only preceded the world, but also arranged it by wisdom and constructed it by power. First, we should know that His name is not known even to the Angels who dwell in heaven, but to Himself alone and to God the Father; nor will it be made public before, as is handed down in the holy writings, the dispensation of God shall have been fulfilled. Furthermore, it cannot be uttered by a human mouth; as Hermes teaches, saying these things: But the cause of this cause is the will of the divine good, which brought forth God, whose name cannot be spoken by a human mouth. And a little later, to his son: There is, O son, a certain secret word of wisdom, holy concerning the one Lord of all things, and God foreknown, which to speak is beyond man.

But although His name, which the most high Father gave Him from the beginning, no other knows save Himself, He has nevertheless another name among the Angels, and another among men. For among men He is called Jesus: for Christ is not a proper name, but a designation of power and kingship; for so the Jews called their kings. But the meaning of this name must be explained on account of the error of the ignorant, who are accustomed to call Him Chrestus with a changed letter. It had been commanded to the Jews of old that they should prepare a sacred ointment, with which those who were called to the priesthood or to kingship might be anointed. And just as now among the Romans the garment of purple is the mark of royal dignity assumed: so among them the anointing with the sacred ointment conferred the name and royal power.

But since the ancient Greeks used to say χρίεσθαι for being anointed, which is now ἀλείφεσθαι, as that Homeric verse indicates: for this reason we call Him Christ, that is, the anointed one, who in Hebrew is called Messiah. Hence in certain Greek writings, which have been badly translated from the Hebrew, ἠλειμμένος is found written, from ἀλείφεσθαι. Yet by either name a king is signified: not because He had obtained this earthly kingdom, the time for seizing which has not yet come; but because He obtained the heavenly and eternal one, of which we shall treat in the last book. But now let us speak of His first birth.

For first we testify that He was born twice; first in the spirit, afterwards in the flesh. Hence in Jeremiah it is said thus: Before I formed thee in the womb, I knew thee. And likewise in the same prophet: Blessed is he who existed before he was born; which has befallen no other save Christ. He who was from the beginning the Son of God was born again according to the flesh: which twofold birth of His brought great error into human hearts, and spread darkness even over those who retained the sacraments of the true Religion. But we shall show this plainly and clearly, so that lovers of wisdom may be more easily and carefully instructed. Whoever hears the Son of God spoken of ought not to conceive in his mind so great an impiety as to suppose that God begot Him through the union and mingling with some woman, which only a bodily creature, subject to death, does. But God, since He alone exists, with whom could He have mingled?

Or since He was of such great power that He could accomplish whatever He willed, He had no need of the partnership of another for creating: unless perhaps we shall suppose that God, as Orpheus thought, is both male and female, because He could not otherwise generate unless He possessed the force of both sexes; as though He either united with Himself, or could not procreate without union. But Hermes also was of the same opinion, when he says self-father and self-mother. But if it were so, as He is called father by the Prophets, so also He would be called mother. How then did He beget? First, the divine works can neither be known by anyone nor narrated: yet nevertheless the holy Scriptures teach, in which it is set down, that this Son of God is the word, or also the reason, of God; and likewise that the other angels are spirits of God. For a word is a spirit brought forth with a voice signifying something.

Yet since spirit and word are brought forth by different parts—for spirit proceeds through the nostrils, word through the mouth—there is a great difference between this Son of God and the other angels. For those went forth from God as silent spirits; because they were created not for handing on the teaching of God, but for ministry. But He, although He too is a spirit, yet proceeded with voice and sound from the mouth of God, as a word, for this reason namely, that He was to use His voice for the people; that is, because He was to be the teacher of God's doctrine and of the heavenly mystery to be brought forth to man: which very thing He first spoke, so that through Him He might speak to us, and He might reveal to us the voice and will of God.

Rightly therefore is He called the word and speech of God; because God, by some inconceivable power and might of His own majesty, gathered the vocal spirit proceeding from His mouth, which He had conceived not in a womb but in His mind, into a form endowed with its own sense and wisdom, and likewise fashioned His other spirits into angels. Our spirits are dissoluble, because we are mortal. But the spirits of God both live and endure and perceive; because He Himself is immortal and the giver of sense and life. Our voices, although they mingle with the air and vanish, yet for the most part endure, preserved in writing: how much more must the voice of God be believed both to endure forever and to be accompanied by sense and power, which He drew from God the Father as a stream from a source.

But if anyone marvels that God could be begotten from God by the utterance of voice and spirit, if he shall have come to know the holy words of the Prophets, he will certainly cease to marvel. That Solomon and his father David were most powerful kings, and likewise prophets, may perhaps be known even to those who have not touched the divine writings; of whom the one who reigned later preceded the destruction of the city of Troy by a hundred and forty years. His father, the writer of divine hymns, in Psalm, says thus: By the word of God the heavens were made firm, and by the spirit of His mouth all their power. And likewise again in Psalm: My heart has uttered a good word; I speak my works to the king. Testifying, namely, that the works of God are known to none other save the Son alone, who is the Word of God, and who must reign forever.

Likewise Solomon shows that He is the very Word of God, by whose hands these works of the world were fashioned. I, he says, came forth from the mouth of the Most High before all creation; I caused unfailing light to rise in the heavens, and I covered all the earth with mist. I dwelt in the high places, and my throne is in a pillar of cloud. John also handed down thus: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was made nothing.

But the Greeks more aptly say λόγος than we say word or speech; for λόγος signifies both speech and reason, because He is both the voice and the wisdom of God. This divine word even the philosophers did not ignore. For Zeno proclaims as the disposer of nature and the maker of the universe the λόγος, which he also calls fate, and the necessity of things, and God, and the mind of Jupiter: following, that is, the custom by which they are accustomed to take Jupiter for God. But words are no obstacle when the meaning agrees with the truth. For it is the spirit of God, which he named the mind of Jupiter. For Trismegistus, who investigated the whole truth by some means I know not how, described the power and majesty of the word many times, as that earlier example makes clear, in which he confesses that there is a certain ineffable and holy word, the narration of which exceeds the capacity of man. I have spoken briefly of the first birth, as best I could.

Now concerning the second, since there is the greatest controversy about it, I must treat more at length; so that we may hold before those who desire to know the truth the light of understanding.

First of all, therefore, men ought to know that from the beginning the dispensation of the most high God proceeded in such a way that it was necessary, as the end of the age drew near, for the Son of God to descend to earth, that he might establish a temple for God and teach righteousness: yet not in the power of an Angel, nor in heavenly might, but in the form of a man and in mortal condition, so that when he had fulfilled his office of teacher, he might be delivered into the hands of the wicked and undergo death, that by overcoming even death through his power he might rise again, and both bring to the man whom he had put on and bore the hope of conquering death, and admit him to the rewards of immortality. So that no one may be ignorant of this dispensation, we shall teach that all things which we see fulfilled in Christ were foretold.

Let no one lend credence to our assertion unless I shall have shown that the Prophets, long before in the succession of ages, foretold that the Son of God would one day be born as a man, and would perform wonders, and would sow the worship of God throughout the whole earth, and would at last be fastened to a cross, and rise again on the third day. When I shall have proved all these things from the very writings of those who violated their God while he made use of a mortal body, what else will stand in the way of its being clear that true wisdom resides in this Religion alone? Now the origin of the whole mystery must be narrated from the beginning.

Our forefathers, who were the chiefs of the Hebrews, when they were suffering from barrenness and want, crossed over into Egypt for the sake of grain, and dwelling there for a long time, were oppressed by an intolerable yoke of servitude. Then God, taking pity on them, led them out and freed them from the hand of the king of the Egyptians after four hundred and thirty years, under the leadership of Moses, through whom the law was afterwards given to them by God: and in that exodus God showed the power of his majesty. For he led the people through the midst of the Red Sea, with an angel going before and dividing the water, so that the people could walk on dry ground, around whom, more truly (as the poet says), The wave, curved into the likeness of a mountain, stood on every side.

When the tyrant of the Egyptians heard of this, he followed with a great force of his men, and rashly entered the sea while it still lay open, and was destroyed with his whole army as the waters came together. But the Hebrews, having entered the wilderness, witnessed many wonders. For when they were suffering from thirst, a spring of water leapt forth at the stroke of a rod upon a rock, and refreshed the people. When they were again hungry, a rain of heavenly food descended. Moreover, the wind drove quails into their camp, so that they were satisfied not only with heavenly bread but also with more sumptuous feasts.

Yet for these divine benefits they did not render honour to God, but once servitude was already driven off, once thirst and hunger were already laid aside, they fell into luxury and turned their minds to the profane rites of the Egyptians. For when Moses their leader had gone up onto the mountain and was staying there for forty days, they fashioned a golden head of an ox, which they call Apis, to go before them as a standard. Offended by this sin and wickedness, God afflicted the impious and ungrateful people with heavy punishments as they deserved, and subjected them to the law which he had given through Moses.

But afterwards, when they had settled in a certain desert part of Syria, they lost their old name of Hebrews: and because the chief of their company was Judas, they were called Jews, and the land they inhabited, Judaea. And at first they were not subject to the rule of kings: but civil Judges presided over the people and the law; yet they were not appointed for a year, as the Roman consuls are, but held jurisdiction in perpetuity. Then, with the name of Judges abolished, royal power was introduced. But while Judges held their governance, they had often taken up wicked religions; and God, offended by them, would as often subject them to foreigners, until, softened again by the people's repentance, he would free them from servitude. Likewise under the kings, harassed by the wars of neighbours on account of their sins, they were at last taken captive and led away to Babylon, and paid the penalty of their impiety with heavy servitude; until Cyrus came to the kingdom, who at once restored the Jews by edict.

From that time they had Tetrarchs up to Herod, who lived under the rule of Tiberius Caesar; in whose fifteenth year, that is, under the two Gemini as Consuls, on the day before the tenth of the Kalends of April, the Jews fastened Christ to the cross.

This sequence of events, this order, is contained in the mysteries of the holy Scriptures. But first I shall show for what reason Christ came to earth, so that the foundation and rationale of the divine Religion may become clear.

Since the Jews often resisted wholesome precepts and fell away from the divine law, straying toward the impious worship of gods, God would fill just and chosen men with the Holy Spirit, appointing prophets in the midst of the people, through whom he might rebuke the sins of the ungrateful people with threatening words, and nonetheless exhort them to perform repentance for their wickedness, warning that if they did not do so, and did not return to their God after casting aside their vanities, he would change his covenant, that is, would turn the inheritance of immortal life to foreign nations, and would gather for himself another more faithful people from among strangers. But they, rebuked by the prophets, not only spurned their words, but, offended that their sins were being reproached to them, put the prophets themselves to death with exquisite torments: all of which the divine scriptures preserve on record.

For the prophet Jeremiah says: I sent to you my servants the prophets: I sent them before the light of dawn, and you did not hear me, nor did you incline your ears, when I said to you: "Let each one turn from his evil way, and from your most wicked affections, and you shall dwell in this land which I gave to you and to your fathers from age to age. Do not walk after strange gods to serve them, and do not provoke me by the works of your hands, to destroy you." Esdras also the prophet, who lived in the time of that same Cyrus by whom the Jews were restored, speaks thus: They have revolted from you, and have cast your law behind their body, and have slain your prophets who called upon them to return to you.

Likewise Elias in the third book of the Βασιλειῶν: With zeal have I been zealous for the Lord God Almighty, because the children of Israel have forsaken you, and have thrown down your altars, and have slain your prophets with the sword, and I alone am left, and they seek to take away my life. On account of these their impieties he disowned them for ever: and so he ceased to send prophets to them.

But that firstborn Son of his, that maker of all things and his own counsellor, he commanded to descend from heaven, that he might transfer the holy religion of God to the nations, that is, to those who were ignorant of God; and might teach righteousness, which the faithless people had cast aside; which he had long since declared he would do, as the prophet Malachi indicates, saying: I have no pleasure in you, says the Lord, and I will not accept a sacrifice from your hands; for from the rising of the sun even to the going down thereof my name shall be glorified among the nations. Likewise David in: You will set me as the head of the nations: a people whom I did not know shall serve me.

Isaiah also speaks thus (namely, the last chapter): I come to gather all nations and tongues, and they shall come and shall see my glory, and I will send a sign upon them, and will send from among them those that are saved to the nations that are afar off, which have not heard my glory, and they shall declare my glory among the nations. God therefore, wishing to send the measurer of his temple to earth, was unwilling to send him in heavenly power and glory, so that the people ungrateful toward God might be led into the greatest error and pay the penalty for their crimes, in that they had not received their lord and God; which the prophets of old had sung was to come to pass in this way. For Isaiah, whom the Jews themselves most cruelly put to death by sawing him asunder with a saw, speaks thus: Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken: I have brought up children and exalted them; but they have despised me.

The ox knows his owner, and the ass his master's crib; but Israel has not known me, and my people has not understood me.

Jeremiah likewise says: The turtle-dove and the swallow and the sparrows of the field have known their time and kept the seasons of their coming in: but my people has not known the judgment of the Lord. How do you say, we are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us? In vain has the measuring been made; the scribes are false, and they are confounded; the wise men are in dread and are taken, because they have rejected the word of the Lord. Therefore (to resume what I had begun to say) when God had resolved to send a teacher of virtue to men, he commanded him to be born again in the flesh, and to become like that very man of whom he was to be the guide, companion, and master.

Yet since God is clement and loving toward his own, he sent him to those very people whom he had rejected, lest he should close the way of salvation to them for ever; but should give them free opportunity to follow God, so that they might both obtain the reward of life if they had followed, as very many of them do and have done, and by their own fault incur the punishment of death if they had rejected their king. Among them, therefore, and from their seed he commanded him to be reborn, lest, had he been a stranger, they might have had a just excuse from the law for not having received him; and at the same time, so that there might be no nation at all on earth to which the hope of immortality was denied.

And so that holy Spirit of God, descending from heaven, chose a holy Virgin into whose womb He might enter. But she, filled with the divine Spirit she had drawn in, conceived, and without any touch of a man the virginal womb suddenly swelled. Now if it is known to all that certain animals are accustomed to conceive by wind and air, why should anyone think it incredible when we say that the Virgin was made heavy by the Spirit of God, to whom whatever He wills is easy? This indeed might seem unbelievable, were it not that the Prophets had foretold it many ages before. Solomon speaks thus: The womb of a virgin was weakened, and received a child, and was made heavy, and in great compassion became a mother, a Virgin. Likewise the prophet Isaiah, whose words are these: Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a Virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel. What can be said more plainly than this?

The Jews, who denied Him, read these things. If anyone thinks we are inventing these things, let him ask them, let him take them especially from them. It is a sufficiently firm testimony for proving the truth, that it is borne by enemies themselves. Now Emmanuel was never the name He was called by, but Jesus, which in Latin means salutary, or saviour; because He came as a bringer of salvation to all nations. But the prophet declared by this name that God was going to come to men in the flesh. For Emmanuel signifies, God with us; namely because, when He was born through the virgin, men were bound to confess that God was with them, that is, on earth and in mortal flesh. Hence David in Psalm LXXXIV says: truth has sprung out of the earth; because God, in whom truth is, took on an earthly body, so that He might open the way of salvation to earthly beings.

Likewise Isaiah himself: But they did not believe, and provoked the holy spirit, and He turned to enmity toward them. And He Himself fought, and remembered the days of old, who raised up from the earth the shepherd of the sheep. But who that shepherd was to be, he declared in another place, saying: Let the heavens rejoice from above, and let the clouds clothe themselves with justice: let the earth be opened, and let it bring forth a Saviour. For I the Lord God have created Him. Now the Saviour is, as we said above, Jesus. But also in another place the same prophet proclaimed thus: Behold, a child is born to us, and a son is given to us: whose government is upon his shoulders; and his name is called the messenger of great counsel. For He was sent by God the Father for this reason, that He might reveal to all nations that are under heaven the holy mystery of the one and true God, taken away from the faithless people who often sinned against God.

Daniel also foretold similar things. I saw, he says, in a vision of the night; and behold, one like a son of man coming in the clouds of heaven, and He came even to the Ancient of days. And those who stood by brought Him near, and there was given to Him a kingdom, and honour, and dominion, and all peoples, tribes, and tongues shall serve Him; and His power is everlasting, which shall never pass away, and His kingdom shall not be destroyed. How then do the Jews both confess and hope for the Christ of God? Who rejected Him for this reason, that He was born of a human being. For since it has been so ordained by God that the same Christ should come to earth twice, once to announce the one God to the nations, and then again to reign: how do they believe in His second coming, who did not believe in the first? And yet the prophet comprehended both His comings in a few words.

Behold, he says, one like a son of man coming in the clouds of heaven. He did not say, like a son of God, but a son of man, to show that He was to be clothed in flesh on earth, so that, having taken on the form of a human being and the condition of mortality, He might teach men righteousness; and when, having fulfilled the commandments of God, He had revealed the truth to the nations, He might also be punished with death, so that He might conquer and unseal the underworld as well, and so at last, rising again, might depart to the Father, taken up in a cloud. For the prophet added and said: And He came even to the Ancient of days, and was presented to Him. He called the most high God the Ancient of days, whose age and origin cannot be comprehended; because He alone has been from eternity, and will be forever unto the ages.

But that Christ after His passion and resurrection was to ascend to God the Father, David attested in Psalm one hundred and nine with these words: The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand; until I make your enemies your footstool. Since this prophet was a king, whom could he call his own lord, who would sit at the right hand of God, unless Christ the Son of God, who is king of kings and lord of lords? Which Isaiah shows more openly, saying: Thus says the Lord God to Christ my lord, whose right hand I have held; I will make nations obedient before Him, and I will break the strength of kings. I will open the gates before Him, and the cities shall not be shut.

I will go before you, and I will level the mountains, and I will shatter the brazen doors, and break in pieces the bars of iron; and I will give you hidden and invisible treasures, that you may know that I am the Lord God, who call you by your name, the God of Israel. Finally, on account of the virtue and faithfulness which He showed to God on earth, there was given to Him a kingdom, and honour, and dominion; and all peoples, tribes, and tongues shall serve Him; and His power is everlasting, which shall never pass away, and His kingdom shall not be destroyed.

This indeed is understood in two ways: because even now He has perpetual power, since all nations and all tongues venerate His name, confess His majesty, follow His teaching, imitate His virtue; He has dominion and honour, since all the tribes of the earth obey His precepts: and likewise afterward, when He shall come again in power and glory to judge every soul, and to restore the righteous to life, then truly He will hold the governance of the whole earth; then, when all evil has been removed from human affairs, the golden age (as the poets call it), that is, a just and peaceful time, will arise. But these things we shall discuss more fully in the last book, when we speak of the second coming: now let us set forth concerning the first, as we have begun.

Therefore the most high God and Father of all, when he wished to transfer his religion, sent a teacher of justice from heaven, that he might give a new law to new worshippers in him or through him: not as he had done before through a man: yet he willed him to be born as a man, so that he might be in all things like the most high Father. For the Father God himself, the origin and beginning of all things, since he lacks parents, is most truly named by Trismegistus ἀπάτωρ and ἀμήτωρ, because he was begotten of no one. For this reason also it was necessary that the Son be born twice, so that he too might become ἀπάτωρ and ἀμήτωρ. For in the first, spiritual birth he was ἀμήτωρ, because he was begotten by God the Father alone without the office of a mother.

But in the second, fleshly birth he was ἀπάτωρ, because he was brought forth from a virginal womb without the office of a father, so that, bearing a substance midway between God and man, he might be able, as it were by hand, to lead our fragile and feeble nature to immortality. He became both Son of God through the spirit, and Son of man through the flesh; that is, both God and man. The power of God appeared in him from the works which he did; the frailty of man, from the passion which he endured: why he underwent this I shall teach a little later. Meanwhile we learn from the prophesying of the prophets that he was both God and man, mingled of both natures.

Isaiah testifies that he was God in these words: Egypt is wearied, and the commerce of the Ethiopians, and of the Sabaeans: tall men shall pass over to thee, and shall be thy servants; and they shall walk after thee bound in fetters, and shall worship thee, and shall pray in thee, because God is in thee, and there is no other God beside thee. For thou art God, and we knew it not, the God of Israel the Saviour. All they that resist thee shall be confounded and ashamed, and shall fall into confusion. Likewise the prophet Jeremiah speaks thus: This is our God, and no other shall be accounted beside him, who found out all the way of prudence, and gave it to Jacob his servant, and to Israel his beloved. After these things he was seen upon earth, and conversed with men. Likewise David in: Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of equity is the sceptre of thy kingdom.

Thou hast loved justice and hated iniquity: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness. By which word he also shows the name: for (as I taught above) he was called Christ from anointing. Then Jeremiah teaches that the same was a man, saying: And he is a man; and who hath known him? Likewise Isaiah: And God shall send them a man who shall save them, and judging shall heal them. But also Moses in Numbers speaks thus: A star shall rise out of Jacob, and a man shall spring up out of Israel. For this reason the Milesian Apollo, when consulted as to whether he was God or man, answered in this manner: He was mortal according to the flesh, wise in wondrous works; but seized by the armed judges of the Chaldeans, he endured a bitter death by nails and stakes. In the first verse he spoke the truth indeed: but cunningly deceived the inquirer, who was utterly ignorant of the mystery of truth.

For he seems to have denied that he was God. But when he confesses that he was mortal according to the flesh, which we also proclaim, it follows that according to the spirit he was God, which we affirm. For what need was there to make mention of the flesh, when it would have been enough to say that he was mortal? But pressed by truth, he could not deny how the matter stood; just as that which he says, that he was wise. What dost thou answer to this, Apollo? If he is wise; then his teaching is wisdom, and no other, and those who follow him are wise, and no others. Why therefore are we, who follow a master acknowledged wise even by the confession of the gods themselves, commonly held for foolish, vain, and inept? For as to his saying that he performed portentous works, by which he chiefly merited belief in his divinity, he seems now to agree with us, when he says the same things in which we glory.

But he collects himself nonetheless, and returns to daemonic deceits. For when he had spoken the truth of necessity, he now seemed a betrayer of the gods and of himself; unless he had concealed by a deceiving lie what truth had wrested from him. He says therefore that he did indeed perform wonderful works, but not by divine power, but by magic. What wonder, if Apollo persuaded this to those ignorant of truth, when even the Jews, worshippers (as they appeared) of the most high God, thought the same thing; when before their eyes those miracles were daily performed which the Prophets had foretold would come to pass, and yet they could not be moved by the contemplation of such great powers to believe him to be God whom they saw. Therefore David, whom beyond all other Prophets they read most of all, in, condemns them thus: Render to them their recompense, because they have not understood the works of the Lord.

That Christ would be born according to the flesh from the house of this same man, both David himself and other Prophets announced. In Isaiah it is written thus: And it shall come to pass in that day, that the root of Jesse, and he that shall rise up to rule the nations: in him shall the Gentiles hope, and his rest shall be glorious. And in another place: There shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root, and the Spirit of God shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the spirit of counsel and of fortitude, the spirit of knowledge and of piety; and the spirit of the fear of the Lord shall fill him. And Jesse himself was the father of David, from whose root he foretold that the flower would ascend; namely, of whom the Sibyl says a pure flower shall blossom.

Likewise in the second book of Kings, the prophet Nathan was sent to David who wished to build a temple to God; and the word of the Lord came to Nathan saying: Go, and say to my servant David: Thus saith the Lord Almighty; Thou shalt not build me a house to dwell in: but when thy days shall be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will raise up thy seed after thee, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build me a house in my name: and I will establish his throne for ever; and I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son, and his house and his kingdom shall obtain faithfulness for ever. But the reason the Jews did not understand these things was that Solomon the son of David built a temple to God, and a city which he named from his own name Jerusalem. And so they referred to him what was said by the Prophet.

But Solomon received the governance of the kingdom from his own father. The Prophets however were speaking of one who would be born after David had rested with his fathers. Moreover the reign of Solomon was not perpetual; for he reigned forty years. Then, because he was never called Son of God, but son of David; and the house which he built did not obtain faithfulness, as the Church has, which is the true temple of God, which is not in walls but in the heart and faith of men who believe in him and are called the faithful. But that temple of Solomon, because it was made by hand, fell by hand. Finally his father in Psalm CXXVI prophesied concerning the works of his son in this manner: Unless the Lord build the house, they have laboured in vain that built it: unless the Lord keep the city, he hath watched in vain that keepeth it.

From all these things it appears that all the prophets declared concerning Christ that it would come to pass at some time that, born bodily from the line of David, he would establish an eternal temple to God, which is called the Church, and would summon all nations to the true religion of God. This is the faithful house, this the immortal temple, in which if anyone shall not have sacrificed, he shall not have the reward of immortality. And since Christ was the builder of this temple, great and eternal, it is necessary that he likewise hold in it an everlasting priesthood. Nor can one come either to the entrance of the temple or to the sight of God except through him who established the temple. David, in, teaches this same thing, saying: Before the morning star I begat thee. The Lord hath sworn, and he will not repent: thou art a priest for ever according to the order of Melchisedech.

Likewise in the first book of Kings: And I will raise me up a faithful priest, who shall do all things that are in my heart; and I will build him a faithful house, and he shall walk before me all days. But who he would be to whom God was promising an eternal priesthood, Zacharias also taught most plainly, setting down the name; for he spoke thus: And the Lord God showed me Jesus the high priest standing before the face of the angel of the Lord, and the devil stood at his right hand to be his adversary.

And the Lord said to the devil: The Lord rebuke thee, who hath chosen Jerusalem; and behold a brand plucked out of the fire: and Jesus was clothed with filthy garments, and stood before the face of the angel, and he answered and said to those that stood before him, saying: Take away the filthy garments from him, and clothe him with a long robe, and set a clean mitre upon his head; and they clothed him with a garment, and set a clean mitre upon his head; and the angel of the Lord stood, and testified to Jesus, saying: Thus saith the Lord Almighty: If thou wilt walk in my ways, and keep my precepts, thou shalt judge my house, and I will give thee some of those that stand here to walk in the midst of them. Hear therefore, O Jesus thou high priest.

Who therefore would not judge that the Jews were then captivated in their minds, who, when they read and heard these things, laid wicked hands upon their own God? And yet from the time when Zacharias lived until the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, in which Christ was crucified, nearly five hundred years are counted; for he flourished in the age of Darius and Alexander, who lived not long before Tarquinius Superbus was expelled. But they were again deceived and misled in the same manner, thinking that these things were said of Jesus the son of Nave, who was the successor of Moses, or of the priest Jesus the son of Josedech: to neither of whom does anything fit of what the Prophet narrated. For they were never defiled, since one of them was a most powerful leader, the other a priest: nor did they suffer anything adverse, so as to be thought like a brand plucked out of the fire.

Nor did they ever stand in the sight of God and the Angels, nor was the Prophet speaking of past things rather than of things to come. He spoke therefore of Jesus the Son of God, to show that he would come first in humility and flesh. For this is the filthy garment, that he might prepare a temple for God, and as a brand be scorched by fire; that is, that he would endure torments from men, and at last be extinguished. For the common people call a brand a half-burnt torch drawn from the fire and extinguished.

But in what manner, and with what commands he was sent by God to earth, the Spirit of God declared through the Prophet, teaching that it would come to pass that, when he had faithfully and steadfastly fulfilled the will of the most high Father, he would receive judgment and everlasting dominion. If thou wilt walk, he says, in my ways, and keep my precepts, thou shalt judge my house. What the ways of God were, and what his precepts, is neither ambiguous nor obscure.

For when God saw that wickedness and the worship of false gods had so prevailed throughout the world that his name had been almost removed from the memory of men (for even the Jews, to whom alone the mystery of God had been entrusted, had forsaken the living God and, ensnared by the deceits of daemons, had gone astray to worship idols, nor when rebuked through the prophets were they willing to return to God), he sent his Son to men, that he might turn them from impious and vain cults to the knowledge and worship of the true God: likewise that he might lead their minds from folly to wisdom, from iniquity to works of justice. These are the ways of God, in which he commanded him to walk. These are the precepts which he enjoined him to keep. But he showed faithfulness to God.

For he taught that God is one, and that he alone ought to be worshipped; nor did he ever call himself God, because he would not have kept faith if, sent to abolish gods and assert one, he were to introduce another beside the one. This would have been not to proclaim the one God, nor to conduct the business of him who sent him, but his own, and to separate himself from him whom he had come to glorify. Therefore, because he showed himself so faithful, because he assumed nothing whatsoever for himself, in order to fulfil the commands of him who sent him, he received the dignity of an everlasting priest, and the honour of a supreme king, and the power of a judge, and the name of God.

Since we have spoken of the second birth, by which he showed himself to men in the flesh, let us come to those wondrous works which, being signs of heavenly power, the Jews thought great. When he first began to grow up, he was baptized by John the prophet in the river Jordan, so that by a spiritual washing he might abolish sins—not his own, which he certainly did not have, but those of the flesh which he bore—so that, just as circumcision once received saved the Jews, so also he might save the gentiles by baptism, that is, by the sprinkling of purifying dew. Then a voice was heard from heaven: Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. This voice is found foretold in David. And the Spirit of God descended upon him, formed in the likeness of a white dove.

From that time he began to perform the greatest mighty works, not by magical tricks, which display nothing true or solid, but by heavenly force and power, which had long been proclaimed by the prophets announcing them. These works are so many that a single book would not suffice to encompass them all. I shall therefore enumerate them briefly and in general, without any designation of persons or places, so that I may be able to arrive at the exposition of the reason for his passion and cross, toward which my discourse has long been hastening. His mighty works were those which Apollo called portentous: that wherever he went on his way, the sick and the weak, and those suffering from every kind of disease, he restored to health by a single word and in a single moment, so much so that those who were seized in all their limbs, suddenly strengthened with recovered vigor, themselves carried back the beds on which they had shortly before been carried.

To the lame and those afflicted with infirmity of foot he gave the ability not only to walk but even to run. Then those whose blind eyes were in deepest darkness he restored to their former sight. He also loosed the tongues of the mute into speech and discourse. Likewise he opened the ears of the deaf and imparted hearing to them; those who were defiled and spotted with blemishes he cleansed. And all these things he did not with hands or any remedy, but by word and command, just as the Sibyl also had foretold: Doing all things by a word, and healing every disease. Nor is it at all wonderful that he performed miracles by a word, since he himself was the Word of God, sustained by heavenly virtue and power. Nor was it enough that he restored strength to the feeble, wholeness to the weak, health to the sick and languishing, unless he also raised the dead, as though loosing them from sleep, and called them back to life.

When the Jews saw these things, they argued that they were done by the power of demons, although all things were contained in the secret writings as they would come to pass, just as they did. For they read, among the words of other prophets, those of Isaiah saying: Be strengthened, ye feeble hands, and ye weak knees be made firm. Ye who are of little spirit, fear not, be not afraid. Our Lord will render judgment; he himself will come and save us. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened; and the ears of the deaf shall hear. Then the lame man shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute shall be plain, because water has burst forth in the desert, and a stream in the thirsty land. And the Sibyl also sang the same things in these verses: There shall be a resurrection of the dead; the lame shall run swiftly, the deaf shall hear, the blind shall see, and those who do not speak shall speak.

On account of these mighty works of his and divine deeds, when a great multitude was following him—whether of the weak, or of the sick, or of those who desired to bring their own people to be healed—he ascended a certain deserted mountain, to worship there. When he had remained there three days and the people were suffering from hunger, he called his disciples, asking how much food they were carrying with them. But they said they had five loaves and two fish in a bag. He ordered these to be brought, and had the multitude, distributed in groups of fifty, recline. When the disciples did this, he himself broke the bread piece by piece and divided the flesh of the fish, and both increased in his hands. And when he had commanded the disciples to set these before the people, five thousand men were satisfied, and moreover twelve baskets were filled from the remaining fragments. What can be said or done more wonderful than this?

But the Sibyl had long since sung that this would come to pass, and her verses are reported as follows: With five loaves and two fishes, he shall satisfy five thousand men in the wilderness; and after taking up all the leftover fragments, he shall fill twelve baskets for the hope of many.

I ask, therefore, what the art of magic could have contrived here, whose skill avails for nothing other than to deceive the eyes. He, about to withdraw to a mountain for the purpose of prayer, as was his custom, commanded his disciples to take a small boat and go before him. But they, setting out as evening was already pressing on, began to be troubled by a contrary wind. And when they were now holding the middle of the strait, he then entered the sea on foot and followed them, walking as though on solid ground; not as the poets falsely tell of Orion walking in the deep sea, who, with the lower part of his body submerged. And again when he had fallen asleep in the boat, and the wind had begun to rage to the point of extreme danger, roused from sleep, he immediately commanded the wind to be still; and the waves, which were running very high, grew calm, and straightway tranquility followed upon his word.

Perhaps the Holy Scriptures lie, teaching that there was such power in him that by his command he compelled the winds to obey, the seas to serve, diseases to yield, the underworld to be obedient. What of the fact that the same things were taught beforehand by the Sibyl in her songs? One of them, whom we mentioned above, speaks thus: He shall still the winds by a word, and calm the raging sea, treading it with feet of peace and faith.

And again another, who says: He shall walk upon the waves, release human sickness, raise the dead, drive away many pains, and from one pouch of bread there shall be satisfaction for men.

Overcome by these testimonies, some are accustomed to take refuge in saying that those verses are not Sibylline, but fabricated and composed by our own people. This assuredly will not be thought by one who has read Cicero and Varro and other ancient writers who make mention of the Erythraean Sibyl and the rest: from whose books we bring forward these examples; writers who died before Christ was born according to the flesh. But I do not doubt that those verses in earlier times were held to be ravings, since no one then understood them. For they proclaimed certain monstrous miracles, of which neither the reason, nor the time, nor the author was designated. Indeed the Erythraean Sibyl says that she would be called mad and a liar.

But yet: they lay unnoticed for many ages; but afterwards they were observed, when the birth and passion of Christ laid open their secrets—just as also the voices of the prophets, which, having been read by the people of the Jews for fifteen hundred years or more, were nevertheless not understood, until Christ interpreted them both by word and by deeds. For the prophets announced him; nor could the things they spoke be understood in any way, unless all had been fulfilled.

I come now to the passion itself, which is customarily cast at us as a reproach—that we worship a man, and one afflicted and tormented by men with a notable punishment—so that I may show that this very passion was undertaken by him with great and divine reason, and that in it alone are contained both virtue, and truth, and wisdom. For if he had been most blessed on earth and had reigned throughout his whole life in the highest felicity, no wise man would have believed him to be God or judged him worthy of divine honor: which those do who are without experience of true divinity, who not only look up to transient wealth, and fragile power, and the goods of another's beneficence, but even consecrate them, and knowingly serve the memory of the dead, worshipping a fortune already extinguished—which even wise men never thought should be worshipped by them even when it was alive and present.

For nothing in earthly things can be venerable and worthy of heaven: but virtue alone, justice alone, can be judged the true good, both heavenly and everlasting; because it is neither given to anyone nor taken away. Since Christ came to earth equipped with this virtue and justice—or rather, since he himself is virtue and he himself is justice—he descended to teach it and to form man. Having discharged this office of teacher and ambassador of God, on account of that very virtue which he both taught and practiced, he deserved and was able to be believed God by all nations.

Therefore, when a great people was continually flocking to him, either on account of the justice he taught or on account of the miracles he performed, and was hearing his precepts and believing him sent by God and the Son of God: then the chief men of the Jews and the priests, stung by anger because they were rebuked by him as sinners, and corrupted by envy because, with the multitude flocking to him, they saw themselves despised and abandoned, and (which was the chief cause of their wickedness) blinded by folly and error, and unmindful of the heavenly precepts and the prophets, conspired against him and formed an impious plan to destroy and torment him—which the prophets had described long before. For David also, at the beginning of his Psalms, foreseeing in the spirit what great a crime they were about to commit, says that he is blessed who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly.

And Solomon in the book of Wisdom used these words: Let us lie in wait for the just man, because he is inconvenient to us, and upbraids us with sins against the law: he professes to have knowledge of God, and calls himself the son of God: he has become a reproof of our thoughts: he is grievous to us even to behold; because his life is unlike that of others, and his ways are changed: we are esteemed by him as triflers: he abstains from our ways as from uncleannesses, and he sets the last end of the just before us, and boasts that he has God for his father. Let us see then if his words be true; and let us try what shall befall him. With insults and torments let us put him to the question: that we may know his reverence, and prove his patience, let us condemn him to a most shameful death. These things they thought, and they went astray. For their own folly blinded them; and they knew not the mysteries of God.

Did he not so describe that wicked counsel entered into by the ungodly against God, that he seems plainly to have been present? And yet from Solomon, who sang these things, to the time when the deed was done, there were one thousand and ten years. We invent nothing, we add nothing. Those who did these things had these writings; those against whom these things were said read them. But even now the heirs of that name and that crime both have these writings, and with their daily readings they proclaim aloud the condemnation foretold of them by the voice of the prophets; nor do they ever admit into their heart—which is itself also a part of their condemnation—what is written. Rebuked therefore often by Christ, who upbraided them with their sins and injustices, and nearly abandoned by the people, the Jews were stirred up to kill him. The boldness for this deed was given to them by his humility.

For since they read with what great power and glory the Son of God was to come from heaven, but saw Jesus humble, quiet, squalid, without form, they did not believe him to be the Son of God, not knowing that two of his comings had been foretold by the prophets: the first, obscure in the humility of the flesh; the second, manifest in the strength of majesty. Of the first, David in the seventy-first psalm speaks thus: He shall come down like rain upon a fleece, and in his days justice shall arise, and abundance of peace, until the moon be exalted. For just as rain, if it descends upon a fleece, cannot be perceived, because it makes no sound: so he said that Christ would come to earth without anyone's suspicion, to teach justice and peace. Isaiah also handed down thus: Lord, who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?

We have announced before him as children, and as a root in thirsty ground: there is no form in him, nor comeliness; and we saw him, and he had no form nor beauty: but his form was without honor, and failing beyond other men. He is a man set in a plague, knowing how to bear weakness, because he was turned away, and was not accounted of. He bears our sins, and grieves for us; and we thought him to be in sorrow, and in a plague, and in affliction. But he was wounded for our transgressions, and was weakened for our sins: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; by his bruise we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, and God delivered him up for our sins. And the Sibyl spoke in the same manner: Pitiful, dishonored, without beauty, he shall give hope among the pitiable.

On account of this humility, not recognizing their God, they entered into a detestable plan to deprive of life him who had come that he might give them life.

But they put forward other pretexts for the anger and envy which they harbored locked within their hearts: that he was dissolving the law of God given through Moses, that is, that he did not rest on the sabbaths, working for the salvation of men; that he was emptying circumcision of its force; that he was removing the abstinence from swine's flesh. In these things consist the sacraments of the Jewish religion. On account of these matters, therefore, the remaining part of the people, which had not yet gone over to Christ, was stirred up by the priests to judge him impious, because he was dissolving the law of God—though he did this not by his own judgment, but by the will of God and in accordance with the predictions of the prophets. For Micah announced that a new law would be given, in this manner: The law shall go forth from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, and he shall judge among many peoples, and shall rebuke and choose out strong nations.

For that former law, which was given through Moses, was given not on Mount Zion but on Mount Horeb; and the Sibyl showed that it would be dissolved by the Son of God. But Moses himself, through whom the law was given—while they stubbornly guard it, they have fallen away from God and have not acknowledged God—had foretold that a great prophet would be sent by God, who would be above the law, who would bring the will of God to men. In Deuteronomy he left it written thus: And the Lord said to me: I will raise up for them a prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and I will put my word in his mouth; and he shall speak to them all that I shall command him: and whosoever shall not hear those things which that prophet shall speak in my name, I will take vengeance on him.

The Lord declared, namely, through the lawgiver himself, that he was going to send his Son, that is, the living and present law, and was going to dissolve that old law given through a mortal man, so that through him who would be eternal he might establish an eternal law. Likewise, concerning the dissolution of circumcision, Isaiah prophesied thus: Thus saith the Lord to the men of Judah who dwell in Jerusalem: Renew among yourselves a newness, and sow not among thorns. Circumcise yourselves to the Lord your God, and circumcise the foreskin of your heart, lest my anger go forth like fire, and burn, and there be none to quench it. Likewise Moses himself: In the last days the Lord will circumcise thy heart to love the Lord thy God. Likewise Joshua of Nave, his successor: And the Lord said to Joshua: Make thee knives of stone very sharp, and sit down, and circumcise the sons of Israel a second time.

He said that a second circumcision was to come—not of the flesh, as the first was, which the Jews still use even now, but of the heart and spirit, which Christ delivered, who was the true Joshua. For the Prophet does not say: And the Lord said to me, but, to Joshua; so as to show that he was not speaking of himself, but of Christ, to whom God was then speaking. For that Joshua bore the figure of Christ: he who, when he was first called Oshea, Moses, foreseeing things to come, commanded to be called Joshua; so that, since he had been chosen as leader of the army against Amalek, who was attacking the sons of Israel, he might both vanquish the adversary through the figure of the name, and lead the people into the land of promise. And for this reason also he succeeded Moses, to show that the new law given through Christ Jesus would succeed the old law which was given through Moses.

For that circumcision of the flesh is altogether without reason; because if God had willed it, he would have formed man from the beginning without a foreskin. But it was a figure of this second circumcision, signifying that the breast must be laid bare, that is, that we ought to live with an open and sincere heart; since that part of the body which is circumcised has a certain likeness to the heart, and is a shameful part. For this reason God commanded it to be bared, so that by this token he might admonish us not to have an enveloped breast, that is, not to veil within the secrets of conscience any deed that is shameful. This is the circumcision of the heart, of which the prophets speak, which God transferred from mortal flesh to the soul, which alone is to endure.

For, wishing in his eternal goodness to provide for our life and salvation, he set before us repentance in that circumcision, so that if we lay bare our heart, that is, if we have confessed our sins and made satisfaction to God, we may obtain pardon; which is denied by him—who beholds not the face, as man does, but the inmost and hidden things of the breast—to the stubborn and to those who conceal their transgressions. To the same end also tends the prohibition of swine's flesh; when God commanded them to abstain from it, he wished this above all to be understood: that they should abstain from sins and uncleannesses.

For this animal is filthy and unclean; it never looks up to heaven, but cast down upon the earth with its whole body and snout, it ever serves its belly and its fodder; nor can it render any other use while it lives, as other animals can, which either provide a seat and vehicle for riding, or assist in the cultivation of fields, or draw wagons with their necks, or carry burdens on their backs, or furnish clothing from their fleeces, or abound in a supply of milk, or keep watch in guarding houses. He therefore forbade the use of swine's flesh, that is, lest they imitate the life of swine, which are reared only for death; lest, serving their belly and pleasures, they should be useless for doing justice and be visited with death. Likewise, lest they plunge themselves into foul lusts, as the sow wallows in mire; or lest they serve earthly idols and defile themselves with mud. For they smear themselves with mud who worship gods, that is, who worship mud and earth.

Thus all the precepts of the Jewish law look toward the practice of justice, since they were given in an indirect manner, so that through the figure of carnal things spiritual things might be known.

When therefore Christ was fulfilling those things which God willed to be done, and which he had foretold through his prophets many ages before, they were stirred up on account of these things, and, not knowing the divine scriptures, they assembled to condemn their God. Since he knew this was going to happen, and kept saying that he must suffer and be slain for the salvation of many, he nevertheless withdrew with his disciples, not to avoid what he necessarily had to endure and undergo, but to show that this ought to be done in every persecution, lest anyone appear to have fallen into it through his own fault; and he announced that he would be betrayed by one of them. And so Judas, enticed by a reward, delivered the Son of God to the Jews.

And they, having seized him and brought him before Pontius Pilate, who was then governing Syria as legate, demanded that he be fastened to the cross, charging him with nothing else save that he said he was the Son of God and king of the Jews; likewise that he had said: If you destroy this temple, which was built in forty-six years, I will raise it up again in three days without hands; signifying that his passion was soon to come, and that he, slain by the Jews, would rise again on the third day. For he himself was the true temple of God. These words of his they attacked as ill-omened and impious. When Pilate had heard these things, and he said nothing in his own defense, Pilate declared that nothing worthy of condemnation appeared in him. But those most unjust accusers, together with the people whom they had stirred up, began to cry out and to demand his cross with violent shouts.

Then Pontius was overcome both by their clamors and by the instigation of Herod the Tetrarch, who feared lest he be driven from his kingdom. Yet Pilate himself did not pronounce sentence; but he delivered him to the Jews, that they themselves might judge him according to their own law. They therefore led him away, having scourged him, and before they fastened him to the cross, they mocked him; for they clothed him in a garment of scarlet color, and crowned him with thorns, and greeted him as a king, and gave him food of gall, and mixed for him a drink of vinegar. After these things, they spat upon his face and struck him with their palms. And when the executioners themselves were contending over his garments, they cast lots among themselves for his tunic and cloak. And while all these things were being done, he uttered no word from his mouth, as though he were mute. Then they suspended him between two criminals in the middle, who had been condemned for robberies, and fastened him to the cross.

What shall I lament here in the face of so great a crime? Or with what words shall I bewail so great a wickedness? For we are not describing the cross of Gavius, which Marcus Tullius pursued with all the sinews and forces of his eloquence, as though pouring forth all the fountains of his genius, proclaiming it an unworthy deed that a Roman citizen had been raised upon the cross contrary to all laws. Though he was innocent and undeserving of that punishment, he was nevertheless mortal, and was treated so by a wicked man who knew not justice. What shall we say of the indignity of this cross, upon which God was hung and fastened by the worshippers of God? Who shall be found so eloquent, and furnished with so great an abundance of matter and words? What speech, flowing with such richness of abundance, could worthily bewail that cross, which the world itself and all the elements of the world mourned?

Now that these things were to come to pass was announced both by the voices of the prophets and by the Sibylline verses. In Isaiah it is found written thus: I am not rebellious, neither do I contradict: I have given my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked them: I have not turned away my face from the foulness of spitting. Likewise David in: Scourges were gathered against me, and they knew it not; they were scattered, and were not pricked with remorse: they tempted me, and mocked me with mockery; and they gnashed upon me with their teeth. The Sibyl also showed that the same things were to come: Into the hands of the lawless and faithless he shall come at last: They shall give blows to God with unclean hands, And with polluted mouths poisonous spittings: And he shall give his pure back simply to the scourges.

Likewise, concerning his silence, which he maintained persistently until death, Isaiah again spoke thus: As a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he opened not his mouth. And the aforesaid Sibyl: And being buffeted he shall be silent, lest any should know What word he is, or whence he came, that he might speak to the dead; And he shall wear the crown of thorns. Concerning the food and drink which they offered him before they fastened him, David in Psalm LXVIII says thus: And they gave me gall for my food; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. The Sibyl also proclaimed that this was to come to pass. And another Sibyl rebukes the land of Judaea in these verses. And that the Jews would lay hands on their God and slay him, these testimonies of the prophets went before. In Esdras it is written thus: And Esdras said to the people: This passover is our Saviour and our refuge.

Consider, and let it ascend into your heart, that we are to humble him in a sign, and after these things we shall hope in him, that this place be not forsaken for ever, saith the Lord God of hosts. If ye shall not believe him, nor hear his proclamation, ye shall be a mockery among the nations. Whence it appears that the Jews have no other hope, unless they wash themselves from blood and hope in him whom they denied. Isaiah also designates their crime, and says: In his humiliation his judgment was taken away. Who shall declare his generation? For his life shall be taken from the earth; he was led to death by the transgressions of my people. And I will give the wicked for his burial, and the rich for his death: because he did no iniquity, neither was guile found in his mouth.

Therefore he shall obtain many, and shall divide the spoils of the strong; because he was delivered unto death, and was reckoned among the transgressors: and he bore the sins of many, and was delivered for their transgressions. David also: They will hunt after the soul of the just, and will condemn innocent blood, and the Lord is become my refuge. Jeremiah: Lord, make it known to me, and I shall know: then I saw their devices; I was led as a meek lamb to the slaughter: they devised devices against me, saying: Come, let us put wood into his bread, and cut him off from the land of the living, and let his name be remembered no more. Now the wood signifies the cross, and the bread his body, because he himself is the food and life of all who believe in the flesh which he bore and in the cross upon which he hung.

Yet concerning this, Moses himself spoke more openly in Deuteronomy, saying: And thy life shall hang before thine eyes, and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt not believe thy life. The same again in Numbers: The Lord is not suspended as a man, nor does he suffer threats as the son of man. Zacharias also handed down thus: And they shall look upon me, whom they have pierced. Likewise David in: They have dug through my hands and my feet, they have numbered all my bones: but they themselves looked on and beheld me, they divided my garments among themselves, and upon my vesture they cast lots. These things the Prophet surely did not speak of himself. For he was a king, and never suffered those things. But the Spirit of God was speaking through him, who was to suffer those things after one thousand and fifty years. For so many years are reckoned from the reign of David to the cross of Christ.

But also Solomon, his son, who founded Jerusalem, prophesied that that same city would perish in vengeance for the holy cross: But if ye turn away from me, saith the Lord, and keep not my truth, I will cast Israel out of the land which I gave them; and this house, which I have built for them in my name, I will cast it out from all; and Israel shall be for destruction and for reproach to the people: and this house shall be desolate; and every one that passeth by it shall marvel, and shall say: For what cause hath the Lord done these evils to this land and to this house? And they shall say: Because they forsook the Lord their God, and persecuted their king most beloved of God, and tormented him in great humility; therefore God brought upon them these evils.

What more can now be said of the crime of the Jews, than that they were at that time blinded and seized by an incurable madness, who, reading these things daily, neither understood them, nor were able to take heed lest they should do them? He therefore, being hung and fastened, cried out to the Lord with a loud voice, and of his own will gave up the spirit. And at that same hour an earthquake occurred. And the veil of the temple, which separated the two tabernacles, was rent in two parts; and the sun was suddenly withdrawn, and from the sixth hour until the ninth there was darkness. Concerning which the prophet Amos testifies: And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord, the sun shall go down at noon, and the day of light shall be darkened; and I will turn your feast days into mourning, and your songs into lamentation.

Likewise Jeremiah: She that gave birth was affrighted, and her soul was wearied; and the sun went down upon her while it was yet midday; she was confounded and cursed: the rest of them I will give to the sword in the sight of their enemies. And the Sibyl: When these things had come to pass, they were not able to understand their crime even by the heavenly portents.

But since he had foretold that he would rise again from the dead on the third day, fearing lest, if the body were taken away and removed by the disciples, all should believe that he had risen, and a far greater confusion should arise among the people, they took him down from the cross, and enclosed him in a tomb, surrounding it firmly with a military guard. But on the third day, before dawn, when an earthquake had occurred, the sepulchre was suddenly opened, and while the guards, whom terror had struck dumb and stupefied, saw nothing, he went forth whole and living from the sepulchre, and departed into Galilee to seek his disciples: in the sepulchre, however, nothing was found except the wrappings in which they had enclosed the body when they wrapped it. That he would not remain among the dead, but would rise again on the third day, the prophets had sung. David in: Thou wilt not leave my soul among the dead, nor wilt thou give thy holy one to see corruption.

Likewise in the third: I lay down and slept, and rose again; because the Lord helped me. Hosea also, the first of the twelve prophets, testified concerning his resurrection: This son of mine is wise; for this reason he shall not now resist in the tribulation of his children, and I will deliver him from the hand of the dead. Where is thy judgment, O death, or where is thy sting? The same in another place: He will revive us after two days on the third day. And therefore the Sibyl said that a limit was set upon death after the sleep of three days: for he acquired life for us by overcoming death. Therefore no other hope of attaining immortality is given to man, unless he shall have believed in him, and taken upon himself that cross to be borne and endured.

Having therefore departed into Galilee (for he was unwilling to show himself to the Jews, lest he should bring them to repentance and heal the impious), and having gathered his disciples together again, he opened to them the letters of Holy Scripture, that is, the secrets of the prophets; which before he suffered could in no way be perceived, because they announced him and his passion. For this reason Moses, and those same prophets, call the law which was given to the Jews a Testament; because unless the testator shall have died, neither can the testament be confirmed, nor can it be known what is written in it, since it is closed and sealed. And so unless Christ had undergone death, the testament could not have been opened, that is, the mystery of God could not have been revealed and understood. But all Scripture is divided into two Testaments.

That which preceded the coming and passion of Christ, that is, the law and the prophets, is called the Old; but those things which were written after his resurrection are named the New Testament. The Jews use the Old, we the New: yet they are not different, because the New is the fulfilment of the Old, and in both the testator is the same Christ, who by taking death upon himself for our sake made us heirs of the eternal kingdom, the people of the Jews being disinherited and cast off; as the prophet Jeremiah testifies, when he speaks thus: Behold the days come, saith the Lord; and I will make a new testament with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the testament which I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand, to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they themselves did not persevere in my testament, and I disregarded them, saith the Lord.

Likewise in another place he says similarly: I have forsaken my house; I have given my heritage into the hands of her enemies. My heritage is become to me as a lion in the forest: she hath given her voice against me; therefore I have hated her. Since his heritage is the heavenly kingdom, he does not say that he hates the heritage itself, but the heirs, who showed themselves ungrateful and impious toward him. My heritage, he says, is become to me as a lion: that is, I have become prey and devourment to my heirs, who sacrificed me as a beast. She hath given her voice against me; that is, they pronounced the sentence of death and the cross against me. For what he says above, that he would make a new testament with the house of Judah, shows that that old testament which was given through Moses was not perfect; but that which was to be given through Christ would be complete.

But the house of Judah and Israel does not signify the Jews, whom he cast off, but us, who, called by him from among the Gentiles, have succeeded to their place and adoption, and are called sons of the Jews; which the Sibyl declares when she says: the divine heavenly race of the blessed Jews. But whom that race was to be, Isaiah teaches, in whom the supreme Father speaks to the Son, saying: I the Lord God have called thee in justice, and I will hold thy hand, and will strengthen thee, and I have given thee for a testament of my race, for a light of the nations, to open the eyes of the blind, to bring forth the bound from their chains, and those sitting in darkness from the prison house.

Since therefore we formerly, as though blind, and as though shut up in the prison of folly, sat in darkness, not knowing God and the truth, we have been enlightened by him who adopted us by his testament, and, freed from evil chains and brought forth into the light of wisdom, has enrolled us in the inheritance of the heavenly kingdom.

Having then ordained for his disciples the preaching of the Gospel and of his name, a cloud suddenly surrounded him and lifted him up into heaven, on the fortieth day after his passion, as Daniel had shown it would be, saying: And behold, one like the son of man coming with the clouds of heaven, came even to the Ancient of days.

The disciples, dispersed throughout the provinces, laid the foundations of the Church everywhere, themselves also performing great and almost incredible miracles in the name of their master God; because at his departure he had equipped them with power and authority, by which the plan of the new proclamation might be established and confirmed: but he also revealed to them all things to come, which Peter and Paul preached at Rome, and that preaching remained preserved in writing; in which, among many other wondrous things, they also said this would come to pass, that after a short time God would send a king who would attack the Jews, and level their cities to the ground, and besiege them, worn out with hunger and thirst.

Then it would come to pass that they would feed upon the bodies of their own people and consume one another; and finally that, taken captive, they would come into the hands of their enemies, and before their own eyes would see their wives most bitterly abused, their virgins violated and prostituted, their boys dragged away, their little ones dashed down, and all things at last laid waste with fire and sword, and the captives banished forever from their own lands; because they had exulted over the most beloved and most approved Son of God. And so after the death of those men, when Nero had slain them, Vespasian destroyed the name and nation of the Jews, and did all the things which they had foretold would come to pass.

Those things which are considered false and incredible by those whom the true doctrine of the heavenly writings has not imbued have been confirmed, as I think: but nevertheless, so that we may also refute those who are too wise, not without harm to themselves, and who withdraw credence from divine things, let us also convict their error by arguments; so that at last they may fully perceive that it was necessary for things to happen as we have shown they happened. And although before good judges either testimonies without arguments, or arguments without testimonies, have sufficient weight; yet we, not content with either alone, since both are available to us, leave no room to anyone perversely clever either for not understanding or for arguing against us. They deny that anything could be taken away from an immortal nature.

They deny, in short, that it is worthy of God to wish to become man, and to burden himself with the weakness of flesh; to subject himself to passions, to pain, to death: as though it were not easy for him to show himself to men without the infirmity of a body, and to teach them justice (if indeed that was his will) with greater authority, as one who professed himself God. For then, they say, all would have obeyed the heavenly precepts, if the power and authority of God commanding had accompanied them. Why therefore, they say, did he not come as God to teach men? Why did he make himself so humble and weak that he could be both despised by men and subjected to punishment? Why did he suffer violence from the weak and mortal? Why did he not repel the hands of men either by power, or avoid them by his divinity? Why did he not reveal his majesty at least at the very moment of death?

But like one without strength he was led to judgment, like one guilty he was condemned, like one mortal he was slain. I will refute these things carefully, and will suffer no one to err. For those things were done by a great and wonderful design; whoever shall have grasped it will not only cease to wonder that God was tormented by men, but will also easily perceive that God could not even have been believed to be God, if those very things which he finds fault with had not been done.

Whoever gives precepts to men and shapes the morals of others, I ask: ought he himself to do what he prescribes, or ought he not? If he does not do it, the precepts are dissolved. For if the things that are prescribed are good, if they place the life of men in the best condition, the preceptor himself ought not to separate himself from the number and company of men among whom he lives; and he must live in the same manner in which he teaches that one ought to live, lest if he lives otherwise, he himself detract credibility from his own precepts, and make his teaching of less weight, if in actual fact he dissolves what he strives to bind by words. For each person, when he hears one giving precepts, does not wish to have the necessity of obeying imposed upon him, as though the right of his liberty were taken away; and so he answers the teacher in this way: I cannot do what you command, since these things are impossible.

You forbid me to be angry, you forbid me to desire, you forbid me to be moved by lust, you forbid me to fear pain, you forbid me to fear death: but this is so contrary to nature that all living creatures are subject to these passions; or if you think that nature can be so resisted, do yourself what you prescribe, so that I may know it can be done. But since you yourself do not do it, what insolence is it that you wish to impose laws upon a free man which you yourself do not obey? First learn, you who teach, and before you correct the morals of others, correct your own. Who would deny that this response is just? Indeed, such a teacher will come into contempt, and will in turn be mocked, because he will seem to be mocking others himself. What then will that preceptor do, if these things are set against him?

How will he take away the excuse of the contumacious, unless by present deeds he teaches that what he teaches is possible? Hence it comes about that no one obeys the precepts of the philosophers. For men prefer examples to words; because it is easy to speak, difficult to perform. Would that as many did well as speak well. But those who give precepts and do not act accordingly lack credibility. And if they are men, they will be despised as frivolous; if God, the excuse of human frailty will be set against him. It remains that words be confirmed by deeds, which philosophers cannot do: and so since the preceptors themselves are overcome by the passions which they declare must be overcome, they can instruct no one in the virtue which they falsely proclaim; and for this reason they think that no perfect wise man has yet existed, that is, one in whom the highest virtue and perfect justice have been united with the highest learning and knowledge, which indeed was true.

For no such person has existed since the world was founded, except Christ, who both delivered wisdom by word, and confirmed his teaching by present virtue.

Come, let us now consider whether a teacher sent from heaven can fail to be perfect. I do not yet speak of him whom they deny to have come from God. Let us suppose that someone is to be sent from heaven, to instruct the life of men in the rudiments of virtue, and to form them unto justice. No one can doubt that that teacher, who is sent from heaven, is perfect both in knowledge of all things and in virtue; lest there be no difference between the heavenly and the earthly. For in a man there can be no internal and proper doctrine in any way. For the mind, enclosed in earthly flesh and hindered by the defilement of the body, can neither comprehend truth by itself, nor receive it, unless it be taught from elsewhere. And even if it could to the greatest degree, it could not yet attain the highest virtue, nor resist all the vices, the material of which is contained in the flesh. Hence it comes about that an earthly teacher cannot be perfect.

But a heavenly one, to whom divinity grants knowledge and immortality grants virtue, must also be perfect and complete in teaching, as in all other things. But this can in no way come to pass unless he takes upon himself a mortal body. And the reason why it cannot come to pass is clear. For if he comes to men as God, to say nothing of the fact that mortal eyes cannot behold and endure the brightness of his majesty, God himself certainly will not be able to teach virtue, because, being without a body, he will not do what he will teach, and on this account his teaching will not be perfect.

Otherwise, if it is the highest virtue to bear pain patiently for the sake of justice and duty, if it is virtue neither to fear death itself when threatened, nor to shrink from it when inflicted; then that perfect teacher ought both to teach these things by precept, and to confirm them by doing; because he who gives precepts for living ought to cut off all paths of excuse, so as to impose upon men the necessity of obeying, not by any force, but by shame, and yet to leave them freedom, so that there may be both a reward established for those who obey, because they could have refused to obey if they had wished, and a punishment for those who do not obey, because they could have obeyed if they had wished. How then will the excuse be cut off, unless he who teaches does what he teaches, and as it were going before, stretches out his hand to the one who is to follow?

But how can he do what he teaches, if he is not like the one he teaches? For if he is subject to no passion, a man can answer him as he teaches thus: I indeed wish not to sin; but I am overcome; for I am clothed in frail and feeble flesh; it is this that desires, that is angry, that grieves, that fears to die. And so I am led unwillingly, and I sin, not because I wish, but because I am compelled. I myself perceive that I sin: but the necessity of frailty drives me on, which I cannot resist. What will that preceptor of justice answer to these things? How will he confute and refute the man who covers his faults with the excuse of the flesh, unless he himself also be clothed in flesh, so as to show that even flesh can receive virtue? For contumacy cannot be refuted except by example.

For the things you teach cannot have firmness unless you have done them first; because the nature of men, prone to vices, wishes to seem to sin not only with pardon, but even with reason. The master and teacher of virtue must become most like a man, so that by conquering sin, he may teach man that sin can be conquered by him. But if he be immortal, he can in no way set an example before man. For some steadfast person will arise and say: You indeed do not sin, because you are free from this body; you do not desire, because nothing is necessary to an immortal being. But I have need of many things, to sustain this life. You do not fear death, because it has no power over you. You despise pain, because you can suffer no force. But I, a mortal, fear both, because they inflict the gravest torments upon me, which the weakness of the flesh cannot endure.

The teacher of virtue therefore ought also to take away this excuse from men; lest anyone ascribe his sinning to necessity rather than to his own fault. Therefore, that he may be perfect, nothing ought to be set against him by the one who is to be taught; so that if perchance he says: You prescribe impossible things; he may answer: Behold, I myself do them. But I am clothed in flesh, whose property it is to sin. And I bear the same flesh; and yet sin does not hold dominion in me. It is difficult for me to despise riches, because one cannot live otherwise in this body. Behold, I too have a body; and yet I fight against all desire. I cannot bear either pain or death for the sake of justice, because I am frail. Behold, pain and death also have power over me, and those very things which you fear I overcome, so that I may make you a conqueror of pain and death.

I go first through those things which you pretend cannot be endured; if you cannot follow one who prescribes, follow one who goes before. In this way all excuse is taken away; and the man must confess that it is by his own fault that he is unjust, who does not follow the teacher of virtue, and the same as his guide. You see therefore how much more perfect a mortal teacher is, because he can be a guide to a mortal, than an immortal, because one who is not subject to passions cannot teach patience. Nor does this tend to the point that I prefer a man to God: but to show that neither can a man be capable of perfect teaching, unless he be also God, so that by heavenly authority he may impose upon men the necessity of obeying; nor can God, unless he be clothed in a mortal body, by fulfilling his precepts in deeds, bind the rest by the necessity of obeying.

It is therefore clearly apparent that he who is to be the guide of life and the master of justice must be corporeal; and that in no other way can his teaching be full and perfect, unless it have a root and foundation, and remain stable and fixed among men: and that he himself must undergo the weakness of flesh and body, and receive into himself the virtue of which he is the teacher, so that he may teach it at once both by words and by deeds. Likewise that he must be subject to death and to all passions; since the duties of virtue are exercised both in enduring passion and in undergoing death: all of which, as I have said, the perfect teacher must suffer, so that he may teach that they can be endured.

For since man consists of flesh and spirit, and it is necessary that the spirit earn by works of justice that it may become eternal; the flesh, since it is earthly and therefore mortal, draws the spirit joined to itself along with it, and leads it from immortality to death. Therefore a spirit without flesh could in no way be a guide for man to immortality: since the flesh hinders the spirit from following God. For it is frail, and subject to sin: but sin is the food of death. And so for this reason the mediator came, that is, God in flesh, so that the flesh might be able to follow him, and he might snatch from death the man over whose flesh death holds dominion. Therefore he clothed himself in flesh, so that by subduing the desires of the flesh, he might teach that sinning is not a matter of necessity, but of purpose and will.

For we have one great and chief struggle with the flesh: whose infinite desires press down the soul, and do not allow it to retain dominion: but having enslaved it with pleasures and sweet enticements, they afflict it with everlasting death. That we might be able to resist these, God both opened and showed us the way of overcoming the flesh. Which perfect virtue, complete in all its parts, bestows upon the conquerors a crown and the reward of immortality.

Likewise he cleansed the stains and blemishes of defiled bodies, no small work of immortal power: but this power portended that his teaching would purify by the instruction of justice those defiled by the stains of sins and the blemishes of vices. For they ought truly to be considered lepers and those afflicted with elephantiasis, whom either infinite desires drive to crimes, or insatiable pleasures drive to shameful acts, and who, branded with the marks of disgrace, are afflicted with everlasting defilement. He raised up the prostrate bodies of the dead, and called them back from death, bowed down by their own names. What is more fitting for God? What more worthy of wonder throughout all ages, than to have restored a life that had run its course, and to have added perpetual time to the completed span of men, and to have revealed the secrets of death?

But this ineffable power was an image of a greater virtue, which showed that his teaching would have such great force, that the nations throughout the whole world, who had been strangers to God and subject to death, animated by the knowledge of the true light, would attain to the rewards of immortality. For you would rightly consider those to be dead, who, not knowing God the giver of life, and pressing their souls down from heaven to earth, fall into the snares of eternal death. What therefore he then did in the present were images of things to come; what he displayed in injured and afflicted bodies bore the figure of spiritual things, so that both in the present he might show works of virtue not earthly, and for the future he might display the power of his heavenly majesty.

Therefore just as his works also had the significance of a greater power, so also his passion went before not simple, nor superfluous, nor fortuitous. But as those things which he did signified the great virtue and power of his teaching: so those things which he suffered announced that wisdom would be hated in the future. For the drink of vinegar and the food of gall promised bitterness and acerbities in this life to the followers of truth. And although the passion itself by itself, bitter and harsh, gave us a foretaste of the future torments which virtue itself sets before those who linger in this age; yet that kind of drink and food coming into the mouth of our teacher gave us an example of pressures, and labors, and miseries. All of which those who follow truth must endure and suffer; since truth is harsh, and hated by all who, lacking virtue, give their life over to deadly pleasures.

For the crown of thorns placed upon his head declared that he would gather for himself a divine people from among the harmful. For a crown is said to be a people standing around in a circle. But we, who before the knowledge of God were unjust, were thorns, that is, evil and harmful, not knowing what was good; and being strangers to the knowledge and works of justice, we defiled all things with crime and lust. Chosen therefore from brambles and briars, we encircle the holy head of God; because called by him, and gathered around him on all sides, we stand by him as our master and teacher God, and we crown that king of the world and Lord of all living things.

Now as regards the cross, there is great power and reason in it, which I shall now endeavor to show. For God (as I explained above) when He had resolved to free mankind, sent a teacher of virtue to the earth, who both by wholesome precepts might form men unto innocence, and by present works and deeds might open the way of justice, by walking which and following his teacher, man might arrive at eternal life. He therefore took on a body, and clothed in the garment of flesh, that he might furnish to man, to teach whom he had come, both examples and incentives of virtue.

But when in all the duties of life he had given a pattern of justice, in order also to deliver to man the endurance of pain and the contempt of death, by which virtue is made perfect and complete, he came into the hands of an impious nation, though he could both have avoided it by the foreknowledge of the future which he possessed, and repelled it by the same power by which he wrought miracles. He therefore endured torments, and stripes, and thorns. Finally he did not refuse even to undergo death, so that man, with him as guide, might triumph over death subdued and bound with all its terrors. But why the most high Father chose that particular kind of death to which he permitted him to be subjected, this is the reason. For someone may perhaps say: why, if he was God and willed to die, was he not at least subjected to some honorable kind of death? Why especially the cross?

Why an infamous kind of punishment, which is not even fitting for a free man, however lowly? He had to come as one lowly and humble, to bring help to the lowly and the lowest, and to show to all the hope of salvation, and therefore had to be subjected to that kind of death to which the lowly and the lowest are accustomed, so that there might be absolutely no one who could not imitate him. Then also that his body might be kept whole, since it was necessary that he rise from the dead on the third day.

For no one should be ignorant of this, that he himself, foretelling his own passion beforehand, also made it known that he had the power, whenever he willed, of laying down his spirit and taking it up again. And so, because he had laid down his spirit when fixed to the cross, the executioners did not think it necessary to break his bones (as their custom required), but only pierced his side. Thus his whole body was taken down from the gibbet and carefully enclosed in the tomb. All these things were done for this reason, lest the body, being injured and diminished, should be rendered unfit for resurrection. There was also this chief reason why God preferred the cross, that the cross has the curse of God attached to it. But it was necessary that Christ be cursed, so that we might be justified. RIVET. The cross, because it was necessary that he be lifted up on it, and that the passion of God become known to all nations.

For since he who is suspended on a gibbet is both conspicuous to all and higher than the rest, the cross was rather chosen, which would signify that he was to be so conspicuous and so exalted, that all nations from the whole world would flock together alike to know and to worship him. Finally there is no nation so barbarous, no region so remote, to which either his passion or the sublimity of his majesty is unknown. In his passion therefore he stretched out his hands and measured out the world, to show even then that from the rising of the sun to its setting, a great people gathered from all tongues and tribes was to come under his wings, and was to receive upon their foreheads that greatest and most exalted sign.

A figure of this thing the Jews even now display, when they mark their doorposts with the blood of a lamb. For God, about to smite the Egyptians, in order to make the Hebrews immune from that plague, had commanded them to sacrifice an unblemished white lamb, and to place a sign on their doorposts from its blood. And so when the firstborn of the Egyptians had perished in a single night, the Hebrews alone were kept safe by the sign of blood; not because the blood of a beast carried such power in itself as to be a means of salvation to men: but it had been an image of things to come. For the unblemished white lamb was Christ, that is, innocent, and just, and foretelling: for prae is the same as ante. The holy one, who, slain by those same Jews, is a means of salvation to all who have inscribed upon their foreheads the sign of blood, that is, of the cross by which he shed his blood.

For the forehead is the topmost threshold of man; and the wood smeared with blood is the sign of the cross. Finally the slaughter of the beast is called by those very ones who perform it the Passover, ἀπὸ τοῦ πάσχειν, because it is a figure of the passion, which God, foreknowing things to come, delivered through Moses to his people to be celebrated. But then the figure availed in the present to ward off danger; so that it may appear how greatly the truth itself will avail to protect the people of God in the final necessity of the whole world. But in what manner, or in what plague, all shall be safe who have marked upon the summit of their body this sign of the true and divine blood, I shall teach in the last book.

Now it is enough to set forth how great is the power of this sign. How great a terror this sign is to demons, he will know who has seen to what extent they flee, when adjured through Christ, from the bodies which they have possessed. For just as he himself, when he lived among men, put all demons to flight by a word, and restored the minds of men that had been disturbed and maddened by evil assaults to their former senses: so now his followers drive out those same unclean spirits from men, both by the name of their master and by the sign of his passion. The proof of this is not difficult. For when they sacrifice to their gods, if anyone stands by bearing a signed forehead, the sacrifices in no way find favorable omens.

And this was often the chief cause of evil kings persecuting justice. For when certain of our servants stood by their masters as they sacrificed, and by placing the sign upon their foreheads drove away their gods, so that they could not depict the future in the entrails of the victims, the soothsayers, understanding this, and instigated by those same demons for whom they cut open the victims, complained that profane men were present at the sacred rites, and drove their princes into a fury, so that they would attack the temple of God and defile themselves with true sacrilege, which would be expiated by the gravest punishments upon the persecutors. Yet from this very fact those blind men cannot understand either that this is the true religion, which has such power for conquering, or that that one is false, which cannot stand firm or engage in combat. But they say that the gods do this not from fear but from hatred; as if anyone could hate except one who either harms or is able to harm.

Indeed it would have been fitting to their majesty to afflict with present punishments those whom they hated, rather than to flee from them. But since they can neither approach those in whom they have seen the heavenly mark, nor harm those whom the immortal sign has fortified like an impregnable wall, they harass them through men and persecute them by others' hands: whom assuredly if they confess to exist, we have won. For it is necessary that this religion be true, which both knows the nature of demons, and understands their cunning, and blunts their force, and compels them, tamed and subdued by spiritual arms, to yield to it. If they deny it, they will be refuted by the testimonies of poets and philosophers. But if they do not deny that they exist and are evil, what remains, except that they say some are gods and others demons?

Let them therefore set forth for us the difference between the two kinds, so that we may know what is to be worshipped and what is to be execrated; whether they have any fellowship with one another, or are truly enemies. If they are joined by some necessity, how far shall we distinguish them? Or how shall we mingle the honor and worship of both kinds? But if they are enemies, why do demons not fear the gods, or why cannot the gods put demons to flight? Behold, someone driven by the impulse of a demon raves, is carried away, is mad: let us lead him into the temple of Jupiter the Best and Greatest; or, since Jupiter does not know how to heal men, into the shrine of Aesculapius or Apollo. Let the priest of either one command, in the name of his god, that the harmful spirit depart from the man: in no way can this be done. What then is the power of the gods, if they do not have demons subject to them?

But those same demons, adjured by the name of the true God, immediately flee. What is the reason that they fear Christ but do not fear Jupiter, unless it is that those same beings are demons whom the common people suppose to be gods? Finally, if there be placed in the midst both one who is known to be suffering the assault of a demon, and the prophet of the Delphic Apollo, they will dread the name of God in the same way; and Apollo will depart from his prophet just as quickly as that demonic spirit from the man, and with his god adjured and put to flight, the prophet will fall silent forever. Therefore those same beings are demons, whom they confess must be execrated, and those same are the gods to whom they supplicate.

If they think we are not to be believed, let them believe Homer, who numbered that supreme Jupiter among the demons: but also other poets and philosophers, who call the same beings now demons, now gods; of which the one is true, the other false. For those most wicked spirits, when they are adjured, there confess themselves to be demons; when they are worshipped, there falsely claim themselves to be gods, so that they may cast errors upon men and draw them away from the knowledge of the true God, through which alone eternal death can be avoided. These same are they who, for the purpose of casting man down, established for themselves various cults in different regions, yet under false and assumed names, so that they might deceive. For because they could not lay claim to divinity through themselves, they took to themselves the names of powerful kings, under whose titles they claimed for themselves the honors of gods. This error can be dispersed and drawn out into the light of truth.

For if anyone is eager to inquire more deeply, let him gather those who have skill in calling up souls from the dead. Let them call up Jupiter, Neptune, Vulcan, Mercury, Apollo, and Saturn the father of all. All will answer from the dead, and when questioned will speak, and will make confession concerning themselves and God. After this let them call up Christ: he will not be present, he will not appear; because he was among the dead for no more than two days. What more certain proof than this can be brought forward? I indeed do not doubt that Trismegistus arrived at the truth by some such reasoning, he who spoke many things concerning the Son of God which are contained in the divine mysteries.

Since these things are as we have shown, it is clear that no other hope of life is set before man, unless he put aside vanities and wretched error, know God, and serve God; unless he renounce this temporal life and form himself by the rudiments of justice for the worship of true Religion. For on this condition we are born, that we may render just and due service to God who begat us; that we may know Him alone and follow Him. Bound and tied to God by this bond of piety, we are held fast; whence Religion itself received its name—not as Cicero interpreted it, from re-reading (relegendo), who in the second book of his work On the Nature of the Gods spoke thus: "For not only philosophers, but our ancestors as well, separated superstition from religion. For those who prayed all day long and offered sacrifice that their children might survive them were called superstitious.

But those who carefully went over and, as it were, re-read all things pertaining to the worship of the gods, were called religious, from re-reading (relegendo), just as elegant from choosing (eligendo), and diligent from selecting (deligendo), and intelligent from understanding (intelligendo). For in all these words there is the same force of reading (legendi) as in religious: and so it came about with superstitious and religious, that the one name is of blame, the other of praise." How inept this interpretation is may be understood from the matter itself. For if both superstition and religion are concerned with the worship of the same gods, there is little or rather no difference. For what reason will he bring me to explain why he thinks it the act of a religious man to pray once for the safety of his children, but the act of a superstitious man to do the same thing ten times? For if to do it once is best, how much more to do it more often?

If at the first hour, then also throughout the whole day. If one victim is sufficient to appease, surely very many victims are more appeasing, because multiplied acts of service earn favor rather than give offence. For those servants who are constant and frequent in their attendance do not seem hateful to us, but rather more dear. Why then should he who either loves his children more, or honors the gods more, be at fault and receive a name of reproach, while he who does so less is praised? This argument also holds from the contrary. For if to pray and sacrifice all day long is a crime, then so is doing it once. If it is a fault to wish repeatedly for the survival of one's children, then he too is superstitious who has wished for it even rarely. Or why should it be a name of blame, if it is derived from that which nothing more honorable, nothing more just can be wished for?

For as to his saying that the religious were called so from re-reading (relegendo), because they carefully go over the things pertaining to the worship of the gods—why then do those who do this many times a day lose the name of religious, since they surely re-read with far greater diligence, by reason of their very assiduity, those things by which the gods are worshipped? What then is the truth? Surely religion is the worship of the true, superstition of the false. And it matters altogether what you worship, not how you worship, or what you pray for. But because the worshippers of gods think themselves religious, when they are superstitious, and can neither distinguish religion from superstition nor express the significance of the words, we have said that the name of Religion is derived from the bond of piety, because God has bound man to Himself and constrained him by piety; since it is necessary that we serve Him as a lord and obey Him as a father.

Lucretius therefore interpreted that name better, when he said that he was loosing the knots of religions. But superstitious persons are called so, not because they wish their children to survive them (for we all wish that), but either those who worship the surviving memory of the dead, or those who, surviving their parents, used to worship their images at home as household gods. For those who took up new rites for themselves, so as to honor the dead in the place of gods—those whom they believed had been received into heaven from among men—these were called superstitious. But those who worshipped the public and ancient gods were called religious. Hence Virgil: But since we find that even the ancient gods were consecrated in the same manner after death, those therefore are superstitious who worship many and false gods. But we are religious, who supplicate the one and true God.

Perhaps someone may ask how, when we say that we worship one God, we nevertheless assert that there are two, God the Father and God the Son—an assertion which has driven very many into the greatest error. To those for whom what we say seems probable, we appear to waver on this one point alone, namely that we confess both another God and a mortal God. Of mortality we have already spoken; now let us teach concerning unity. When we say God the Father and God the Son, we do not speak of two different beings, nor do we separate the one from the other; for neither can the Father exist without the Son, nor can the Son be separated from the Father, since neither can the Father be named without the Son, nor can the Son be begotten without the Father.

Since therefore the Father makes the Son and the Son makes the Father, there is one mind, one spirit, one substance for both: but the Father is as it were an overflowing spring, and the Son is as a stream flowing from it; the Father is as the sun, and the Son is as a ray extended from the sun. Since the Son is faithful and dear to the supreme Father, He is not separated from Him: just as the stream is not separated from the spring, nor the ray from the sun; because the water of the spring is in the stream, and the light of the sun is in the ray: equally, neither can the voice be severed from the mouth, nor virtue or the hand be torn from the body. Since therefore the same one is called by the prophets the hand of God, and virtue, and word, there is assuredly no distinction; because both the tongue, the minister of speech, and the hand, in which virtue resides, are inseparable parts of the body.

Therefore I wish to use an example. When a man has a son whom he loves uniquely, who nevertheless is in the house and under the authority of the father, even though he grants him the name of lord and power, yet by civil law both the house is called one and the lord is called one. So this world is one house of God; and the Son and the Father, who dwell in the world in harmony, are one God, because the two are as one and the one is as two. Nor is this surprising, since the Son is in the Father, because the Father loves the Son, and the Father is in the Son, because He faithfully obeys the will of the Father, and never does or has done anything except what the Father either willed or commanded.

Finally, that God is one, both Father and Son, Isaiah shows in that example which we set forth above, when he said: They shall worship thee and pray in thee, because God is in thee; and there is no other God besides thee. But also in another place he similarly says: Thus says God the king of Israel; and the eternal God who redeemed him: I am the first and I am the last; and besides me there is no God. Having set forth two Persons—of God the king, that is, of Christ, and of God the Father, who raised Him from the underworld after His passion, as we said the prophet Hosea showed, who says: And from the hand of the underworld I will redeem him—yet referring to both Persons together, he added: And besides me there is no God, when he could have said besides us: but it was not right that a separation of so great a bond should be made by the plural number.

For there is one God alone, free, supreme, lacking origin, because He Himself is the origin of all things; and in Him at once both the Son and all things are contained. Wherefore, since the mind and will of the one is in the other, or rather one mind and will is in both, both are rightly called one God, because whatever is in the Father flows over into the Son, and whatever is in the Son descends from the Father. That supreme and singular God therefore cannot be worshipped except through the Son. He who thinks he worships the Father alone, as he does not worship the Son, so neither does he worship the Father. But he who receives the Son and bears His name, truly worships together with the Son also the Father, since the Son is the legate and messenger and priest of the supreme Father. He is the door of the great temple, He is the way of light, He is the guide of salvation, He is the gate of life.

But since many heresies have arisen, and the people of God has been torn asunder by the instigation of demons, the truth must be briefly defined by us and placed in its own proper dwelling; so that if anyone wishes to draw the water of life, he may not be led to worn-out cisterns which have no spring, but may know the most abundant fountain of God, by which being watered he may obtain everlasting light. Above all it is fitting that we know that both He Himself and His messengers foretold that very many sects and heresies would arise, which would break the harmony of the holy body, and warned us that with the greatest prudence we should beware lest we ever fall into the snares and deceits of that adversary of ours, with whom God willed us to wrestle.

Then He gave certain commandments which we ought to keep forever: of which commandments very many, being unmindful, abandoned the heavenly way and made for themselves devious paths through windings and precipices; by which they led an incautious and simple part of the people to darkness and death: how far this has come to pass, I shall explain. There were certain of our number either of less settled faith, or less learned, or less cautious, who made a division of unity and scattered the Church. But those whose faith was unstable, while they pretended to know and worship God, striving after the increase of wealth and honor, coveted the highest priesthood, and being overcome by those more powerful, preferred to withdraw with their supporters rather than to endure as superiors those over whom they had themselves desired to be set first.

But certain others, not sufficiently instructed in the heavenly writings, when they could not answer the accusers of the truth, who objected that it was either impossible or incongruous that God should be enclosed in the womb of a woman, and that that heavenly majesty could not have been brought down to such weakness as to be an object of contempt, mockery, insult, and ridicule to men, and finally even to endure torments and be fastened to an accursed gibbet—since they could defend and refute none of these things either by natural ability or by learning (for they did not fully perceive the force and reason of the matter), they were turned aside from the right way and corrupted the heavenly writings, so as to compose for themselves a new doctrine without any root or stability. But some others, enticed by the prophecies of false prophets, of whom both the true prophets and He Himself had foretold, fell away from the doctrine of God and abandoned the true tradition.

But all those, ensnared by the deceits of demons, which they ought to have foreseen and avoided, lost through imprudence the divine name and worship. For when Phrygians, or Novatians, or Valentinians, or Marcionites, or Anthropians, or Arians, or any others of that kind are named, they have ceased to be Christians, who, having lost the name of Christ, have put on human and external designations. The Catholic Church alone, therefore, is the one that retains the true worship.

This is the fountain of truth, this is the dwelling-place of faith, this is the temple of God; whoever has not entered it, or whoever has gone out from it, is a stranger to the hope of life and eternal salvation. No one ought to flatter himself with stubborn contention. For it is a matter of life and salvation: unless careful and diligent provision is made for these, they will be lost and destroyed. Yet because each individual gathering of heretics thinks itself above all to be Christian and to be the Catholic Church, it must be known that the true Church is that in which there is confession and penance, which healthfully cures the sins and wounds to which the weakness of the flesh is subject. These things I have set forth briefly in the meantime for the sake of admonition, lest anyone desiring to flee error be entangled in a greater error, while he is ignorant of the inner chamber of truth.

Afterwards we shall fight more fully and more abundantly against all the sects of falsehoods in a separate and distinct work. It follows that, since we have spoken sufficiently of true religion and wisdom, we should discuss justice in the next book.

There is no doubt in my mind, Constantine, greatest of Emperors, that this work of ours, in which that singular creator of all things and ruler of this immense universe is defended, if any one of those foolishly religious men should lay hands upon it (as those who are intolerant through excessive superstition are wont to be), he will assail it with abuse as well, and having perhaps barely read the beginning, will fling it down, cast it away, and curse it; and will think himself contaminated and bound by inexpiable crime if he either reads these things patiently or hears them. From such a man, however, if it can be done, we ask by the right of common humanity that he not condemn before he has learned the whole.

For if the power of defending themselves is granted to the sacrilegious, to traitors, and to poisoners, and it is not lawful for anyone to be condemned before his case is heard: we seem to ask not unjustly that if there be anyone who chances upon these pages, if he reads, he read to the end; if he hears, he defer judgment to the last. But I know the stubbornness of men: we shall never obtain this. For they fear lest, being refuted by us, they should at some point be compelled to yield, with truth itself crying out. They therefore make a clamor and interpose objections lest they hear; and they press their eyes shut lest they see the light we offer. By this very act they plainly show their distrust of their own ruinous reasoning, since they dare neither to examine nor to engage, because they know they are easily overcome.

And therefore, with debate set aside, Wisdom is driven from the midst, force carries the day, as Ennius says; and because they are eager to condemn as guilty those whom they know to be innocent, they are unwilling to establish the very innocence of those persons. As though it were truly a greater injustice to have condemned proven innocence than innocence unheard. But, as I said, they fear that if they have heard, they may not be able to condemn. And therefore they torture, kill, and destroy the worshippers of the most high God, that is, just men; nor can those who hate so vehemently themselves render any account of the reasons for their hatred: because they themselves go astray, they rage against those who follow the true way, and when they could correct themselves, they heap their errors further with cruel deeds, are stained with the blood of the innocent, and wrest minds consecrated to God from bodies torn open.

With such men we now strive to engage and dispute, to lead them from foolish persuasion to truth—men who have more readily drunk blood than the words of the just. What then? Shall we waste our labor? By no means. For if we shall not have been able to win these men from the death toward which they rush headlong, if we cannot call them back from that wandering path to life and light, since they themselves resist their own salvation: we shall nonetheless strengthen our own people, whose conviction is not stable, nor founded and fixed on solid roots. For very many waver, and especially those who have had some contact with letters. For in this respect too philosophers, orators, and poets are dangerous, in that they can easily ensnare unwary minds with the sweetness of their speech and the pleasing rhythm of flowing verses. These are honeys concealing poison.

And for this reason I wished to join wisdom with Religion, lest that empty learning should be able to harm those devoted to study; so that henceforth the knowledge of letters might not only do no harm to Religion and justice, but might even be of the greatest benefit, if he who has learned them should be better equipped in virtues and wiser in truth. Moreover, even if it profit no others, it will certainly profit us: the conscience will take delight in itself, and the mind will rejoice in dwelling in the light of truth; which is the food of the soul, suffused with a certain incredible pleasantness. But we must not despair. Perhaps we do not sing to the deaf. Nor indeed is the situation in so bad a state that there are no sound minds, to whom truth is pleasing, and who both see the right path shown to them and follow it.

The cup is merely coated on the outside with the heavenly honey of wisdom, so that the bitter remedies may be drunk by the unwary without offense; while the enticing initial sweetness conceals the sharpness of the harsh flavor beneath the guise of pleasantness. For this is above all the reason why Holy Scripture lacks credibility among the wise, the learned, and the rulers of this age: because the Prophets spoke in common and plain language, as to the people. They are therefore despised by those who wish to hear or read nothing unless it is polished and eloquent, and nothing can lodge in their minds except what soothes the ears with a more pleasing sound. But those things which appear unadorned are deemed old-womanish, foolish, and vulgar. So thoroughly do they think nothing true unless it is pleasant to hear; nothing credible unless it can instill pleasure: no one weighs a matter by its truth, but by its ornament.

They do not therefore believe in divine things, because they lack embellishment; nor yet in those who interpret them, because these too are either wholly unlearned or at any rate insufficiently educated. For it very rarely happens that they are truly eloquent; and the reason for this is plain to see. For eloquence serves the age; it delights to display itself before the people and to find favor in evil causes: indeed it more often strives to overcome truth, in order to show its power; it seeks wealth, covets honors, and finally demands the highest degree of distinction. Therefore it looks down upon these things as lowly, and flees from sacred things as contrary to itself; since it rejoices in public life and craves a crowd and celebrity. Hence it comes about that wisdom and truth lack fitting heralds. And if any among the learned have by chance turned to her, they have not proved sufficient for her defense. Among those known to me, Minucius Felix held no obscure place among advocates.

His book, entitled Octavius, declares how fit a champion of truth he could have been, had he devoted himself wholly to that pursuit. Septimius Tertullianus also was versed in every kind of learning: but in expression he was not very fluent, and was less polished, and very obscure. Therefore he too did not find sufficient renown. One man alone stood out as preeminent and illustrious, namely Cyprian, since he had won great glory for himself from the profession of the oratorical art, and wrote a very great deal that is admirable in its kind. For he had a talent that was ready, abundant, pleasing, and—which is the greatest virtue of style—clear, so that you could not discern whether he was more distinguished in expression, more felicitous in exposition, or more powerful in persuasion. Yet he cannot please those ignorant of the mystery beyond the words themselves, since what he said is mystical, and prepared to be heard by the faithful alone.

In the end he is commonly derided by the learned of this age, to whom his writings have by chance become known. I myself heard a man of considerable eloquence who, changing one letter, called him Coprianus; as though he had applied a refined talent, fitted for better things, to old wives' tales. And if this happened to one whose eloquence is not unpleasing, what shall we suppose happens to those whose speech is thin and ungrateful; who have been able to possess neither the force of persuasion, nor the subtlety of argument, nor any sharpness at all for refutation?

Therefore, because there have been lacking among us fitting and skilled teachers who might vigorously and sharply refute public errors, who might defend the whole cause of truth with eloquence and abundance: this very lack provoked certain men to dare to write against a truth unknown to them. I pass over those who in earlier times assailed it to no purpose. When I had been summoned to teach the art of oratory in Bithynia, and it had come to pass that at the same time the temple of God was being overthrown: two men arose there who insulted the prostrate and cast-down truth, I know not whether with greater arrogance or greater importunity; of whom the one professed himself a champion of philosophy: yet so vicious a man that this teacher of self-restraint burned no less with avarice than with lusts, and was so extravagant in his manner of living that this defender of virtue in the school of virtue, this praiser of frugality and poverty, dined worse in the palace than at home.

Yet he concealed his vices beneath his hair and cloak, and—which is the greatest covering—beneath his wealth; and to increase these, he penetrated with remarkable scheming into the friendships of judges, and suddenly bound them to himself by the authority of his false reputation; not only so as to sell their verdicts, but also so as to restrain by this influence his neighbors, whom he was driving from their homes and lands, from reclaiming what was their own.

This man, then, who destroyed his discourses by his conduct, or convicted his conduct by his discourses, himself a severe censor and most sharp accuser against himself, at that very same time when the just people were being wickedly torn asunder, vomited forth three books against the Religion and the name of Christian: declaring before all else that it is the duty of a philosopher to come to the aid of men's errors and to call them back to the true way; that is, to the worship of the gods, by whose divine power and majesty (as he said) the world is governed, and not to allow unlearned men to be lured by the deceits of certain persons, lest their simplicity become the prey and fodder of cunning men.

And so he had undertaken this task worthy of philosophy, to hold out the light of wisdom to those who could not see, not only that they might be restored to health by taking up the worship of the gods, but also that, laying aside stubborn obstinacy, they might avoid the torments of the body, and might not wish to endure the savage laceration of their limbs in vain. But in order that it might appear for what reason he had labored at that work, he poured himself out in praises of the rulers; whose piety and foresight (as he himself said) had shone forth in all other matters, and most especially in defending the religions of the gods: and that provision had at last been made for human affairs, so that, with impious and old-womanish superstition suppressed, all men might devote themselves to lawful rites and experience the gods as propitious to them.

But when he wished to undermine the basis of that religion against which he was declaiming, he appeared inept, vain, and ridiculous; because that grave counselor of another's welfare did not know not only what he was attacking, but even what he was saying. For if any of our people were present, though they kept silent out of regard for the times, they nonetheless laughed inwardly, inasmuch as they saw a man who professed that he would enlighten others, when he himself was blind; who would lead others back from error, when he himself did not know where to set his feet; who would instruct others in truth, of which he had never seen so much as a single spark, since this professor of wisdom was striving to overthrow wisdom. Yet all reproached him for this above all: that he had undertaken that work at precisely the time when hateful cruelty was raging. O philosopher, flatterer, and servant of the moment!

But this man was despised in accordance with his own vanity; for he neither obtained the favor he had hoped for, nor did the glory he had sought turn out to anything but blame and reproach. Another wrote on the same subject more bitingly, a man who was at that time among the number of judges, and who was above all the instigator of the persecution that was carried out: not content with that crime, he also pursued with writings those whom he had afflicted. For he composed two pamphlets, not against Christians, lest he seem to assail them as an enemy, but to Christians, so that he might be thought to advise them humanely and kindly: in which he attempted to argue the falsity of Holy Scripture on the grounds that it was entirely self-contradictory; for he set out certain passages which seemed to him to conflict with one another, enumerating so many, and such intimate ones, that he sometimes appears to have belonged to the same discipline.

And if he did belong to it, what Demosthenes will be able to defend him from the charge of impiety?—one who became a traitor to the religion to which he had given his assent, and to the faith whose name he had put on, and to the sacrament he had received? Unless perhaps the divine scriptures fell into his hands by chance. What rashness was it, then, to dare to dissolve what no one had interpreted for him? It is well that he either learned nothing or understood nothing. For the divine scriptures are as far from containing contradiction as he was far from faith and truth: he attacked above all Paul and Peter and the other disciples, as sowers of deceit, though he himself testified that these same men were unlearned and uneducated; for he stated that some of them had made their living by the craft of fishing: as though he were indignant that the matter had not been worked out by some Aristophanes or Aristarchus.

The will and cunning to fabricate was therefore absent from these men, since they were unlearned. Or who, being unlearned, could fabricate things mutually fitting and coherent, when the most learned of philosophers—Plato, and Aristotle, and Epicurus, and Zeno—said things contradictory and contrary to themselves? For this is the nature of falsehoods: that they cannot cohere. But their tradition, because it is true, is consistent on every side, and agrees with itself throughout; and therefore it persuades, because it is supported by consistent reason. For they did not devise this religion for the sake of gain and advantage; seeing that both by precept and in practice they followed that life which is without pleasures and despises all things counted among goods; and who not only underwent death for the faith, but also both knew and foretold that they would die, and afterwards that all who followed their teaching would suffer bitter and unspeakable things. But he himself asserted that Christ, driven out by the Jews, gathered a band of nine hundred men and committed acts of brigandage.

Who would dare to resist so great an authority? Let us believe this plainly; for perhaps some Apollo announced this to him in dreams. So many brigands have always perished, and perish daily; you yourself have certainly condemned many: which of them, after his cross, has been called—I will not say a god, but even a man? But perhaps you believed this because you consecrated the murderer Mars as a god: which you would not have done, however, if the Areopagites had raised him on a cross. The same man, when he sought to destroy Christ's wonderful deeds, yet could not deny them, wished to show that Apollonius had done equal or even greater things. It is remarkable that he passed over Apuleius, of whom many and wondrous things are commonly recounted. Why then, O foolish head, does no one worship Apollonius as God?—unless perhaps you alone do, you who are indeed worthy of that god, with whom the true God will punish you forever.

If Christ is a magician because he did wondrous things, then Apollonius is surely more skilled—who (as you describe) when Domitian wished to punish him, suddenly disappeared from the court—than he who was both seized and nailed to a cross. But perhaps from this very fact he wished to charge Christ with arrogance, in that he declared himself God, so that the other might seem to have been more modest, who, though he did greater things (as he thinks), yet did not arrogate this to himself. I will not now compare the works themselves, because in the second and the preceding book I spoke of the fraud and illusions of the magical art. I deny that there is anyone who does not desire above all that to befall him after death which even the greatest kings covet. For why do men provide themselves with magnificent tombs, why with statues, why with images? Why do they strive, by some illustrious deeds or even by death undertaken for their fellow-citizens, to earn the good opinion of men?

Why, finally, did you yourself wish to establish a monument of your genius, built as it were upon filth by this detestable folly, unless because you hope for immortality from the memory of your name? It is therefore foolish to think that Apollonius was unwilling to have that which he would certainly desire if he could; because there is no one who refuses immortality, especially since you say that he was both worshipped by some as a god, and that his image, set up under the name of Hercules Alexicacus, is even now honored by the Ephesians. He could not therefore be believed a god after death, because it was established that he had been both a man and a magician; and therefore under the title of another's name he sought divinity, because under his own he neither could nor dared. But our Lord both could be believed God, because he was not a magician; and was believed, because he truly was.

He says: I do not say that Apollonius is not held to be a god because he was unwilling; but to show that we are wiser, who did not immediately attach belief in divinity to wonderful deeds, than you, who believed him a god on account of trivial portents. It is no wonder that you, who are far removed from the wisdom of God, understand nothing at all of what you have read; since the Jews, who from the beginning had read the prophets, and to whom the mystery of God had been assigned, nevertheless did not know what they were reading. Learn therefore, if you have any understanding, that Christ is believed by us to be God not only because he did wondrous things, but because we saw fulfilled in him all things that were announced to us by the prophecy of the prophets.

He did wondrous things: we would have thought him a magician, as you now think, and as the Jews then thought, if all the prophets with one spirit had not foretold that very Christ of his deeds. And so we believe him God, not more from his wondrous deeds and works than from that very cross which you lick like dogs: since that too was foretold at the same time. Not therefore by his own testimony (for who can be believed when speaking of himself?) but by the testimony of the prophets, who long before sang of all that he did and suffered, did he receive belief in his divinity; which neither to Apollonius, nor to Apuleius, nor to any of the magicians could or ever can happen. When therefore he had poured forth such ravings of his ignorance, when he had striven to utterly destroy the truth, he dared to entitle his wicked books, enemies of God, φιλαληθεῖς. O blind heart! O mind darker than Cimmerian darkness (as they say)!

This man was perhaps a disciple of Anaxagoras, to whom snow was black. And yet it is the same blindness to give the name of falsehood to truth, and the name of truth to a lie. Evidently this crafty man wished to hide the wolf under the sheep's skin, so that by a deceitful title he might ensnare the reader. But let it be so—that you did this out of ignorance, not malice. What truth at last have you brought us?—unless that, as a champion of the gods, you at the last betrayed those very gods. For having set forth the praises of the supreme God, whom you confessed to be king, to be greatest, to be the maker of all things, to be the fount of goods, to be the parent of all, to be the creator and nourisher of the living, you took away the kingdom from your Jupiter, and, thrust down from supreme power, reduced him to the number of servants. Your own epilogue therefore convicts you of folly, vanity, and error.

For you affirm that the gods exist; and yet you subject and enslave them to that God whose religion you strive to overthrow.

Those men, therefore, of whom I spoke, when in my presence and to my grief they had unfolded their sacrilegious writings, stirred both by their proud impiety, by the conscience of truth itself, and, as I think, by God, I undertook this task, so that with all the powers of my mind I might refute the accusers of justice: not to write against those men, who could be crushed in a few words, but to overthrow in one blow all who everywhere are producing, or have produced, the same kind of work. I do not doubt that many others too, in many places, and not only in Greek but also in Latin letters, have built a monument of their injustice; and since I could not answer each individually, I thought this cause should be pleaded in such a way that I might both overturn the former writers with all their works and cut off from future writers every opportunity of writing or replying.

Let them only lend their ears: I shall surely bring it about that whoever has come to know these things will either take up what he had formerly condemned, or, what is next best, will at last cease to mock. Although Tertullian fully pleaded the same cause in the book called the Apology, nevertheless, since it is one thing to answer accusers, which consists only in defense or denial, and another to instruct, which is what we do, in which it is necessary that the substance of the whole teaching be contained, I did not shrink from this labor, so as to fill out the subject which Cyprian did not pursue in that discourse in which he attempts to refute Demetrianus (as he himself says) barking and railing against the truth: a subject which he did not use as he ought; for the man should have been refuted not by testimonies of Scripture, which that man certainly considered vain, fictitious, and invented, but by arguments and reason.

For since he was dealing against a man ignorant of the truth, he ought to have set aside the divine readings for a while, and to have formed this man from the beginning as one untaught, and gradually to have shown him the first principles of light, lest by the full light being cast upon him at once he should be blinded. For just as an infant cannot receive the force of solid and strong food on account of the tenderness of its stomach, but is nourished by the liquid of milk and by soft things, until, its strength being established, it can feed on stronger things: so also for this man, because he was not yet able to receive divine things, human testimonies ought first to have been offered, that is, those of philosophers and historians, so that he might be refuted most effectively by his own authorities.

Because Cyprian did not do this, carried away by his extraordinary learning in the divine letters, so as to be content with those alone by which faith is established, I came forward, God inspiring me, to do it myself, and at the same time to prepare a way for others to imitate. And if, at our encouragement, learned and eloquent men shall begin to betake themselves hither, and shall prefer to display their talents and power of speech in this field of truth, no one will doubt that the false religions will shortly vanish, and that all philosophy will perish, if all shall be persuaded that this religion alone, and also this wisdom alone, is true. But I have wandered further than I wished.

Now the proposed disputation concerning justice must be resumed: which is either itself the highest virtue, or is itself the fount of virtue; which not only philosophers have sought, but poets also, who both came much earlier, and before the name of philosophy was born were held to be wise men. These clearly understood that justice was absent from human affairs, and they imagined that, offended by the vices of men, it had withdrawn from the earth and migrated to heaven; and in order to teach what it is to live justly (for they are accustomed to give precepts through allegory), they draw examples of justice from the times of Saturn, which they call the golden age, and recount in what state human life was while justice dwelt upon earth.

This indeed is to be taken not as a poetic fiction, but as true. For in the reign of Saturn, since the worship of the gods had not yet been instituted, nor had any nation yet been consecrated to the opinion of divinity, God was certainly worshipped. And therefore there were neither dissensions, nor enmities, nor wars.

Not yet had madness bared the frenzied swords, as Germanicus Caesar says in his poem on Aratus: Nor had discord been known among kinsmen.

Nay, not even among strangers: but neither were there any swords at all to be bared. For who, with justice present and flourishing, would think either of protecting himself, since no one laid snares, or of destroying another, since no one coveted anything?

They preferred to live content with slender sustenance, as Cicero recounts in his own work, which is the proper mark of our religion.

Not even to mark out or divide the field with a boundary Was lawful: they sought for the common store.

Since God had given the earth in common to all, that they might live a common life, not that raving and furious avarice might claim all things for itself, nor that any should lack what was born for all. This saying of the poet ought to be understood thus: not that we should suppose there was then nothing at all that was private, but that it is expressed in the poetic manner figuratively; so that we understand that men were so generous that they did not shut away the crops that had grown for them, nor brood alone over hidden stores, but admitted the poor to share in the fruit of their own labor.

Now rivers of milk, now rivers of nectar flowed.

Nor is this wonderful, since the storehouses of the just lay open generously to all; nor did avarice, intercepting the divine gifts, create hunger and thirst among the common people: but all abounded equally, since those who had gave largely and copiously to those who had not. But after Saturn was driven out by his son and brought to Latium, fleeing the arms of Jupiter and an exile stripped of his kingdom; when the people, either through fear of the new king or corrupted of their own accord, had ceased to worship God and had begun to regard the king as God; when he himself, almost a parricide, had set an example to others of violating piety: The most righteous virgin swiftly forsook the earth; but not, as Cicero says: And dwelt in the kingdom of Jupiter and in a part of heaven.

For how could she dwell or remain in the kingdom of one who had expelled his father from his kingdom, pursued him with war, and driven him as an exile throughout the whole world?

He added evil venom to dark serpents, And bade wolves prey: that is, he sowed hatred, and envy, and deceit among men, so that they should be as venomous as serpents, as rapacious as wolves. Which indeed those truly do who persecute the just and faithful to God, and give judges the power of raging against the innocent. Perhaps Jupiter did something of this kind, to destroy and abolish justice; and for this reason it is handed down that he made serpents fierce and sharpened the wolves.

And not without reason. For when the religion of God was taken away, they also lost the knowledge of good and evil. Thus the community of life perished among men, and the bond of human society was broken asunder. Then they began to join hands against one another, and to lay snares, and to win glory for themselves from human blood.

The source of all these evils was greed: which burst forth, of course, from contempt of the true majesty. For not only did those who had abundance in anything fail to share with others: they also seized what belonged to others, drawing everything into private gain, and what individuals had previously labored to provide for the use of men was gathered into the houses of the few. For in order to subjugate the rest in servitude, they began first to withdraw and hoard the necessities of life, and to keep these firmly locked away, so as to make the gifts of heaven their own; not out of humanity, of which there was none in them, but in order to rake together all the instruments of greed and avarice. They also enacted for themselves, in the name of justice, laws most iniquitous and most unjust, by which they might defend their plunder and avarice against the force of the multitude. So greatly did they prevail by authority as much as by strength, or wealth, or wickedness.

And since there was no trace of justice in these things—whose duties are humanity, equity, and mercy—they now rejoiced in proud and swollen inequality; and they made themselves higher than other men by the escort of attendants, by the sword, and by distinguished dress. Hence they devised for themselves honors, and purple robes, and fasces, so that, propped up by the terror of axes and swords, they might rule over those struck down and trembling, as though by the right of masters. In this condition that king established human life, who, having defeated and driven out his father, seized not a kingdom but an impious tyranny by force and armed men; and who abolished that golden and just age, and compelled men to become wicked and impious, by this very fact among others, that he turned them away from God to worship himself: which the terror of his most insolent power had extorted. For who would not fear him whom arms surrounded, whom the unaccustomed gleam of iron and swords encircled?

Or who would he spare of another's, who had not even spared his own father? Yet whom would he fear, who had conquered in war the Titans, a robust and powerful race, and had destroyed them utterly? What wonder, if the whole multitude, pressed down by unaccustomed fear, had yielded to the flattery of one man? Him they revered, to him they paid the highest honor. And since to imitate the character and vices of a king is judged a form of deference, all cast aside piety, lest they should seem to reproach the king's crime if they lived piously. Thus, corrupted by continual imitation, they abandoned the divine law; and gradually the habit of living wickedly became custom. Nor did anything remain from the pious and excellent state of the preceding age: but justice was driven out, and taking truth along with it, left to men error, ignorance, and blindness. Foolish therefore were the poets who sang that she had fled to the reign of Jupiter.

For if in the age they call golden, justice was on earth, she was certainly driven out by Jupiter, who transformed the golden age. But the transformation of the age and the expulsion of justice is nothing other, as I have said, than the abandonment of divine religion; which alone brings it about that man holds man dear, and knows him to be bound to himself by the bond of brotherhood: since God is the same Father to all, so that one may share the gifts of God, the common Father, with those who have not, may harm no one, oppress no one, close no door to a guest, turn no ear from one who entreats; but may be generous, beneficent, liberal—which praises Tullius considered to be kingly. This is assuredly justice, and this is the golden age, which, first corrupted when Jupiter began to reign, was then, when he himself and all his offspring were consecrated and the worship of many gods was taken up, entirely abolished.

But God, as a most indulgent parent, as the last time drew near, sent a messenger to restore that ancient age and justice that had been driven away; lest the human race be tossed about by the greatest and most lasting errors. The likeness of that golden time therefore returned, and justice was indeed restored to the earth, but assigned to few; which is nothing other than the pious and religious worship of the one God. But perhaps someone may be moved to ask why, if this be justice, it was not given to the whole human race; and why the entire multitude did not agree to it. It is a matter of great debate why God, when giving justice to the earth, retained diversity: which I have explained elsewhere, and wherever occasion suitably arises it will be set forth. For now it is enough to indicate it most briefly: that virtue either cannot be discerned unless it has opposing vices; or is not perfect unless it is exercised against adversities.

For God willed this to be the distinction between good and evil, that we may know the quality of good from evil, and likewise of evil from good; nor can the nature of either be understood if the other is removed. God therefore did not exclude evil, so that the principle of virtue might hold together. For how would patience retain its force and name, if there were nothing it was compelled to endure? How would faith devoted to its God merit praise, unless there were someone who wished to turn it away from God? For he also permitted the unjust to be more powerful, so that they might be able to compel to evil; and permitted them to be more numerous, so that virtue, which is rare, might be precious. This very point Quintilian showed admirably and briefly in the passage on the veiled head. "For what virtue," he says, "would innocence be, unless rarity had given it praise?

But because nature is so constituted that hatred, greed, and anger drive blind those upon whom they have fastened, it seems above human capacity to be free from fault. Otherwise, if nature had given equal passions to all, piety would be nothing." How true this is, the very necessity of reason teaches. For if virtue consists in bravely resisting evils and vices, it is clear that without evil and vice there is no virtue: which God, in order to render it complete and perfect, retained that which was contrary to it, with which it might contend. For when shaken by assailing evils, it gains stability; and the more frequently it is assailed, the more firmly it is strengthened. This is doubtless the reason why, although justice has been sent to men, the age is nevertheless not said to be golden; because it did not remove evil, in order to retain the diversity which alone contains the mystery of divine religion.

Those therefore who think there is no just person have justice before their eyes, but are unwilling to see it. For what reason do they describe it either in poems or in all their discourse, lamenting its absence, when it is most easy to be good if they wish? Why do you paint for yourselves an empty justice, and wish it to fall from heaven, as though fashioned in some image? Behold, it is in your sight: receive it, if you can, and place it in the dwelling of your heart; and do not consider it difficult or alien to the times. Be fair and good; and justice, which you seek, will follow you of its own accord. Put away every evil thought from your hearts; and immediately that golden age will return to you: which you cannot attain in any other way than by beginning to worship the true God.

But you, while the worship of the gods continues, desire justice on earth; which can in no way come to pass: nor could it even then, when you suppose it could; because, before those gods whom you impiously worship were yet born, the worship of the one God must necessarily have prevailed throughout the earth—of him, that is, who execrates wickedness and requires goodness; whose temple is not stones or clay, but man himself, who bears the image of God. Which temple is adorned not with gifts of gold and gems that perish, but with the eternal gifts of virtues. Learn therefore (if any remnant of mind remains in you) that men are wicked and unjust for this reason, that gods are worshipped; and that all evils daily grow heavier upon human affairs for this reason, that God, the maker and governor of this world, has been forsaken; because impious religions have been taken up contrary to what is right; and finally, because you do not permit God to be worshipped even by a few.

For if God alone were worshipped, there would be no dissensions and wars, since men would know themselves to be children of the one God; and therefore, bound together by the sacred and inviolable bond of divine kinship, no treacheries would occur, since they would know what manner of punishments God prepares for the slayers of souls, he who sees through hidden crimes and even thoughts themselves. There would be no frauds, no plunder, if by God's command they had learned to be content with their own and with little, so as to prefer the solid and eternal to the fragile and fleeting. There would be no adulteries, no fornications, no prostitution of women, if it were known to all that whatever is sought beyond the desire of procreation is condemned by God. Nor would necessity compel a woman to profane her modesty in seeking for herself the most shameful livelihood; since men too would restrain their lust, and the pious and religious sharing of those who have would come to the aid of those who have not.

There would not therefore, as I have said, be all these evils on earth, if all were united in agreement under the law of God; if all did what our one people does. How blessed, how golden would be the state of human affairs, if throughout the whole world gentleness, and piety, and peace, and innocence, and equity, and temperance, and faith were to abide! In short, to govern men there would be no need of so many and so varied laws, since the one law of God would suffice for perfect innocence; nor would there be need of prisons, or swords for protection, or the terror of punishments, since the wholesome teaching of the heavenly commandments, poured into human hearts, would of its own accord instruct men in the works of justice. But now men are wicked through ignorance of right and good.

This indeed Cicero saw; for disputing concerning laws he says: "Just as one and the same nature holds the world together and sustains it, all its parts agreeing with one another: so all men, confused with one another by nature, disagree through depravity; and do not understand that they are of one blood, and all subject to one and the same guardianship: which if it were maintained, men would assuredly live the life of gods." All the evils therefore by which the human race mutually destroys itself were introduced by the unjust and impious worship of the gods. For they could not retain piety, who had denied God, the common Father of all, like prodigal and rebellious children.

Sometimes, however, they feel that they are wicked, and they praise the state of former ages, and from their own character and deserts they conjecture that justice is absent: which, though they observe it with their own eyes, they not only do not receive or acknowledge, but even violently hate, and persecute, and strive to exterminate. Let us suppose for the moment that this is not the justice which we follow: how, if that justice which they consider true should come, will they receive it—they who tear apart and kill those whom they themselves confess to be imitators of the just, because they do good and just works; when, if they were to kill only the wicked, they would deserve that justice should not come to them, for whom there was no other cause of leaving the earth than the shedding of human blood. How much more so, when they slay the pious, and count the very followers of justice as enemies; or rather, more than enemies?

For enemies, even when they assail their souls and wealth and children with sword and fire, are at least spared when conquered; and there is room amid arms for clemency: or if it has pleased to rage so fiercely, nothing more is done to them than that they are killed or led into slavery. But this is unspeakable, what is done against those who know not how to do evil. And none are held more harmful than those who are of all men the most innocent. Dare then most wicked men make mention of justice, who surpass wild beasts in savagery, who lay waste the most peaceable flock of God? But it is not the madness of the belly but of the heart that has made them savage; nor do they prowl in dark shadow, but in open plunder; nor does the conscience of their crimes ever call them back, lest they defile the holy and pious name of justice with that mouth which drips with the blood of the innocent, as the jaws of beasts drip.

What shall we say is the chief cause of so great and so persistent a hatred? Is it, as the poet says, as though prompted by a divine spirit? Or are they ashamed to be base in the presence of the just and good? Or rather both? For truth is always hated for this reason, that he who sins wishes to have free scope for sinning; and thinks he cannot more securely enjoy the pleasure of his misdeeds than if there be no one to whom wrongdoing is displeasing. Therefore, as witnesses of their crimes and wickedness, they strive to root them out utterly and remove them, and count them a burden to themselves, as though their own life were being convicted. For why should some be unseasonably good, who, amid the corruption of public morals, make reproach by living well? Why are not all equally wicked, rapacious, shameless, adulterers, perjurers, greedy, deceitful?

Nay, rather let those be removed in whose presence they are ashamed to live wickedly; who strike and lash the brow of sinners, if not with words—for they are silent—yet by the very dissimilar manner of their life? For whoever dissents seems to rebuke.

Nor is it greatly to be wondered at if these things are done against men, since even the people established in hope, and not ignorant of God, rose up against God Himself for the same reason; and the same necessity that violated the very author of justice follows the just. They vex them, therefore, and torture them with exquisite kinds of punishments; and they think it too little to kill those whom they hate, unless cruelty also makes sport of their bodies. But if any, through fear of pain or death, or through their own faithlessness, have abandoned the heavenly sacrament and consented to deadly sacrifices, these they praise and honor with distinctions, so that by their example they may entice the rest.

But against those who have held faith in high esteem and have not denied themselves to be worshippers of God, they press with the full force of their torturing, as though thirsting for their blood; and they call them desperate, because they spare their own bodies not at all—as though anything could be more desperate than to rack and tear one whom you know to be innocent. So utterly does no shame remain among those from whom all humanity is absent! And they hurl back upon just men the reproaches that fit themselves. For they call them impious—they themselves, forsooth, who are pious and abhor human blood—when, if they would consider both their own deeds and those of the men they condemn as impious, they would already understand how mendacious they are, and how much more deserving of all the things they either say or do against the good.

For it is not from our number, but always from theirs, that those come who waylay travelers under arms, who plunder the seas; or, if open brigandage was not possible, who secretly compound poisons; who kill their wives to gain their dowries, or their husbands so that they may marry their adulterers; who strangle or, if they are too tender-hearted, expose the children born of themselves; who restrain their incestuous lusts neither from daughter, nor from sister, nor from mother, nor from a priest; who conspire against their fellow citizens and their fatherland; who do not even fear the sack; who finally commit sacrileges and despoil the temples of the gods they worship.

And—to speak of things that are trivial and customary among them—who hunt inheritances, forge wills, either carry off or exclude rightful heirs; who prostitute their bodies to lusts; who finally, unmindful of what they were born, rival women in passivity; who defile and profane even the most sacred part of their own body against all that is right; who cut away their manhood with the knife; and—what is more criminal—so that they may be ministers of religion; who do not even spare their own lives, but sell their souls to be publicly extinguished; who, if they sit as judges, either destroy the innocent for a bribe or let the guilty go unpunished; who assail even heaven itself with sorceries, as though the earth were not large enough to contain their wickedness. These things, I say, and more than these, are committed without exception by those who worship the gods.

What place is there for justice amid so many and so great crimes? And I have gathered these from many, not to accuse but to show. Those who wish to know all things, let them take into their hands the books of Seneca, who was both the most truthful describer and the sharpest accuser of public morals and vices. But Lucilius also depicted that dark life concisely and briefly in these verses: Yet what of these things can be charged against our people, whose entire religion is to live without crime and without stain?

When therefore they see both themselves and their own doing the things we have described, and our people doing nothing other than what is just and good; they could, if they had any wisdom, understand from this both that those who do good are pious, and that they themselves are impious, who commit abominations: for it cannot be that those who err in all the actions of their life do not err in the very highest matter, that is, in religion, which is the head of all things. For impiety embraced in that which is supreme would follow through all the rest. And therefore it cannot be that those who err in their whole life are not also deceived in religion: since piety, holding the rule in the highest place, would preserve its course in the rest. Thus it comes about that in both cases, from the condition of the things that are done, the character of the highest principle itself is made known.

It is worth knowing their piety, so that from the things they do with clemency and piety it may be understood what sort of things are done by them against the laws of piety. And lest I seem to attack anyone harshly, let me take some poetic personage who may be the greatest example of piety. In Maro, that king, Than whom no other was more just nor greater in piety, nor in war and arms, what lessons of justice did he offer us? He had bound behind their backs the hands of those whom he would send as shades to the dead below, about to sprinkle the flames with slaughtered blood. What can be more clement than this piety—to sacrifice human victims to the dead, and to feed the fire with the blood of men as with oil? But perhaps this was not his own fault, but the poet's, who The man distinguished for his piety has stained with distinguished crime. Where then, O poet, is that piety which you praise so very often?

Behold, the pious Aeneas Four youths born of Sulmo, and four more whom Ufens reared, he seizes alive, to immolate as offerings to the shades, and to drench the captive pyre's flames with their blood. Why then did he say at that very moment when he was sending bound men to slaughter, Indeed I would gladly yield even to the living; when those whom he held alive in his power he ordered to be killed like cattle? But this fault, as I said, was not his—who had perhaps not learned letters—but yours, who, though educated, did not know what piety was, and believed that very thing which he did wickedly and detestably to be an act of piety. He is called pious for this one reason alone, it seems, because he loved his father. What of this: the good Aeneas slaughtered those whose prayers were not to be scorned; for though adjured by that same father and by The hopes of rising Iulus, he by no means spared them, Inflamed by fury and by wrath.

Would anyone therefore think that this man had any virtue in him, who both blazed up in madness as in stubble, and, forgetting the shade of his father by whom he was entreated, was unable to bridle his anger? In no way, therefore, was he pious, who killed not only those who did not resist, but even those who were pleading. Someone will say here: What then, or where, or of what kind is piety? Assuredly it is among those who know nothing of wars, who keep concord with all, who are friends even to enemies, who love all men as brothers; who know how to restrain anger and to soothe every fury of the mind with calm moderation. How great a darkness, then, how great a cloud of shadows and errors has covered the hearts of men, who, at the very time they think themselves most pious, then become most impious! For the more devoutly they serve those earthly images, the more criminal they become against the name of true divinity.

And so, in accordance with the desert of their impiety, they are often afflicted with heavier evils, the cause of which, because they do not know it, is ascribed entirely to fortune; and the philosophy of Epicurus finds its place, holding that nothing pertains to the gods, that they are moved neither by gratitude nor by anger, because men see both those who despise them often prosperous and those who worship them often wretched. This happens because, since they appear religious and are by nature good, they are not believed to deserve such things as they often suffer. They console themselves, however, by accusing fortune; nor do they perceive that if fortune existed, it would never harm its own worshippers.

Deservedly, therefore, does punishment follow this kind of piety, and the offended divinity afflicts with heavy misfortune those who are wickedly religious through the crime of men; who, though they live by holy morals, in the highest faith and innocence, yet because they worship gods whose rites, impious and profane, the true God hates, are strangers to justice and to the name of true piety.

Nor is it difficult to show why worshippers of the gods cannot be good and just. For how will those abstain from blood who worship the bloodthirsty gods Mars and Bellona? How will they spare their parents, who worship Jupiter the expeller of his father; or the infants born of themselves, who worship Saturn? How will they guard chastity, who worship a goddess naked and adulterous, and as it were prostituted among the gods? How will they abstain from plunder and fraud, who know the thefts of Mercury, who teaches that to deceive is not the mark of treachery but of cleverness? How will they restrain their lusts, who venerate Jupiter, Hercules, Liber, Apollo, and the rest, whose adulteries and defilements with males and females are not only known to the learned, but are also represented in the theaters and sung, so that they may be better known to all? Can men be just amid all these things, who, even if they are by nature good, are nevertheless instructed by the gods themselves unto injustice?

For to appease the God whom you worship, you need those things by which you know him to rejoice and delight. Thus it comes about that God shapes the life of his worshippers according to the quality of his own name, since the most religious act of worship is to imitate.

Therefore these men, who are in accord with the morals of their gods, because justice is grievous and bitter to them, violently exercise that same impiety of theirs, which they employ in other matters, against the just. And not without reason are they called beasts by the prophets. Excellently therefore does Marcus Tullius say: "For if there is no one who would not rather die than be transformed into the shape of any beast, even though he were to retain a human mind; how much more wretched is it to have a savage soul in human form? To me indeed it seems so much more wretched, as the soul is more excellent than the body." They disdain, therefore, the bodies of beasts, than which they themselves are more savage; and they are so pleased with themselves that they were born human, of whom they bear nothing but the outlines and the outermost form. For what Caucasus, what India, what Hyrcania ever nourished beasts so monstrous, so bloodthirsty?

Since the rage of all wild animals rages only until the belly is sated, and once hunger is appeased, it immediately subsides. That is the true beast, at whose single command.

No one can describe as it deserves the monstrousness of this great beast, which, lying in one place, yet rages with iron teeth throughout the whole world; and not only scatters the limbs of men, but also crushes their very bones and rages even to ashes, so that no place of burial may remain; as though those who confess God were seeking that people should come to their tombs, and not rather that they themselves should come to God. What manner of ferocity is this, what madness, what frenzy—to have denied the light to the living and the earth to the dead? I say therefore that nothing is more wretched than those men whom necessity either found or made to be ministers of another's fury, satellites of an impious command. For that was not an honor or an advancement in dignity, but the condemnation of a man to the executioner's office, and of God to eternal punishment. But what individuals throughout the whole world have done it is impossible to recount.

For what number of volumes will contain so infinite and so varied kinds of cruelty? For once power was received, each man raged according to his own character. Some, through excessive timidity, dared more than was commanded; others through their own personal hatred of the just; some through natural ferocity of mind; not a few in order to please, and by this service to pave their way to higher things. Some were headlong in killing, as one in Phrygia, who burned an entire people together with their very assembly. But this man, the more savage he was, is found the more merciful by comparison. That indeed is the worst kind, which is flattered by a false appearance of clemency: that judge is the harsher, the more savage executioner, who resolves to kill no one. And so it cannot be said what great and grievous kinds of torments judges of this sort devised, in order to achieve the effect of their purpose.

But they do this not only so that they may boast that they have put no innocent person to death—for I myself have heard some boasting that their administration was bloodless in this regard—but also out of envy; lest either they themselves be overcome, or those others attain the glory of their virtue. And so in devising kinds of punishments they think of nothing but victory. For they know that it is a contest and a battle. I myself saw in Bithynia a governor wondrously elated with joy, as though he had subdued some barbarian nation, because one man who had resisted with great courage for two years had at last appeared to yield. They strive therefore to conquer, and inflict exquisite pains upon bodies, and avoid nothing so much as that those under torture should die. As though death alone made men blessed, and not also torments, which the heavier they are, the greater glory of virtue they produce.

But those men in their stubborn folly order that careful attention be given to the tortured, so that their limbs may be renewed for further tortures, and fresh blood be restored for punishment. What can be done that is so pious, so beneficent, so humane? They would not have tended so anxiously those whom they loved. This is the discipline of the gods. To these works they instruct their worshippers; these are the sacred rites they desire. Moreover, these most criminal murderers enacted impious laws against the pious. For both sacrilegious constitutions and unjust disputations of jurists are read. Domitius, in the seventh book on the duty of the proconsul, collected the wicked rescripts of the emperors, to show with what punishments those ought to be afflicted who confessed themselves to be worshippers of God.

What would you do with those who call the butcheries of ancient tyrants raging savagely against the innocent a matter of law? And though they are teachers of injustice and cruelty, they nonetheless wish to appear just and prudent—blind and dull, ignorant of things and of truth. Is justice so hateful to you, O ruined minds, that you equate it with the greatest crimes? Has innocence so perished among you that you judge it not even worthy of a simple death? But let it be held above all crimes to commit no crime, and to keep one's breast pure from all contagion of wickedness. And since we speak in common with the worshippers of the gods, let it be permitted to do good among you and with you. For this is our law, this our work, this our religion. If we seem wise to you, imitate us; if foolish, despise us, or even laugh, if you please; for our folly profits us. Why do you tear us apart? Why do you afflict us?

We do not envy your wisdom. We prefer this folly; we embrace it. We believe this to be expedient for us: to love you, and to bestow all things upon you yourselves, who hate us. There is in Cicero a passage not far from the truth, in that disputation which is held by Furius against justice.

"I ask," he says, "if there were two men, one of whom is the best of men, most equitable, of the highest justice, of singular good faith; the other notorious for wickedness and audacity: and if the state were in such error as to think that good man wicked, criminal, villainous, and abominable, but on the contrary to consider the most depraved man to be of the highest probity and good faith; and in accordance with this opinion of all the citizens, that good man were harassed, dragged away, his hands at last cut off, his eyes gouged out, condemned, bound, burned, banished, reduced to poverty, and in the end justly and rightly deemed the most wretched of all; while on the contrary that wicked man were praised, honored, beloved by all; all honors, all commands, all wealth, all resources at last heaped upon him; and he were finally judged by the estimation of all to be the best of men and most worthy of every fortune: who in the end would be so mad as to hesitate which he would rather be?" Surely, as though he were divining what evils were to befall us and in what manner they would come upon us on account of justice, he set forth this example.

For our people suffer all these things through the perversity of those who err. Behold, the state—or rather the whole world itself—is in such error as to persecute, torture, condemn, and kill good and just men as though they were evil and impious. Now as for his saying that no one is so mad as to hesitate which he would rather be: he indeed, as one who was arguing against justice, meant that a wise man would prefer to be evil with a good reputation rather than good with a bad one. But far be this madness from us, that we should prefer the false to the true. Shall the quality of our goodness depend rather on the errors of the people than on our own conscience and the judgment of God? Or will any happiness ever entice us, so that we do not rather prefer true goodness with every evil than false goodness with every prosperity?

Let kings keep their kingdoms for themselves, let the rich keep their riches (as Plautus says), let the prudent keep their prudence: let them leave us our folly, which is evidently wisdom from this very fact, that they envy it in us. For who would envy a fool, unless he himself were the most foolish? But they are not so foolish as to envy fools: rather, by the very fact that they pursue us carefully and anxiously, they concede that we are not fools. For why would they rage so cruelly, unless they fear that, as justice grows stronger day by day, they will be left behind with their decaying gods? If therefore the worshippers of the gods are wise and we are foolish, what do they fear, lest the wise be enticed by the foolish?

But since our number is always increased from the worshippers of the gods, and is never diminished—not even in persecution itself (for men can sin and be defiled by sacrifice, but cannot be turned away from God; for truth prevails by its own force): who then is so senseless and so blind as not to see on which side wisdom lies? But they are blinded by malice and fury, so that they cannot see; and they think those to be foolish who, when they have it in their power to avoid punishments, nevertheless prefer to be tortured and to die; when they could perceive from this very fact that it is not folly, into which so many thousands of men throughout the whole world agree with one and equal mind. For if women fall through the weakness of the female sex (for sometimes these men call it womanish or old-wifely superstition), men at least are wise. If boys and youths are improvident on account of their age, the mature and the aged at least have stable judgment.

If one city is senseless, the other countless ones surely cannot all be foolish. If one province, one nation lacks prudence, all the rest must necessarily possess understanding of what is right. But when from the rising of the sun to its setting the divine law has been received, and every sex, every age and race and region serves God with one and equal mind, and the same patience is everywhere, the same contempt of death—they ought to have understood that there is something rational in that matter which is defended even unto death not without cause; something of foundation and solidity, which not only does not dissolve that religion by injuries and vexation, but always increases it and makes it stronger.

For in this too their malice is convicted—those who think they have utterly overthrown the religion of God if they have defiled men; since it is possible to give satisfaction to God, and there is no worshipper of God so wicked that he will not, when given the opportunity, return to appease God, and indeed with greater devotion. For the consciousness of sin and the fear of punishment makes one more religious; and faith is always far stronger when repentance restores it.

If therefore they themselves, when they think their gods are angry with them, nevertheless believe that they can be appeased by gifts and sacrifices and incense: what reason is there at last why they think our God so harsh, so implacable, that one who has been compelled and unwillingly offered sacrifice to their gods seems to be no longer able to be a Christian?—unless perhaps they think that those once defiled will carry over a contaminated soul, so that they will now begin of their own accord to do what they did under torture. Who would willingly perform that duty which began from injury? Who, when he sees the scars on his sides, would not rather hate the gods, on account of whom he bears the eternal marks of punishment and the brands impressed upon his very flesh? Thus it comes about that, when peace is divinely granted, both those who had been turned away return, and a new people is added on account of the wonder of their virtue.

For when the common people see men torn apart by various kinds of torments, and maintaining invincible patience amid exhausted executioners, they judge—as is indeed the case—that neither the agreement of so many, nor the perseverance of those dying, is in vain, nor that patience itself without God could overcome such great torments. Robbers and men of strong body cannot endure lacerations of this kind: they cry out and utter groans; for they are overcome by pain, because the inspired patience is lacking to them. But our people—to say nothing of men—boys and little women silently overcome their torturers; and not even fire can wring a groan from them.

Let the Romans go and boast of Mucius or Regulus: of whom the one delivered himself to the enemy to be killed, because he was ashamed to live as a captive; the other, caught by the enemy, when he saw that he could not avoid death, thrust his hand into the fire, that he might give satisfaction to the enemy for his own crime in having wished to kill him, and by that punishment received the pardon which he had not deserved. Behold, the weak sex and fragile age endure being torn apart over their whole body and burned—not of necessity, because it is permitted to avoid it if they wished, but of their own will, because they trust in God.

The just man, and steadfast in his purpose, Is not shaken in his solid mind By the ardor of citizens commanding what is wrong, Nor by the face of the threatening tyrant. Nothing truer than this can be said, if it be referred to those who refuse no tortures, no death, lest they turn aside from faith and justice; who tremble neither at the commands of tyrants nor at the swords of governors, so as not to defend with steadfast mind true and solid liberty—which is the only wisdom in which it must be guarded. For who is so insolent, so arrogant, as to forbid me to lift my eyes to heaven? Who lays upon me the necessity either of worshipping what I do not wish, or of not worshipping what I do wish? What will be left to us hereafter, if even this, which ought to be done by the will, is wrested away by another's caprice? No one will accomplish this, if we have any virtue for despising death and pain.

If we hold to this constancy, why are we judged foolish for doing those things which philosophers praise? Rightly therefore Seneca, reproaching men with their inconsistency, says: A great soul seems to them the highest virtue. And the same men regard one who despises death as a madman—which is certainly the height of perversity. But those worshippers of vain religions object this with the same folly by which they do not understand the true God; whom the Erythraean Sibyl calls κωφοὺς καὶ ἀνοήτους—that is, deaf and senseless—who neither hear divine things nor perceive them: but fear and adore the earth fashioned by their own fingers.

Now the reason why they think those who are wise to be foolish is a weighty one (nor do they err without cause). This must be carefully explained by us, so that they may at last recognize their errors, if it can be done. Justice by its very nature has a certain appearance of folly, which I can confirm both by divine and by human testimonies. But perhaps we shall accomplish nothing with these men unless we teach them from their own authorities that no one can be just—which is joined with true wisdom—without appearing at the same time to be foolish.

Carneades, a philosopher of the Academic sect—whoever does not know what force, what eloquence, what acuteness he had in disputation, will understand it from the praise of Cicero, who, when Lucilius has Neptune discoursing on a most difficult matter, shows that it cannot be explained even if Orcus were to send back Carneades himself—he, when he had been sent as an ambassador from the Athenians to Rome, discoursed at length on justice, with Galba and Cato the Censor, the greatest orators of that time, as his audience. But the same man on the following day overturned his own disputation by an opposing argument, and abolished the justice which he had praised the day before—not indeed with the gravity of a philosopher, whose opinion ought to be firm and stable, but as it were in the manner of an oratorical exercise of arguing on both sides. This he was accustomed to do, so that he might be able to refute others who brought forward anything whatsoever.

That disputation by which justice is overthrown is recalled by L. Furius in Cicero: I believe, because he was discoursing on the republic, in order to introduce the defense and praise of justice, without which he thought the republic could not be governed. But Carneades, in order to refute Aristotle and Plato as patrons of justice, gathered in that first disputation all the arguments that were advanced in favor of justice, so that he might overthrow them, as he did. For it was very easy to undermine a justice that had no roots, because at that time there was none on earth, so that what it was, or of what kind, could be discerned by the philosophers.

And would that so many and such great men had possessed, in proportion to their eloquence and spirit, an equal measure of knowledge for completing the defense of the highest virtue, whose origin lies in religion and whose principle lies in equity! But those who did not know the first part could not hold the second either. I wish first to show briefly and in outline what it is, so that it may be understood that the philosophers were ignorant of justice and could not defend what they knew least of all. Although justice embraces all the virtues together, yet there are two that are the chief of all, which cannot be torn away and separated from it: piety and equity. For faith, temperance, probity, innocence, integrity, and others of this kind, can exist either by nature or by the training of parents in those men who do not know justice, as they always have existed.

For the ancient Romans, who were accustomed to glory in justice, gloried at any rate in those virtues which (as I said) can proceed from justice and be separated from the very source. But piety and equity are, as it were, its veins; for by these two springs the whole of justice consists. But its head and origin is in the former, and all its force and principle in the latter. Now piety is nothing other than the knowledge of God; as Trismegistus most truly defined it, as we said in another place. If therefore piety is the knowledge of God—the sum of which knowledge is that you worship him—he who does not hold the religion of God is certainly ignorant of justice. For how can he know justice itself, who is ignorant of whence it arises? Plato indeed said much about the one God, by whom he says the world was constituted: but nothing about religion; for he had dreamed of God, not known him.

But if he himself, or anyone else, had wished to complete the defense of justice, he ought first of all to have overthrown the religions of the gods, because they are contrary to piety. And indeed because Socrates attempted to do this, he was thrown into prison; so that it was already apparent at that time what was to befall those men who should begin to defend true justice and to serve the one God.

The second part of justice is equity: by equity I mean not simply judging well, which is itself praiseworthy in a just man; but the equalizing of oneself with others, which Cicero calls equability. For God, who begets and breathes life into men, willed that all should be equal, that is, on a par. He set the same condition of living for all, begot all unto wisdom, promised immortality to all: no one is shut out from His heavenly benefits. For just as He divides His one light equally among all, sends forth springs for all, furnishes food, and grants the sweetest repose of sleep; so He bestows equity and virtue upon all. No one is a slave before Him, no one a master. For if He is equally the Father of all, then by equal right we are all free.

No one is poor before God, save he who lacks justice; no one rich, save he who is full of virtues; no one, in short, distinguished, save he who shall have been good and innocent; no one most illustrious, save he who shall have performed works of mercy abundantly; no one most perfect, save he who shall have fulfilled all the degrees of virtue. Wherefore neither the Romans nor the Greeks could maintain justice, because they held men unequal by many degrees, from the poor to the rich, from the lowly to the powerful, from private persons even to the most exalted powers of kings. For where all are not equal, there is no equity; and inequality itself excludes justice, whose whole force consists in making equal those who have come to the condition of this life by an equal lot.

When those two fountains of justice have been corrupted, all virtue and all truth is taken away, and justice herself withdraws again to heaven. Therefore that true good was not discovered by the philosophers, because they knew neither whence it arose nor what it effected; a thing which has been revealed to no others save our own people. Someone will say: Are there not among you some who are poor, others rich; some slaves, others masters? Is there no difference between individuals? None whatsoever; nor is there any other reason why we bestow upon one another the name of brothers, save that we believe ourselves to be equals. For since we measure all human things not by the body but by the spirit, although the condition of bodies may differ, yet to us they are not slaves; but we both regard and call them brothers in spirit, and fellow-servants in religion. Riches likewise do not make men distinguished, except insofar as they can make them more illustrious through good works.

For they are rich, not because they possess riches, but because they use them for works of justice. And those who appear poor are nevertheless rich in this respect, that they are without want and covet nothing. Since therefore both free men and slaves, and rich men and poor, are equal to one another in humility of soul, yet before God we are distinguished by virtue. And each one is so much the more exalted as he is the more just. For if justice consists in making oneself equal even to those of lesser station—although one excels by this very fact, that one has equaled oneself to inferiors—yet if one shall have conducted oneself not merely as an equal but even as a lesser, one will assuredly attain a far higher degree of dignity, in God's judgment.

For truly in this secular life, since all things are brief and fleeting, men both set themselves above others and contend over rank: than which nothing is more base, nothing more arrogant, nothing more remote from the reasoning of a wise man. For all these earthly things are contrary to heavenly things. For just as the highest wisdom of men is the greatest foolishness before God, and foolishness (as I have shown) is the highest wisdom: so before God he is humble and abject who shall have been conspicuous and exalted on earth. For to say nothing of the fact that these present goods of earth, to which great honor is paid, are contrary to virtue and enfeeble the vigor of the mind; what nobility, what wealth, what power can be secure, when God is able to make even kings themselves lower than the very lowest? And therefore God, providing for us, set this above all among His divine precepts: He who exalts himself shall be humbled; and he who humbles himself shall be exalted.

The salutary nature of this precept teaches that he who shall have made himself plain and shown himself humble before men, shall be held preeminent and distinguished before God. Nor indeed is that saying false which is reported in Euripides in this manner: What are accounted evils here, these are good things in heaven.

I have set forth the reason why the philosophers were able neither to discover justice nor to defend it. Now I return to what I had intended. Carneades, therefore, since the arguments brought forward by the philosophers were weak, took the boldness to refute them, because he understood that they could be refuted. The sum of his disputation was this: "Men have established laws for themselves on the basis of utility, varying of course according to customs; and among the same peoples often changed with the times: but there is no natural law.

All men, and all other living creatures, are led by nature toward their own advantages; and therefore either there is no justice, or if there be any, it is the height of foolishness, since it harms oneself while consulting the interests of others." And he advanced these arguments: "All peoples who flourish in empire, and the Romans themselves who hold dominion over the whole world, if they wish to be just, that is, if they restore what belongs to others, must return to their huts and lie in poverty and misery." Then, leaving aside common matters, he came to particular ones. "A good man," he said, "if he has a runaway slave, or a house that is unhealthy and pestilential, whose defects he alone knows, and therefore puts up for sale to sell it—will he declare that he is selling a runaway slave and a pestilential house, or will he conceal it from the buyer?

If he declares it, he will indeed be good, because he will not deceive: but he will nevertheless be judged foolish, because he will either sell at a low price or not sell at all. If he conceals it, he will indeed be wise, because he will look to his own interest: but he will likewise be wicked, because he will deceive. Again, if he finds someone who thinks he is selling orichalcum when it is gold, or lead when it is silver: will he keep silent so as to buy it cheaply, or will he disclose it so as to buy it at a high price? It plainly seems foolish to prefer to buy at a high price." By this he wished it to be understood that both he who is just and good is foolish, and he who is wise is wicked. And yet that it is possible for men to be content with poverty without harm to themselves. He then passed on to greater matters, in which no one could be just without peril to his life.

For he said: "Surely justice is this: not to kill a man, and to touch nothing that belongs to another. What then will a just man do, if perchance he has suffered shipwreck, and some weaker man has seized a plank? Will he not push him off the plank so as to climb upon it himself, and supported by it make his escape; especially since there is no witness in the midst of the sea? If he is wise, he will do so; for he must perish unless he does. But if he shall have preferred to die rather than lay hands on another, then that just man is foolish, who does not spare his own life while sparing another's.

Likewise, if his own side's battle-line has been broken and the enemy has begun to pursue, and that just man has come upon a wounded man sitting on a horse, will he spare him so as to be killed himself, or will he throw him from the horse so as to be able to escape the enemy himself? If he does so, he is wise but likewise wicked; if he does not, he is just but likewise foolish of necessity." Thus therefore, having divided justice into two parts, calling the one civil and the other natural, he subverted both; on the ground that civil justice is indeed wisdom, but is not justice, while that natural justice is indeed justice, but is not wisdom. These arguments are indeed clever and poisonous, and such as Marcus Tullius was unable to refute.

For when he makes Laelius respond to Furius and speak in defense of justice, he passed by these arguments unrefuted as though they were a pit; so that the same Laelius appears to have defended not the natural justice which had fallen under the charge of foolishness, but that civil justice which Furius had conceded was indeed wisdom, but unjust.

I have shown, as pertained to the present disputation, how justice bears the likeness of foolishness; so that it may appear that those who think the men of our religion are foolish, who are seen to do such things as he proposed, are not deceived without reason. Now I feel that something greater is demanded of me: that I show why God willed to remove justice from the eyes of men wrapped in the guise of foolishness—but first I shall respond to Furius, because Laelius responded too incompletely: who, though he was wise, as he was called, could in no way be an advocate of true justice, since he did not grasp the very head and fountain of justice. For us, however, this defense is easier, to whom justice is familiar and thoroughly known by heavenly beneficence, and who know it not by name but in reality.

For Plato and Aristotle desired to defend justice with honorable intent, and would have accomplished something, had the knowledge of divine things also aided their good efforts, their eloquence, and the power of their genius. And so their work lay empty and useless; nor could they persuade any man to live according to their prescription, because that teaching had no foundation from heaven. Our work must needs be more certain, since God has taught us. For they depicted justice in words and imagined it, since it was not before their eyes; nor could they confirm by present examples what they brought forward. For it could be answered by their hearers that it was impossible to live as they prescribed in their disputation; so much so that no one has yet appeared who followed that manner of life. But we show that what we say is true not only by words but also by examples drawn from reality.

Carneades therefore perceived what the nature of justice is—except that he did not see deeply enough—that it is not foolishness: although I think I understand with what intention he did this. For he did not truly think that he who is just is foolish: but since he knew it was not so, and yet could not grasp the reason why it appeared so, he wished to show that truth lies hidden in obscurity, in order to defend the decree of his school: whose chief tenet is that nothing can be perceived.

Let us see, therefore, whether justice can have any alliance with foolishness. The just man, he says, if he has not taken the horse from a wounded man, or the plank from a shipwrecked man, in order to save his own life, is foolish. First of all, I deny that it can in any way come to pass that a man who is truly just should encounter a chance of this kind; because a just man is an enemy to no one born, nor does he seek anything at all that belongs to another. For why should he sail, or what should he seek from a foreign land, to whom his own suffices? And why should he make war and mix himself in the frenzies of others, in whose soul perpetual peace with men abides?

Surely he will delight in foreign merchandise or in human blood, who knows not how to seek gain, to whom sustenance suffices; and who counts it a sin not only to commit slaughter himself, but to be present at and to witness those who commit it. But I leave these matters aside; since it can happen that even against his will he may be compelled to undergo these things. Do you then think, O Furius—or rather, O Carneades, for the whole argument is his—that justice is so empty, so superfluous, and so contemptible to God, that it can do nothing and has nothing within itself that avails for its own preservation? But evidently those who are ignorant of man's sacred bond, and therefore refer all things to this temporal life, cannot know how great is the force of justice.

For even when they dispute about virtue, although they understand it to be most full of hardships and miseries, they nevertheless say it is to be sought for its own sake; for its rewards, which are eternal and immortal, they in no way see. Thus, with all things referred to this present life, they plainly reduce virtue to foolishness; since one undertakes such great labors of this life in vain and to no purpose. But these matters more fully in another place.

Meanwhile, concerning justice, as we have begun, whose force is so great that when it has lifted its eyes to heaven, it merits all things from God. Rightly therefore did Flaccus say that the force of innocence is so great that for its own protection it needs neither arms nor strength, wherever it makes its way; it cannot therefore come to pass that heavenly protection does not guard the just man amid the perils of storms and wars; and not only that, even if he sails with parricides and the guilty, either the wicked too are spared, so that one just and innocent soul may be delivered, or at least, when the rest perish, that soul alone is preserved. But let us grant that what the philosopher proposes can happen; what then will the just man do, if he has found either a wounded man on a horse, or a shipwrecked man on a plank? I confess not unwillingly: he will rather die than kill.

And yet for that reason justice, which is the singular good of man, will not receive the name of folly. For what ought to be better, what dearer to a man, than innocence? Which must necessarily be so much the more perfect, the further you have carried it to the extreme, and the more you have preferred to die rather than that anything of the principle of innocence be diminished. It is folly, he says, to spare another's life at the cost of one's own. Will you also judge it folly to die for friendship? What then of those famous Pythagorean companions praised by you, of whom one gave himself to the tyrant as a pledge of death for the other, and the other presented himself at the appointed time, when his surety was already being led away, and freed him by his intervention? Their virtue would not be held in such great glory—that one was willing to die for his friend, the other even for his pledged word—if they were thought to be fools.

Indeed, for this very virtue the tyrant showed them gratitude, by preserving both, and the nature of that most cruel man was changed. Nay, he is even said to have entreated them to receive him as a third into their friendship, not at all as fools, but as good and wise men. And so I do not see why, since to die for friendship and for one's pledged word is reckoned the highest glory, it should not also be glorious for a man to perish for innocence. Therefore they are most foolish who charge it to us as a crime that we wish to die for God, when they themselves extol to heaven with the highest praises one who was willing to die for a man. Finally, to conclude the disputation: reason itself teaches that the same man cannot be both just and foolish, the same man both wise and unjust. For he who is foolish does not know what is just and good; and therefore he always sins.

For he is led as a captive by vices; nor can he resist in any way, because he lacks virtue, which he does not know. But the just man abstains from all sin, which he cannot do otherwise than by having knowledge of right and wrong. But who can discern right from wrong, except the wise man? Thus it comes about that one who is foolish can never be just, nor one who has been unjust be wise. And if this is most true, it is manifest that he who has not taken the plank from the shipwrecked man, or the horse from the wounded man, is not a fool; because to do these things is a sin, from which the wise man abstains. Yet I confess that he may seem so, through the error of men who are ignorant of the proper nature of each thing. And so this whole question is resolved not so much by arguments as by definition. Folly therefore is, in deeds and words, a going astray through ignorance of right and good.

Therefore he is not a fool who does not spare even himself, so long as he does not harm another, which is an evil. And indeed both reason and truth itself prescribe this to us. For in all animals we see that, because they lack wisdom, nature is the promoter of their own interest. They therefore harm others in order to benefit themselves; for they do not know that it is evil to harm. But man, who has knowledge of good and evil, abstains from doing harm, even at his own inconvenience, which an irrational animal cannot do; and therefore among the highest virtues of man innocence is numbered. From these things it appears that he is most wise who prefers to perish rather than to harm another; so that he may preserve that duty by which he is distinguished from dumb creatures.

For he who does not correct the error of a seller in order to buy gold cheaply, or who does not declare that he is selling a runaway slave, or a house that is plague-ridden, consulting his own profit and advantage, is not wise, as Carneades wished to appear, but cunning and crafty. But cunning and craftiness are found also in dumb animals, both when they lie in wait for others and take them by guile to devour them, and when they elude the snares of others by various means. But wisdom falls to man alone. For wisdom is the understanding either for doing good and right, or for abstaining from wicked words and deeds. But the wise man never strives for gain, because he despises these earthly goods; nor does he suffer anyone to be deceived, because it is the duty of a good man to correct the errors of men and to lead them back into the way. For the nature of man is social and beneficent, by which alone he has kinship with God.

But doubtless this is the cause that makes him seem a fool who prefers to be in want or to die rather than to harm another or snatch something from another—because they think that man is destroyed by death. From this persuasion arise all the errors both of the common people and of the philosophers. For if after death we are nothing, it is assuredly the part of the most foolish man not to provide for this life, that it may be as long as possible and full of all comforts. Whoever does this must of necessity depart from the rule of justice. But if a better and longer life remains for man—which we learn both from the arguments of great philosophers, and from the responses of seers, and from the divine voices of the prophets—to despise this present life with its goods is the part of the wise man, whose every loss is compensated by immortality.

In Cicero, that same Laelius, the defender of justice, says: "Virtue plainly desires honour; nor is there any other reward of virtue." There is plainly such a reward, and one most worthy of virtue, which you, Laelius, could never have suspected; for you knew nothing of the divine writings. "Yet virtue," he says, "receives it readily, and does not demand it harshly." You err greatly if you think that a reward can be paid to virtue by man, since you yourself have most truly said elsewhere: "What riches will you set before this man? What commands? What kingdoms? He who counts those things human judges his own goods to be divine." Who then would think you wise, Laelius, when you say things contradictory to yourself? And a little later take away from virtue what you had given? But evidently ignorance of the truth makes one's opinion uncertain and wavering. Then what do you add?

"But if all men are ungrateful, or many are envious, or powerful enemies despoil virtue of its rewards." O how fragile, how empty a virtue you have introduced, if it can be despoiled of its reward! If virtue judges its goods to be divine, as you said, how can there exist men so ungrateful, so envious, so powerful, as to be able to despoil virtue of those goods which have been bestowed upon it by divine gift? "Nay," he says, "virtue delights itself with many consolations; and chiefly sustains itself by its own comeliness." With what consolations? With what comeliness? When it often comes under accusation, and that comeliness is turned into punishment. For what if, as Furius said, it "is dragged away, harassed, banished; is in want, its hands are cut off, its eyes gouged out, it is condemned, bound, burned, and put to death even by wretched means"—will virtue lose its reward? Or will it rather perish itself? Not at all.

But it will receive its reward with God as judge, and will live, and will flourish forever. If you take these things away, nothing in the life of men can seem so useless, so foolish, as virtue; whose natural goodness and honesty can teach us that the soul is not mortal, and that a divine reward has been appointed for it by God. But for this reason God willed that virtue itself should be hidden under the guise of folly, so that it might be the secret mystery of his truth and religion; so that he might condemn these religions, and earthly wisdom exalting itself on high and greatly pleased with itself, with the charge of vanity and error; so that finally, with difficulty set before it, the narrowest path might lead on high to the reward of immortality. I have shown, as I think, why our people is held to be foolish among fools.

For to prefer to be tortured and put to death rather than to cast incense held in three fingers upon the altar-fire seems as inept as, in danger of one's life, to care more for another's soul than for one's own. For they do not know how great a sin it is to worship anything other than God, who founded heaven and earth; who fashioned, breathed life into, and gave light to the human race. Now if the most worthless of slaves is he who deserts his master by flight, and is judged most worthy of stripes, chains, the workhouse, the cross, and every evil; and if a son is likewise considered lost and impious who abandons his father so as not to obey him, and is for that reason thought worthy to be disinherited and to have his name deleted forever from the family: how much more so he who deserts God, upon whom the two titles of lord and father, equally venerable, converge?

For he who purchases a slave at a price, what benefit does he confer upon him, beyond the food which he supplies for the sake of his own advantage? And he who begets a son has no power over whether he is conceived, whether he is born, whether he lives. Whence it appears that he is not truly a father, but only a minister of begetting. With what punishments therefore is he worthy who deserts him who is both true lord and father, save those which God himself has appointed? Who has prepared eternal fire for unjust spirits; which he himself threatens against the impious and rebellious through his prophets.

Let them learn, therefore—those who are slayers both of their own souls and of others'—what an inexpiable crime they commit: first, because they cut their own throats by serving the most wicked demons, whom God has condemned to eternal punishment; then, because they do not permit God to be worshipped by others either, but strive to turn men toward deadly rites, and labor with the utmost diligence that no soul may remain unharmed upon the earth, which in its safe condition might look up to heaven. What else shall I call them but wretched, who obey the promptings of their plunderers, whom they suppose to be gods?—whose nature, origin, names, and reason they do not know; but clinging to popular persuasion, they willingly go astray and favor their own folly.

If you ask them for the reason of that persuasion, they can give none, but take refuge in the judgments of their ancestors—that those men were wise, that those men approved it, that those men knew what was best—and they strip themselves of their own senses and renounce reason, while they trust in the errors of others. Thus entangled in ignorance of all things, they know neither themselves nor their gods. And would that they were willing to err alone, to be foolish alone! They drag others also into fellowship in their evil, as though they would find consolation in the ruin of many. But this very ignorance causes them to be so wicked in persecuting the wise, and to pretend that they are consulting their interests and wish to call them back to a right mind. Do they then strive to do this by argument or by any reason rendered? Not at all; but by force and torments. O wondrous and blind madness!

In those who strive to keep faith, an evil mind is supposed to exist; but in the executioners, a good one. Is the evil mind in those who, against the law of humanity, against all that is sacred, are torn asunder? Or rather in those who do such things to the bodies of the innocent as not even the most savage robbers, nor the most enraged enemies, nor the most brutal barbarians have ever done? Do they so deceive even themselves as to transfer and exchange in turn the names of good and evil? Why then do they not call day, night? The sun, darkness? Otherwise it is the same shamelessness to impose the name of evil upon the good; of foolish upon the wise; of impious upon the just. Nay rather, if they have any confidence either in philosophy or in eloquence, let them arm themselves and refute these things of ours, if they can; let them come to close quarters and examine each point one by one.

It is fitting for them to undertake the defense of their gods, lest, if our cause prevails (as it daily prevails), they be abandoned along with their shrines and their mockeries. And since by force they can accomplish nothing (for the religion of God is increased the more it is oppressed), let them proceed rather by reason and exhortation. Let the pontiffs come forward into the midst, whether lesser or greatest; the flamens, augurs, likewise the rex sacrorum, and all who are priests and overseers of religions.

Let them summon us to an assembly; let them exhort us to take up the worship of the gods; let them persuade us that there are many whose divine power and providence govern all things; let them show the origins and beginnings of the sacred rites and of the gods, how they were handed down to mortals; let them explain what the source and the reason is; let them set forth what reward awaits in worship, what penalty in contempt; why they wish to be worshipped by men; what benefit human piety confers upon them, if they are blessed. Let them confirm all these things not by their own assertion (for the authority of a mortal man avails nothing), but by some divine testimonies, as we do. There is no need of force and injury, because religion cannot be compelled: the matter must be dealt with by words rather than by blows, so that there may be willing assent. Let them sharpen the edge of their wits: if their reasoning is true, let it be brought forward.

We are prepared to hear, if they teach; to those who are silent we certainly give no credence; just as we do not yield to those who rage. Let them imitate us and set forth the reason for the whole matter. For we do not entice, as they object against us: but we teach, we prove, we demonstrate. And so no one is held by us against his will; for one who lacks devotion and faith is useless to God. And yet no one departs, held back by the truth itself. Let them teach in this manner, if they have any confidence in truth; let them speak; let them open their mouths, let them dare (I say) to dispute with us on any such matter; then assuredly their error and folly will be laughed at by the old women whom they despise, and by our children.

For although they are most learned and know from books the lineage of the gods, their deeds, their reigns, their deaths, and their tombs; and although they know that the very rites in which they have been initiated were born either from the deeds of men, or from accidents, or even from deaths: it is incredible madness to think them gods, whom they dare not deny to have been mortal; or if they shall be so shameless as to deny it, their own writings and those of their fellows will convict them, and the very initiations of the sacred rites will in the end refute them. Let them know therefore, from this very fact alone, how great is the difference between truth and falsehood, when they themselves, though eloquent, cannot persuade; while the unlearned and untrained can, because the matter itself and truth speaks. Why then do they rage? So as to increase their folly while they wish to diminish it. Torture and piety are far different things; neither can truth be joined with force, nor justice with cruelty.

But they rightly dare not teach anything concerning divine matters, lest they be both mocked by our people and abandoned by their own. For the common people, whose judgment is simple and uncorrupted, if they come to know those mysteries established in memory of the dead, will condemn them; and will seek something truer to worship. Hence faithful silences for the sacred rites were established by cunning men, so that the people might not know what they worship. But since we are conversant with their doctrines, why do they either not believe us, who know both sides; or why do they envy us, because we have preferred true things to false? But the sacred rites publicly undertaken must be defended, they say. O with what honorable intention do the wretched go astray! For they feel that nothing in human affairs is more excellent than religion, and that it ought to be defended with the utmost force: but as in religion itself, so in the manner of defense they are deceived.

For religion must be defended not by killing, but by dying; not by savagery, but by patience; not by crime, but by faith: for the former belong to the wicked, the latter to the good. And it is necessary that good, not evil, be employed in religion. For if you wish to defend religion by blood, by torments, by evil, it will no longer be defended, but polluted and violated. For nothing is so voluntary as religion, in which, if the mind of the worshipper is turned away, it is already abolished, already nothing. The right course therefore is to defend religion by patience or by death: in which faith preserved is both pleasing to God himself and adds authority to religion.

For if he who in this earthly military service keeps faith with his king in some distinguished deed, if he afterwards survives, becomes more acceptable and dear, and if he perishes, attains the highest glory because he has met death for his commander: how much more must faith be kept with God, the commander of all, who is able to render the reward of virtue not only to the living but also to the dead? Therefore the worship of God, since it is a heavenly military service, requires the greatest devotion and faith. For how will God either love the worshipper, if he himself is not loved by him; or how will he grant to the one who prays whatever he has asked, when he approaches prayer neither from the heart nor with reverence? But these men, when they come to sacrifice, offer nothing inward, nothing personal to their gods; not integrity of mind, not reverence, not fear.

And so, when the empty sacrifices are completed, they leave all religion in the temple, and with the temple, just as they found it, and carry nothing of it away with them either coming or going. Hence it is that religions of this kind can neither make men good, nor be firm and unchangeable.

Men are therefore easily led away from these by others, because nothing there is learned for life, nothing for wisdom, nothing for faith. For what is the meaning of their superstition of those gods? What is its force? What its discipline? What its origin? What its reason? What its foundation? What its substance? Where does it tend? Or what does it promise, that it can be faithfully kept and boldly defended by a man? In which I see nothing else than a rite pertaining to the fingers alone. Our religion, however, is firm and solid and unchangeable for this reason: because it teaches justice, because it is always with us, because it is wholly in the mind of the worshipper, because it regards the mind itself as the sacrifice. There nothing else is required than the blood of cattle, and smoke, and a foolish libation: here, a good mind, a pure breast, an innocent life.

Thither come without distinction adulteresses, the unchaste, brazen procuresses, obscene harlots; thither come gladiators, robbers, thieves, poisoners, and they pray for nothing else than that they may commit their crimes with impunity. For what does a robber pray for when sacrificing, or a gladiator, except that they may kill? What does a poisoner, except that he may deceive? What does a harlot, except that she may sin as much as possible? What does an adulteress, except that she may wish for her husband's death, or that her shamelessness may be concealed? What does a procuress, except that she may strip many of their goods? What does a thief, except that he may plunder more? But here there is no place even for slight and common sin. And if anyone comes to the sacrifice with a conscience not intact, he hears what God threatens him with—he who sees the darkness of the heart, who is always hostile to sins, who demands justice, who requires faith. What place is there here for an evil mind or an evil prayer?

But those unhappy ones do not even understand from their own crimes how evil is that which they worship, since, defiled by every kind of wickedness, they come to pray; and they think they sacrifice piously if they have washed their skin: as though any rivers could wash away the lusts enclosed within the breast, or any seas purify them. How much better it is to cleanse rather the mind, which is made foul by evil desires; and by the one washing of virtue and faith to drive away all vices? He who has done this, however defiled and foul a body he may carry, is sufficiently pure.

But these men, because they know not what or how anything is to be worshipped, fall blindly and unwisely into the contrary. They therefore adore their own enemies: they appease their robbers and murderers with victims; and they lay their souls upon detestable altars, there to be burned along with the incense itself. The wretched creatures are even angered that others do not perish in like manner, with incredible blindness of mind. For what do they see, who do not see the sun? As though, forsooth, if those were gods, they would need the help of men against those who despise them. Why then are they angry with us, if those gods can do nothing?—unless it be that they themselves destroy their own gods, by distrusting their power, being more irreligious than those who worship them not at all.

Cicero, in his Laws, when he enjoined that men should approach sacrifices in a state of purity, said: "Let them bring piety; let them put away wealth: he who does otherwise, God himself will be the avenger." This is rightly said. For it is not lawful to despair of God, whom you worship for this reason, that you think him powerful. For how can he avenge the wrong done to one who worships him, if he cannot avenge his own? It is pleasing, therefore, to ask of these men, to whom they think they are chiefly rendering a service by compelling the unwilling to sacrifice. To those very persons whom they compel? But that is no benefit which is thrust upon one who refuses it. Yet even the unwilling must be looked after, since they do not know what is good. Why then do they torment, rack, and maim them so cruelly, if they wish them to be saved?

Or whence comes a piety so impious, that they either destroy in wretched fashion, or render useless, those for whom they profess to wish to provide? Or do they render a service to the gods? But that is no sacrifice which is wrung from an unwilling person. For unless it be done freely and from the heart, it is an execration; when men are driven to it by proscription, injuries, imprisonment, and torments. If those are gods who are worshipped in this manner, they ought not to be worshipped for this reason alone, that they wish to be worshipped in this way; being plainly worthy of the detestation of men, to whom libation is poured with tears, with groaning, with blood flowing from every limb. But we, on the contrary, do not demand that anyone, willing or unwilling, should worship our God, who is the God of all; nor, if he has not worshipped him, do we grow angry.

For we trust in his majesty, who is as able to avenge contempt of himself as also the labours and wrongs of his servants. And therefore, when we suffer such abominations, we do not resist even with a word: but we leave vengeance to God; not as those do who wish to appear as defenders of their gods, and rage savagely against those who do not worship them. From this it is made clear how little good it is to worship those gods; since men ought rather to have been led to good by good means, not by evil. But because that means is evil, even its service lacks good. But, they say, those who destroy religions must be punished. Do we destroy them any worse than the nation of the Egyptians, who worship the most shameful images of beasts and cattle, and even adore certain things shameful to mention as gods?

Do we destroy them any worse than those very same persons, who, though they say they worship gods, nevertheless publicly and shamelessly mock them; and even suffer mimes to be performed about them amid laughter and pleasure? What manner of religion is this, or how great a majesty is it to be thought, which is adored in temples and mocked in theatres? And those who have done these things pay no penalty for violation of the divine power, but depart even honoured and praised. Do we destroy them any worse than certain philosophers, who say there are no gods at all: but that all things came into being of their own accord, and that all things which happen come about by chance? Do we destroy them any worse than the Epicureans, who say that gods indeed exist, but that they care for nothing; and that they neither grow angry nor are moved by favour?

By which words they assuredly persuade men that the gods are altogether not to be worshipped; since they neither regard those who worship them, nor are angry with those who do not. Moreover, when they argue against fear, they strive to bring about nothing other than that no one should fear the gods. And yet these things are both gladly heard from men, and discussed with impunity.

They do not therefore rage against us because the gods are not worshipped by us: but because the truth is with us, which (as has been most truly said) begets hatred. What then shall we suppose, except that they do not know what they are suffering? For they proceed with blind and irrational fury; which we see, but they know not. For it is not the men themselves who persecute, who have no cause to be angry with the innocent: but those defiled and ruined spirits, to whom the truth is both known and hateful, insinuate themselves into their minds and drive the unknowing into fury. For as long as there is peace among the people of God, these spirits flee from the righteous and tremble; and when they take possession of men's bodies and torment their souls, they are adjured by these men and put to flight in the name of the true God.

At the sound of that name they tremble, cry out, and declare that they are being burned and beaten; and when questioned as to who they are, when they came, and how they crept into the man, they confess. Thus wrested and tormented by the power of the divine name, they depart. On account of these blows and threats, they have always hated holy and righteous men. And because they can do them no harm of themselves, they pursue with public hatred those whom they feel to be burdensome to them; and they exercise their cruelty as violently as they can, so that they may either diminish the faith of these men through pain, or, if they cannot accomplish that, remove them altogether from the earth, lest there be any who can restrain their wickedness. I am not unaware of what may be answered on the other side.

Why then does that singular and great God, whom you confess to be powerful over all things, whom you confess to be the Lord of all, permit these things to happen; and neither avenges nor protects his worshippers? Why, finally, are those who do not worship him wealthy, powerful, and happy, and hold honours and dominion; and have those very persons subject to their authority and power? An account of this matter must also be given, lest any error remain. For in the first place, this is the reason why the religion of God is thought to have no force: that men are drawn in by the appearance of earthly and present goods, which in no way pertain to the care of the mind. Because they see the righteous lacking these things, and the unrighteous abounding in them, they judge the worship of God to be vain, in which they perceive those things to be absent, and they esteem the rites of the gods to be true, since their worshippers enjoy both riches and honours and kingdoms.

But those who hold this opinion do not perceive more deeply the force and nature of man; which consists entirely not in the body, but in the mind. For they see nothing beyond what is seen, namely the body; which, because it is accessible to the eyes and the hand, is weak, fragile, and mortal. All those goods belong to it which are objects of desire and wonder—wealth, honours, dominions—since they bring pleasures to the body; and therefore they are as perishable as the body itself. But the soul, in which alone man truly consists, since it is not subject to the eyes, and its goods cannot be inspected, which consist in virtue alone; and therefore it must be as stable, and constant, and everlasting as virtue itself, in which the good of the soul resides.

Hence the unjust, and those who know not God, flourish in riches, power, and honours. For all these things are the rewards of injustice; because they can have no permanence, and are sought through greed and violence. But the just and wise man, because he judges all those human things (as was said by Laelius) to be his own goods, and divine things, covets nothing that belongs to another, so as to harm anyone against the law of humanity, and desires no power or honour, lest he do wrong to anyone. For he knows that all men, born of the same God and under the same condition, are joined by the right of brotherhood. But he is content with his own, and with little, because mindful of his frailty, he seeks no more than that by which he may sustain life; and from what he has, he shares even with one who has not, because he is pious: and piety is the highest virtue.

To this is added that he despises fleeting and corrupt pleasures, for the sake of which wealth is sought; since he is continent and master of his passions. Likewise, bearing no pride or insolence, he does not raise himself higher, nor lift up a haughty head: but he is calm, and peaceable, and affable, and straightforward, because he knows his own condition. Since, therefore, he does wrong to no one, covets nothing belonging to others, and does not even defend his own if it be taken from him by force; since he knows also how to bear an inflicted wrong with moderation, because he is endowed with virtue: it is necessary that the just man be subject to the unjust, and that the wise man be treated with contempt by the foolish, so that the one sins because he is unjust, and the other passes into servitude because he is just.

If anyone wishes to know more fully why God permits the wicked and unjust to become powerful, happy, and rich; and on the other hand allows the pious to be humble, wretched, and destitute: let him take up that book of Seneca whose title is: Why many evils befall good men, though there is a providence; in which he has said many things, not in the manner of mere worldly learning, but wisely and almost divinely. "God," he says, "regards men as his children: but the corrupt and vicious he permits to live in luxury and softness, because he does not think them worthy of his correction. But the good, whom he loves, he chastises more frequently, and exercises with continual labours in the practice of virtue; nor does he allow them to be corrupted and depraved by perishable and mortal goods." Hence it ought to seem wonderful to no one if we are often chastised by God for our sins.

Nay rather, when we are vexed and oppressed, then most of all do we give thanks to our most indulgent father; because he does not allow our corruption to proceed further, but corrects it with blows and stripes. From this we understand that we are a care to God; since, when we sin, he is angry. For although he could bestow upon his people both wealth and kingdoms, as he had formerly given to the Jews, whose successors and descendants we are; for this reason he willed that we should live under the dominion and rule of others, lest, corrupted by the happiness of prosperous circumstances, we should fall into luxury and despise the commandments of God, as those our forefathers did, who, often enfeebled by these earthly and fragile goods, went astray from discipline and broke the bonds of the law. He provided, therefore, to the extent that he would grant quiet to his worshippers if they kept his commandments, and yet would correct them if they did not obey his precepts.

And so, lest they should be as corrupted by ease as their fathers were by licence, he willed that they should be oppressed by those in whose hands he had placed them, so that he might both strengthen the wavering, and restore the corrupted to fortitude, and prove and test the faithful. For how can a commander prove the valour of his soldiers, unless he has had an enemy? And yet an adversary rises against them against the commander's will, and because he is mortal, can be overcome. But because God cannot be resisted, he himself stirs up adversaries against his own name, not to fight against God himself, but against his soldiers, so that he may either prove or strengthen the devotion and faithfulness of his own, until by the blows of pressure he gathers together a discipline that had grown lax. There is also another reason why he permits persecutions to be carried out against us: that the people of God may be increased. Nor is it difficult to show why or how this comes about.

First, very many are driven away from the worship of the gods by hatred of cruelty. For who would not shudder at such sacrifices? Then, the virtue and faithfulness itself pleases some. Some suspect that the worship of the gods is not without reason thought evil by so many men, that they prefer to die rather than do what others do in order to live. Someone desires to know what that good is which is defended even unto death; which is preferred above all things that are pleasant and dear in this life; from which neither the loss of goods, nor of light, nor bodily pain, nor the torments of the vitals deter. These things carry great weight. But those causes especially have always increased the number of our people. The surrounding crowd hears them saying, amid the very torments, that they do not sacrifice to stones made by human hands, but to the living God, who is in heaven. Many understand this to be true, and receive it into their hearts.

Then, as commonly happens in matters of uncertainty, while they inquire among themselves what is the cause of this perseverance, many things pertaining to religion, spread abroad and caught up in turn by rumour, are learned; and because they are good, they must needs please. Moreover, the vengeance that follows, as always happens, powerfully impels men to belief. Nor is this a slight cause: that the unclean spirits of demons, having received licence, plunge themselves into the bodies of many; and when they are afterwards cast out, all who have been healed cleave to the religion whose power they have experienced. These so many causes, brought together into one, wondrously acquire for God a great multitude.

Whatever evil, therefore, wicked princes contrive against us, He Himself permits to be done. And yet let the most unjust persecutors, to whom the name of God was a matter of insult and mockery, not suppose they shall bear it with impunity, because they were, as it were, ministers of His indignation against us. For they shall be punished by the judgment of God, who, having received power, abused it beyond human measure, and insulted even God more arrogantly, and impiously and wickedly subjected His eternal name to be trodden under their feet. For this reason He promises that He will swiftly take vengeance upon them, and will destroy evil beasts from the earth. But the same God, although He is wont to avenge here in the present the afflictions of His people; yet commands us to await patiently that day of heavenly judgment, on which He Himself will either honor or punish each one according to his deserts. Wherefore let not sacrilegious souls hope that those whom they so trample upon shall be despised and unavenged.

There shall come, there shall come their reward to the rabid and voracious wolves, who have tormented just and simple souls that had committed no crimes. Let us only strive that nothing else be punished in us by men save justice alone. Let us devote all our strength to deserving from God at once both vengeance for our suffering and a reward.

What was the duty of the task I undertook, I have fulfilled, with the Divine Spirit guiding me and truth itself lending its support: the cause of asserting and illuminating which was laid upon me by my conscience, by faith, and by our Lord Himself; without whom nothing can either be known or set forth. I come now to that which is the highest and greatest part of this work, to teach by what rite and by what sacrifice God ought to be worshipped. For that is the duty of man, and in that alone consists the sum of all things and the whole principle of a blessed life: since for this reason we were formed and breathed upon by Him, not that we might behold the sky and the sun (as Anaxagoras supposed), but that we might worship with pure and upright mind God, the maker of the sun and sky.

Although in the preceding books I have defended the truth to the best of my modest ability; yet it can shine forth most clearly from the very manner of worship itself. For that holy and singular Majesty desires nothing else from man than innocence alone: and if anyone shall have offered this to God, he has made sacrifice with sufficient piety and sufficient devotion. But men, having neglected justice, though defiled by all manner of vices and crimes, think themselves religious if they have stained temples and altars with the blood of victims, if they have drenched hearths with the pouring out of fragrant and aged wine. Moreover they prepare sacred feasts and elaborate banquets, and offer them as though the gods were about to taste something from them. Whatever is rare to the sight, whatever is precious in workmanship or fragrance, they judge to be pleasing to their gods, not from any understanding of divinity, which they do not possess, but from their own desires; and they do not understand that God has no need of earthly riches.

For they have no understanding save of the earth; and they weigh goods and evils by the sense and pleasure of the body alone. By its judgment, as they measure religion, so they order all the conduct of their life. And since they have once turned away from the contemplation of heaven, and have enslaved that heavenly sense to the body, they give free rein to their lusts; as though they were about to take pleasure with them, which they hasten to seize at every moment, when the soul ought to make use of the body's service, not the body of the soul's service. These same men judge wealth to be the highest good. If they cannot attain it by honorable means, they attain it by dishonorable ones; they defraud, they seize, they plunder, they lay snares, they forswear themselves.

In short they hold nothing moderate or of account, so long as they may gleam with gold, shine with silver, gems, and garments, heap food into their most greedy belly, and always walk through a parted crowd attended by throngs of servants. Thus enslaved and subservient to pleasures, they extinguish the force and vigor of the mind; and when they think they are living most fully, they hasten most swiftly toward death. For, as we showed in the second book, the principle of heaven resides in the soul, but that of earth in the body. Those who neglect the goods of the soul and seek those of the body dwell in darkness and death, which belong to earth and the body; because life and light are from heaven: and since they are deprived of these by their servitude to the body, they are far removed from the understanding of divine things. The same blindness presses upon the wretched everywhere: for as they do not know who the true God is, so they do not know what true worship is.

They sacrifice therefore fat and rich victims to God, as though He were hungry; they pour out wines, as though He were thirsty; they kindle lights, as though He were dwelling in darkness. But if they could suspect or perceive in their minds what those heavenly goods are, whose greatness we, still wrapped in an earthly body, cannot grasp with our senses, they would already recognize how utterly foolish they are with these empty observances. Or if they were willing to contemplate the heavenly light which we call the sun, they would already feel how little God stands in need of their lamps, He who Himself gave for the use of man so bright, so brilliant a light.

And yet since in so small a circle, which on account of its distance appears to have no greater measure than a human head, there is such brilliance that the sight of mortal eyes cannot gaze upon it; and if you fix your gaze upon it for a moment, dimness and darkness follow upon your weakened eyes: what light, what brightness, we may ask, are we to suppose exists with God Himself, with whom there is no night? He who has so tempered this very light that it should harm living creatures neither by excessive brilliance nor by violent heat; and gave to it so much of these things as either mortal bodies could endure, or the ripening of crops required. Is he then to be thought in his right mind, who offers to the author and giver of light the light of candles and wax tapers as a gift?

But He requires from us another light, and indeed not a smoky one, but (as the poet says) liquid and clear, namely that of the mind, on account of which we are called by the poets φῶτες, which no one can display unless he has acknowledged God. But the gods of those men, because they are earthly, need lights, lest they be in darkness: and their worshippers, because they have no understanding of heavenly things, draw down even the religious rites they serve to the earth. For on earth light is needed, because its nature and character is one of darkness. And so they attribute to the gods not a heavenly sense but rather a human one. And therefore they believe those things to be necessary and pleasing to them which are necessary to us; who when hungry need food, or when thirsty need drink, or when cold need clothing, or when the sun has departed need light, that we may be able to see.

From no things, therefore, can it be so well proved and understood that those gods, having once lived, are dead, as from the very rite of worship itself, which is wholly of the earth. For what heavenly good can the blood of cattle poured out have in itself, with which they defile their altars? Unless perhaps they suppose the gods feed upon what men disdain to touch. And whoever shall have provided them with this feast, though he be a brigand, an adulterer, a poisoner, a parricide, shall be blessed and happy. Him they love, him they protect; to him they grant all that he has wished for. Rightly therefore does Persius in his manner mock superstitions of this kind: By what price (he says) have you purchased the ears of the gods; with lung and greasy entrails?

He perceived, evidently, that flesh was not needed to appease the heavenly majesty, but a holy mind, and a just soul, and a heart (as he himself says) that is noble by natural integrity. This is the heavenly religion, which consists not in corruptible things, but in the virtues of the soul, which springs from heaven. This is the true worship, in which the mind of the worshipper presents itself to God as an unblemished victim. But how this very thing is to be attained, how it is to be rendered, the discussion of this book will teach. For nothing can be so excellent and fitting for man as to instruct men in justice.

In Cicero, Catulus in the Hortensius, preferring philosophy to all things, says he would rather have even one small book on Duty than a long speech on behalf of the seditious Cornelius. Which sentiment is to be regarded as not so much Catulus's, who perhaps did not say it, as Cicero's, who wrote it. I believe he said it in order to commend the books on Duties which he was about to write: in which very books he testifies that there is nothing in all philosophy better and more fruitful than to give precepts for life. But if those men do this, to whom the truth is not known; how much more ought we to do it, who, instructed and enlightened by God, are able to give true precepts? Yet we shall not teach in such a way as to hand down, as it were, the first elements of virtue, which would be an endless task: but as though we had undertaken to instruct one who might already appear to be perfect among them.

For, while retaining their precepts, which they are accustomed to give rightly for the promotion of uprightness, we shall build upon them things unknown to them, toward the perfecting and completing of justice, which they do not possess. But those things which can be held in common with them I shall pass over; lest I seem to borrow anything from those whose errors I have resolved to refute and expose.

There are two ways (O Emperor Constantine) by which human life must needs proceed: one, which bears upward to heaven; the other, which presses downward to the underworld; which both poets have introduced in their poems and philosophers in their disputations. And indeed the philosophers have held that one belongs to the virtues, the other to the vices: and that the one assigned to the virtues is steep and rugged at its first approach; but if anyone, having overcome the difficulty, shall have reached its summit, he has thereafter a level path, a bright and pleasant plain, and gathers all the rich and pleasant fruits of his labors.

But those whom the difficulty of the first approach has deterred, they slide and turn aside into that way of vices, which at first entry is as it were pleasant, and much more well-worn, but then when they have proceeded a little further along it, the appearance of its pleasantness is suddenly withdrawn: and there arises a precipitous way, now rough with rocks, now overgrown with thorns, now cut through by whirlpools, or swift with torrents, so that one must needs toil, stick fast, slip, and fall. All of which is set forth to the end that it may appear that in the pursuit of virtues the labors are very great, but in their attainment the fruits are very great, and solid and uncorrupted pleasures: but that vices entice the minds of men by certain natural allurements, and lead those captivated by the appearance of empty delights to bitter miseries. A truly wise argument, if only they knew the forms and limits of the virtues themselves.

For they had not learned either what they are, or what reward awaits them from God; which we shall teach in these two books. But these men, because they were ignorant of or doubted whether the souls of men are immortal, estimated virtues and vices by earthly honors or punishments. All this discussion therefore of the two ways pertains to frugality and luxury. For they say that the course of human life is like the letter Y, because each man, when he has reached the threshold of early youth and come to that place, wavers and hesitates, not knowing to which side he should rather incline. If he shall have found a guide to direct him, while he wavers, toward better things, that is, if he shall have learned either philosophy, or eloquence, or some honorable art, by which he may attain to good conduct, which cannot be done without very great labor, they argue he will lead an honorable and prosperous life.

But if he shall not have found a teacher of frugality, he falls into the left-hand way, which counterfeits the appearance of the better, that is, he gives himself over to idleness, sloth, and luxury; which seem pleasant for a time to one ignorant of true goods, but afterward, having lost all dignity and his family estate, he will live in all miseries and disgrace. To the body, therefore, and to this life which we lead on earth, they referred the ends of those ways. The poets perhaps did better, who placed this crossroads in the underworld. But they err in this, that they set those ways before the dead. Both therefore speak truly: and yet both speak not rightly; because the ways themselves ought to be referred to life, and their ends to death. We therefore speak better and more truly, who say that these two ways belong to heaven and to the underworld, because immortality is set before the just, and eternal punishment before the unjust.

But how these ways either raise one to heaven or cast one down to the depths, I shall explain: I shall disclose what the virtues are that the philosophers did not know; then I shall show what their rewards are, and likewise what the vices are, and what punishments belong to them. For perhaps someone may expect me to speak separately about vices and virtues, since when we discourse about good or evil, what is contrary to each can also be understood. For if you introduce the virtues, the vices will depart of their own accord; if you remove the vices, the virtues will enter of themselves. Such is the established nature of good and evil things, that they always war against each other, always drive each other out: thus it comes about that neither can vices be removed without virtues, nor virtues be introduced without the removal of vices. These ways, therefore, we set forth in a manner far different from that in which they are customarily set forth by the philosophers.

First, because we say that a guide is set over each of the two ways, each guide being immortal: but one is honoured, who presides over virtues and good things, the other is condemned, who presides over vices and evil things. The philosophers, however, place a guide only on the right-hand way, and that guide is neither one nor permanent. For they introduce any teacher of a good art, who calls men back from idleness and teaches them to be upright. But they do not cause any to enter upon that way except boys and youths; evidently because the arts are learned at those ages. We, however, lead into this heavenly journey persons of every sex, and rank, and age; because God, who is the guide of that way, denies immortality to no man born. The very form of the ways themselves is also not as they supposed. For what need is there of the letter Y in matters that are contrary and diverse?

But that better way is turned toward the rising of the sun, and that worse way toward the setting; since he who follows truth and justice, having received the reward of immortality, will enjoy everlasting light: but he who, enticed by that evil guide, has preferred vices to virtues, falsehood to truth, must needs be carried away to the setting and to darkness. I shall therefore describe each way, and show their characteristics and appearance.

There is therefore one way of virtue and of good things, which leads, not to the Elysian fields (as the poets say), but to the very citadel of the world: For there is one belonging to that accuser who, having established perverse religions, turns men away from the heavenly journey and leads them into the way of perdition. The appearance and form of this way is so composed in aspect that it seems to be level and open, delightful with every kind of flowers and fruits. For placed upon it are all those things which are reckoned as good things on earth: I mean wealth, honour, ease, pleasure, all allurements; but together with these, injustice, cruelty, pride, treachery, lust, greed, discord, ignorance, falsehood, folly, and the rest of the vices. But the end of this way is such.

When one has come to the extremity, whence it is no longer permitted to turn back, it is cut off so suddenly with all its beauty, that no one can foresee the deception before he is hurled down and falls into a deep abyss. For whoever, captivated by the appearance of present good things and occupied in pursuing and enjoying them, has not foreseen those things which are to follow after death, and has turned himself away from God: he indeed, cast down to the underworld, will be condemned to eternal punishment. But that heavenly way is set forth as difficult and steep, either rough with bristling thorns or obstructed with jutting rocks; so that each person must walk with the greatest toil and wearing of feet, and with great anxiety of falling. Upon this way He has placed justice, temperance, patience, faith, chastity, abstinence, concord, knowledge, truth, wisdom, and the rest of the virtues; but together with these, poverty, disgrace, toil, pain, and all bitternesses.

For whoever has stretched his hope further, and has preferred better things, will lack these earthly goods, so that, unencumbered and light, he may overcome the difficulty of the way. For he who has surrounded himself with royal equipment or burdened himself with riches cannot either enter upon or keep to those narrow passes. Hence it is understood that for this reason evil and unjust men more easily obtain what they desire, because their way is downward and sloping: but for good men, what they seek proceeds with difficulty, because they travel by a difficult and arduous journey. The just man, therefore, since he has entered upon a hard and rough path, must needs be an object of contempt, mockery, and hatred. For all those whom greed or pleasure hurries headlong envy him who has been able to lay hold of virtue; and they take it ill that someone possesses what they themselves do not have. He will therefore be poor, lowly, ignoble, subject to injury; and yet bearing all things that are bitter.

And if he shall have brought his steadfast patience to that highest step and goal, a crown of virtue will be given to him; and he will be granted immortality by God as a recompense for the labours which he endured in life for the sake of justice. These are the ways which God has assigned to human life, in each of which He has shown both good things and evil things, but in a reversed and inverted order. For in the one He showed temporal evils first together with eternal good things, which is the better order: in the other, temporal good things first together with eternal evils, which is the worse order; so that whoever shall have chosen present evils together with justice may obtain greater and more certain good things than those were which he despised: but whoever shall have preferred present good things to justice may fall into greater and more lasting evils than those were which he fled.

For this bodily life, because it is brief, its good things and evil things must likewise be brief. But that spiritual life, which is the contrary of this earthly one, since it is everlasting, its good things and evil things are likewise everlasting. Thus it comes about that both eternal evils succeed brief good things, and eternal good things succeed brief evils. And so, since good things and evil things are set before man at the same time, it is fitting for each person to consider within himself how much better it is to weigh brief evils against everlasting good things, than to endure everlasting evils for the sake of brief and perishable good things.

For just as in this world, when a contest with an enemy is set before one, one must first labour, so as to be at leisure afterwards; one must hunger, thirst, endure heat and cold, rest on the ground, keep watch, face danger, so that, with one's pledges, home, estate, and all the blessings of peace and victory kept safe, one may enjoy them: but if one shall have preferred present ease to labour, one must needs bring the greatest evil upon oneself; for the adversary will seize upon one who offers no resistance; the fields will be laid waste, the house plundered, wife and children will become plunder, and you yourself will be slain or taken captive: to prevent all these things from happening, present advantage must be deferred, so that a greater and more lasting one may be gained.

So in all this life, because God has reserved an adversary for us, so that we might be able to lay hold of virtue, present pleasure must be foregone, lest the enemy overwhelm us: we must keep watch, stand guard, undertake military expeditions, shed blood at the last, and in short bear all bitter and heavy things with patience; and indeed the more readily, in that our commander God has established eternal rewards for our labours. And since in this earthly warfare men exhaust so much toil, in order to gain for themselves things that can perish in the same way as they were gained: surely no labour ought to be refused by us, by which that is acquired which can in no way be lost.

For God, who begot men for this warfare, willed them to stand ready in the battle line, and with minds keenly intent, to keep watch against the ambushes or open assaults of a single enemy; who catches us, as skilled and experienced commanders are wont to do, by various stratagems, raging according to the nature and character of each. For upon some he sends an insatiable greed, so as to shake them loose from the way of truth, bound as if by fetters to their own wealth. Others he inflames with the goads of anger, so as to turn them away from the contemplation of God, bent rather upon doing harm. Others he plunges into immoderate lusts, so that, serving pleasure and the body, they cannot look back toward virtue. Upon others he breathes envy, so that, occupied with their own torments, they think of nothing else but the happiness of those whom they hate. Others he puffs up with ambitions.

These are they who devote all the effort and care of their life to holding magistracies, so that they may mark the calendar and give their name to the years. The greed of some reaches higher, not to rule provinces with a temporal sword: but to wish to be called lords of the entire human race with infinite and perpetual power. But those whom he sees to be pious, he entangles in various religions, so as to make them impious. To those, however, who seek wisdom, he thrusts philosophy before their eyes; so as to blind them with the appearance of light, lest anyone should grasp and hold fast the truth. Thus he has blocked all approaches to men and hedged up the ways, rejoicing in widespread errors: so that we might be able to dispel these and overcome the very author of evils, God has enlightened us and armed us with true and heavenly virtue; of which I must now discourse.

But before I begin to set forth the individual virtues, virtue itself must be defined, which the philosophers did not rightly determine, as to what it was, or in what things; what work, what duty it has. They therefore retained the name alone, but lost the force, the rationale, and the effect. Now whatever things are customarily said in the definition of virtue, Lucilius collects and sets forth in a few verses, which I prefer indeed to set down; lest, while I refute the opinions of many, I be more lengthy than is necessary.

Virtue is to be able to pay the price for riches. Virtue is to give what is in reality owed to honour; To be an enemy and foe to evil men and evil customs, And on the contrary, a defender of good men and good customs; To hold these in high esteem, to wish them well, to live as their friend: Moreover to count the advantages of one's country as one's first concern, Then those of one's parents, and third and last our own.

From those definitions which the poet briefly comprised, M. Tullius drew the duties of living, following Panaetius the Stoic, and enclosed them in three volumes.

How false these things are, we shall see presently, so that it may appear how great is the divine condescension that has been bestowed upon us, which has opened the truth to us. He said that virtue is to know what is good and evil; what is base, what is honorable, what is useful, what is less so. He could have put it more briefly, if he had said only good and evil, because nothing can be useful or honorable that is not at the same time good, and nothing useless or base that is not at the same time evil. This also seems so to the philosophers, and Cicero himself shows the same in the third book of the aforementioned work. But knowledge cannot be virtue, because it is not within us, but comes to us from without. That which can pass from one person to another is not virtue, because virtue belongs to each person as his own. Knowledge, therefore, is the benefit of another, because it consists in hearing.

Virtue is entirely ours, because it consists in the will to do good. Just as in the undertaking of a journey it avails nothing to know the road, unless the effort and strength for walking are at hand: so in truth knowledge avails nothing, if one's own virtue is lacking. For indeed even those who sin, if not perfectly, yet perceive what is good and evil; and as often as they do something wickedly, they know they are sinning and therefore strive to conceal it. But since the nature of good and evil does not deceive them, they are overcome by evil desire so as to sin, because they lack virtue, that is, the desire to do what is right and honorable. From this, therefore, it is apparent that knowledge of good and evil is one thing, and virtue another, since knowledge can exist without virtue, as was the case with very many of the philosophers.

In this matter, since it rightly pertains to blame that one has not done what one knew, the perverse will and the vicious mind, which ignorance cannot excuse, will rightly be punished. Therefore, just as virtue is not to know good and evil: so virtue is to do good and not to do evil. And yet knowledge is so joined with virtue, that knowledge precedes virtue and virtue follows knowledge; because cognition is of no avail unless action also follows. Horace, therefore, put it somewhat better; but ineptly, because he ended it with a contrary term; as if one were to say: That is good which is not evil. For when I do not know what virtue is, I do not know what vice is either. Both, therefore, require definition, because the nature of the matter is such that both must either be understood or not understood together. But let us do what he ought to have done. Virtue is to restrain anger, to curb desire, to bridle lust; for that is to flee from vice.

For nearly all things that are done unjustly and wickedly arise from these passions. For if the impulse of that agitation which is called anger be blunted, all contentions among men will be peacefully laid to rest; no one will lay snares, no one will rush forward to do harm. Likewise, if desire be tempered, no one will range over land and sea, no one will lead an army to plunder and lay waste the possessions of others. Likewise, if the ardor of lusts be suppressed, every age and sex will retain its own sanctity; no one will either suffer or do anything shameful. Therefore all crimes and wickednesses, when these passions are calmed by virtue, will be removed from the life and customs of men. This calming of agitations and passions has this purpose, that we do all things rightly. The whole duty of virtue, therefore, is not to sin.

This duty assuredly cannot be fulfilled by one who does not know God: since ignorance of him from whom good things arise must necessarily drive the imprudent man into vices. And so, that I may define more briefly and significantly the chief duties of each thing: knowledge is to know God, virtue is to worship him: in the former is contained wisdom, in the latter justice.

I have said, as was first required, that knowledge of good is not virtue; then what virtue is, and wherein it consists. It follows that I should also briefly show that the philosophers did not know what good and evil are, since this was nearly declared in the third book, when I was disputing about the Highest Good. But because they did not know what the highest good was, they must also have erred in the other goods and evils which are not the highest; for one who does not hold the very source from which those things descend cannot examine them with true judgment. The source of good things, however, is God, and of evil things that one, namely the ever-enemy of the divine name, of whom we have often spoken. From these two principles good and evil things arise.

Those which come from God have this purpose, that they prepare immortality, which is the Highest Good: but those which come from that other one have this function, that they draw a man away from heavenly things and plunge him into earthly ones, and destroy him unto everlasting punishment, which is the highest evil. Is there any doubt, then, that all those men were ignorant of what good and evil are, who knew neither God nor the adversary of God? And so they referred the end of goods to the body and to this brief life, which must necessarily be dissolved and perish: they did not advance further. But all their precepts, and all the goods they introduce, cling to the earth and lie on the ground, since they die together with the body, which is earth; for they pertain not to procuring life for man, but to seeking or increasing wealth, honors, glory, power; all of which are as mortal as the man who labored that they might fall to his lot.

Hence that saying: For they prescribe by what means and by what arts one's family estate is to be sought, because they see that it is usually sought badly: but virtue of this kind is not set before the wise man. For it is not virtue to seek wealth, the finding or possession of which is not in our power. And so both the gaining and the holding of it are easier for the wicked than for the good. Virtue, therefore, cannot consist in seeking those things, in the contempt of which the force and principle of virtue appears; nor will it flee to those very things which a great and lofty spirit delights to trample and crush underfoot: nor is it right that a soul intent upon heavenly goods should be called away from its immortal works in order to procure these fragile things for itself. But the principle of virtue consists chiefly in procuring those things which neither any man nor death itself can take from us.

Since this is so, what follows is true: Which verse signifies nearly the same as the first two. But neither he himself, nor any of the philosophers, could know the price itself, either of what kind or what it is. For the poet, and all those whom he followed, thought that it was to use wealth rightly, that is, to be frugal; not to furnish banquets sumptuously; not to give rashly; not to pour out one's family estate on superfluous or base things. Someone will perhaps say: What then? Do you deny this to be virtue? I do not deny it; for I should seem to approve the contrary if I denied it. But I deny it to be true virtue; because it is not heavenly but wholly earthly, since it effects nothing except what remains on earth. But what it is to use wealth rightly, and what fruit is to be sought from riches, I will declare more openly when I begin to speak of the duty of piety.

Now the remaining things that follow are in no way true. For to declare enmity against the wicked, or to undertake the defense of the good, can be common to evil men as well. For some, by feigned uprightness, make a way for themselves to power, and do many things that good men are accustomed to do, and indeed more readily, because they do them for the sake of deceiving. Would that it were as easy to perform as it is easy to simulate goodness. But these men, when they have begun to be masters of their purpose and desire, and have seized the highest degree of power, then indeed, laying aside pretense, they reveal their true character: they seize everything, and violate and vex all; and they pursue those very good men whose cause they had undertaken, and cut away the steps by which they ascended, lest anyone be able to imitate them against themselves. Yet let us suppose that this duty belongs only to a good man, to defend the good.

But to undertake it is easy; to fulfill it, difficult; because when you have committed yourself to the contest and conflict, the victory lies in the judgment of God, not in your own. And very often the wicked are more powerful than the good, both in number and in conspiracy; so that to overcome them, not so much virtue as good fortune is necessary. Does anyone not know how often the better and juster side has been defeated? Hence there have always arisen harsh dominations over citizens. All history is full of examples: but we shall be content with one. Gnaeus Pompeius wished to be the defender of the good; for indeed he took up arms on behalf of the republic, the Senate, and liberty. Yet he was defeated and fell together with liberty itself, and was beheaded by Egyptian eunuchs and cast out unburied. It is not virtue, therefore, either to be an enemy of the wicked or a defender of the good, because virtue cannot be subject to uncertain chances.

Moreover, to count the advantages of one's country as one's first concern. Without the concord of men, there is no virtue at all. For what are the advantages of one's country, if not the disadvantages of another city or nation? That is, to extend boundaries violently seized from others, to increase empire, to make revenues greater. All of which are not virtues, but the overthrow of virtues. For first the bond of human society is destroyed, innocence is destroyed, abstinence from what belongs to another is destroyed, and finally justice itself is destroyed, which cannot endure the discord of the human race, and wherever arms have gleamed, it must necessarily be driven away and banished from there. For that saying of Cicero is true: Those who say that account must be taken of citizens but deny it of foreigners, break up the common society of the human race; which being removed, beneficence, liberality, goodness, and justice are utterly destroyed. For how can one be just who harms, who hates, who despoils, who kills?

All of which things are done by those who strive to benefit their country. For they do not know what that very benefiting means, who think nothing useful, nothing advantageous, except what can be held in the hand, which alone cannot be held, because it can be taken away. Whoever, therefore, has acquired for his country these (as they themselves call them) goods, that is, who by overthrowing cities and destroying nations has filled the treasury with money, seized lands, and made his own citizens wealthier; this man is extolled to the skies with praises, and in him the highest and perfect virtue is thought to reside. This error belongs not only to the common people and the ignorant, but also to the philosophers; who even give precepts for injustice, lest the authority of their teaching be lacking to folly and wickedness.

And so when they dispute about duties pertaining to military affairs, all that discourse is accommodated not to justice nor to true virtue, but to this civil life and custom, which is not justice, as both the facts show and Cicero himself has testified. "But we," he says, "hold no solid and clearly expressed image of true law and genuine justice. We use shadows and likenesses; and would that we followed even these! For they are drawn from the best examples of nature and truth." A shadow, therefore, and an image of justice is what they took to be justice. What of wisdom? Does he not confess the same, that there is none among the philosophers? "Or when Fabricius," he says, "or Aristides is called just, or an example of courage is sought from the former, or of justice from the latter, as from a wise man. For none of these was wise in the sense in which we wish the wise man to be understood.

Nor were those who were held and named wise, Marcus Cato and Gaius Laelius, wise men, nor even those seven: but from the frequency of middling duties they bore a certain likeness and appearance of wise men." If, therefore, by the confession of the philosophers themselves, wisdom has been taken away from the philosophers, and justice has been taken away from those who were held to be just, then all those descriptions of virtue must necessarily be false; because no one can know what true virtue is, unless he is just and wise. But no one is just and wise, except one whom God has instructed with heavenly precepts.

For all those who are accounted wise through the confessed folly of others, led on by the appearance of virtue, lay hold of shadows and images, nothing true. This comes about for the reason that that lying way, which leads to destruction, has many paths, on account of the variety of studies and disciplines, which are unlike and diverse in human life. For just as that way of wisdom has something resembling folly, as we showed in the preceding book, so this way, though it is wholly of folly, has something resembling wisdom, which those who perceive the common folly seize upon; and as it has manifest vices, so it has something that seems to resemble virtue; as it has open wickedness, so it has a certain image and appearance of justice. For how could the forerunner of that way, whose whole force and power lies in deception, lead all men into fraud, unless he displayed to them things bearing the likeness of truth?

For God, in order that that immortal secret of his might be hidden in concealment, placed upon his way things which men would spurn as evil and base, so that, turned away from the wisdom and truth which they sought without any guide, they might fall into the very thing which they desired to avoid and flee. And so he shows that way of perdition and death to be manifold, either because there are many kinds of life, or because there are many gods who are worshipped.

The guide of this way, a transgressor and a deceiver, in order that there may seem to be some distinction between the false and the true, the evil and the good, leads the licentious by one path, those who are called frugal by another; the ignorant by one, the learned by another; the slothful by one, the vigorous by another; the foolish by one, the philosophers by another; and these last not by a single track. For those who do not shun either pleasures or riches he separates moderately from this common and well-trodden way; but those who wish to follow virtue, or profess contempt of worldly things, he drags through certain rough precipices. Yet all those roads which display the appearance of good works are not other ways, but byways and side-paths; which seem indeed to branch off to the right from that common road, yet are all brought back to the same road and to one single end at the very last.

For there that guide joins all together at the point where it was needful that the good should be separated from the evil, the brave from the slothful, the wise from the foolish; namely in the worship of the gods, wherein he slaughters all with one sword, because without any distinction they were all foolish, and hurls them headlong into death. But this way, which is the way of truth and wisdom and virtue and justice, of all which there is one source, one force, one abode, is also simple, in that with equal minds and in perfect harmony we follow and worship one God; and narrow, because virtue is granted to fewer; and steep, because to the good which is highest and sublime one cannot arrive except with the utmost difficulty and toil.

This is the way which the philosophers seek; but they do not find it for this reason, that they seek it rather upon the earth, where it cannot appear. They wander therefore as upon a great sea, and do not understand whither they are being carried, because they neither discern the way nor follow any guide. For this way of life must be sought by the same method by which a course is sought for ships upon the deep; which, unless they observe some light of heaven, wander on uncertain courses. But whoever strives to hold the right path of life ought not to look upon the earth, but upon heaven; and, to speak more plainly, ought not to follow man but God; ought not to serve these earthly images but the heavenly God; ought not to refer all things to the body but to the mind; ought not to devote himself to this life but to the eternal.

And so if you always fix your eyes upon heaven and observe the sun as it rises, and hold it as the guide of your life as of a voyage, your feet will of their own accord be directed into the way; and that heavenly light, which to sound minds is a far brighter sun than this one which we see with mortal flesh, will so rule, so govern, that it will lead you without any wandering to the highest haven of wisdom and virtue.

The law of God must therefore be taken up, which may direct us upon this journey: that holy, that heavenly law, which Marcus Tullius depicted in almost divine words in the third book of his work On the Republic; whose words I have subjoined, that I might say no more: "There is indeed a true law, right reason, consonant with nature, diffused among all, constant, everlasting; which calls to duty by commanding, and deters from fraud by forbidding: which nevertheless neither commands the upright in vain, nor moves the wicked by commanding or forbidding. This law may not be countermanded, nor is it lawful to derogate anything from it, nor can it be wholly abrogated. Neither by the Senate nor by the people can we be released from this law. Nor is any other expounder or interpreter of it to be sought.

Nor will there be one law at Rome and another at Athens, one now and another hereafter: but one law, both everlasting and immutable, will embrace all nations and at all times; and there will be one common master and ruler of all, God, the discoverer, arbitrator, and proposer of this law; whoever does not obey him will flee from himself, and, having spurned the nature of man, will by that very act pay the greatest penalties, even if he escape the other punishments which are supposed to exist." Who, knowing the mystery of God, could set forth the law of God so significantly as that man, far removed from knowledge of the truth, expressed it? I indeed think that those who speak true things unwittingly are to be regarded as though they divine, prompted by some spirit. But if, as he perceived the force and principle of the holy law, he had also known or explained in what precepts the law itself consists, he would have performed not the office of a philosopher but of a prophet.

Because he could not do this, it must be done by us, to whom the law itself has been delivered by that one master and ruler of all, God.

The first head of this law is to know God himself, to obey him alone, to worship him alone. For he cannot attain the reason of man who does not know God, the parent of his soul; which is the greatest impiety. This ignorance causes him to serve strange gods, than which nothing more wicked can be committed. From this point the descent to wickedness is easy, through ignorance of the true and singular good; because God, whom he refuses to know, is himself the fountain of goodness. Or if he shall wish to follow justice, yet being ignorant of divine law, he embraces the laws of his own nation as true law; which justice did not devise, but utility. For why are different and varied laws established among all peoples, unless because each nation has enacted for itself what it judged useful to its own affairs?

But how far utility departs from justice, the Roman people itself teaches, which by declaring wars through the Fetials, and doing injuries in a lawful manner, always coveting and seizing the possessions of others, has acquired for itself dominion over the whole world. But these men think themselves just if they do nothing contrary to their own laws; which can also be ascribed to fear, if they abstain from crimes through dread of present punishments. But let us grant that they do of their own nature, or (as the philosopher says) of their own accord, what they are compelled to do by laws. Will they therefore be just because they obey the institutions of men, who themselves could either err or be unjust? As were those framers of the Twelve Tables, who certainly served the public utility according to the condition of the times.

Civil law therefore is one thing, which varies everywhere according to customs; true justice is another, which God has set forth as uniform and simple for all; and whoever is ignorant of God must of necessity be ignorant of justice itself. But let us suppose it possible that someone by natural and innate goodness may attain true virtues, such as we are told Cimon was at Athens, who both gave alms to the needy, and invited the poor to his table, and clothed the naked. Yet when that one thing which is greatest is lacking, the knowledge of God, all those good deeds are superfluous and empty, so that he will have labored in vain in pursuing them. For all his justice will be like a human body that has no head; in which, although all the members are in their proper places both in form and in proportion, yet because that which is the chief of all is lacking, it is without life and without all sensation.

And so those members have only the form of members, they have not the use; just as, to be sure, a head without a body. Like to this is he who, though he does not ignore God, lives unjustly. For he has only that which is supreme: but in vain, since he lacks virtues as it were members. Therefore, that the body may be living and sentient, both the knowledge of God is necessary, as it were the head; and all the virtues, as it were the body. Thus will man be made perfect and living: but yet the sum of all is in the head; although it cannot subsist without all the members, yet it can without some of them. And it will indeed be a defective and feeble creature; but yet it will live, as does he who both knows God and sins in some respect. For God grants pardon to sins. Therefore one can live without some of the members, but in no way without the head.

This is what causes philosophers, even if they are good by nature, yet to know nothing, to understand nothing. All their learning and virtue is without a head; because they do not know God, who is the head of virtue and learning: he who does not acknowledge him, though he may see, is blind; though he may hear, is deaf; though he may speak, is tongueless. But when he has come to know the creator of things and the parent, then he will both see and hear and speak. For he has begun to have a head, in which all the senses are placed, that is, eyes, ears, and tongue. For assuredly he sees who has beheld with the eyes of his heart the truth in which God is, or God in whom truth is: he hears who fixes the divine voices and life-giving precepts upon his breast: he speaks who, discoursing of heavenly things, sets forth the virtue and majesty of the one God.

Wherefore there is no doubt that whoever has not acknowledged God is impious; and all his virtues, which he thinks he has or holds, are found upon that deadly way which is all darkness. Therefore there is nothing for anyone to congratulate himself upon if he has attained these empty virtues; because he must be not only wretched, as one who lacks present goods, but also foolish, who undertakes the greatest labors in his life to no purpose. For if the hope of immortality be taken away, which God promises to those who dwell in his Religion, for the sake of attaining which virtue is to be sought, and whatever evils befall must be endured, it will assuredly be the greatest vanity to wish to comply with virtues which bring calamities and toils upon man in vain. For if it is virtue to endure bravely and undergo poverty, exile, pain, death, which others fear, what good does it finally have in itself, for which the philosophers say it is to be sought for its own sake?

Doubtless they take delight in superfluous and empty punishments, when they might live at ease.

For if souls are mortal, if virtue will be nothing after the body is dissolved, why do we flee the goods assigned to us, as though we were either ungrateful or unworthy to enjoy divine gifts? In order to have these goods we must live wickedly and impiously; because poverty follows virtue, that is, justice. He therefore is not sane who, with no greater hope set before him, prefers toils and torments and miseries to those goods which others enjoy in life. But if virtue (as is most rightly said by these men) is to be embraced, because it is established that man is born for it, there must underlie some greater hope, which may bring great and glorious consolation for the evils and toils which it is the part of virtue to endure. Nor can virtue, since it is in itself hard, be held to be a good in any other way than if it compensates its bitterness with the greatest good.

Equally, these present goods are not to be abstained from in any other way than if there are other greater ones, for the sake of which it is worth so much both to forgo all pleasures and to endure all evils. But there are no others (as I showed in the third book) except everlasting life. But who can bestow this except God, who himself set forth virtue? Therefore in the knowledge and worship of God the sum of all things lies: in this is all the hope and salvation of man; this is the first step of wisdom, that we know who is our true Father, and follow him with due piety alone, and obey him, and serve him with the utmost devotion; in winning his favor let all our action and care and effort be placed.

I have said what is owed to God: I shall now say what must be rendered to man; although that very thing which you render to man is rendered to God, because man is the image of God. Yet the first duty of justice is to be joined with God; the second, with man. But that first is called Religion; this second is named mercy or humanity. This virtue is proper to the just and to the worshippers of God; because it alone contains the principle of common life. For God, who did not give wisdom to the other animals, generated them safer from assault and danger by natural defences. But because he formed man naked and fragile, so that he might equip him rather with wisdom, he gave him, beyond all else, this affection of piety, that man might protect, love, and cherish man, and both receive and render aid against all dangers. The highest bond therefore among men is humanity: and whoever has broken it must be reckoned impious and a parricide.

For if we all spring from one man whom God fashioned, we are certainly of one blood; and therefore it must be counted the greatest wickedness to hate a man, even a guilty one. For this reason God has commanded that enmities are never to be created by us, but always to be removed; namely, that we may soften those who are our enemies by reminding them of kinship. Likewise, if we have all been breathed upon and animated by one God, what else are we but brothers? And indeed more closely joined in souls than in bodies. Therefore Lucretius does not err when he says: those who harm man, who against the law of humanity and all that is sacred despoil, torture, kill, and destroy, are to be counted as savage beasts. On account of this bond of brotherhood God teaches us never to do evil, always to do good. And what that same doing of good consists in, he himself prescribes: to render aid to the oppressed and the struggling; to share sustenance with those who have none.

For God, since he is merciful, willed us to be a social creature. Therefore we ought to think of ourselves in other men. We do not deserve to be freed from danger if we do not come to the aid of others: we do not deserve help if we deny it. For this part the Philosophers have no precepts; for they, captivated by the semblance of a false virtue, removed mercy from man, and while they wished to heal, they corrupted. And although these same men for the most part confess that the fellowship of human society must be maintained, they plainly dissociate themselves from it by the harshness of their inhuman virtue. Their error must therefore be refuted here as well—those who think nothing should be shared with anyone.

They have put forward not one but several accounts of the origin and cause of the founding of cities: but some relate that those men who were first born from the earth, as they led a wandering life through forests and fields, and were bound together by no tie of speech or law, but had leaves and grass for beds and caves and caverns for houses, were prey to beasts and stronger animals. Then those who had either escaped being torn apart, or had seen their neighbours being torn apart, warned by their own danger, ran to other men, implored protection, and first signified their will by gestures; then attempted the beginnings of speech, and by imposing names on individual things, gradually perfected the faculty of speaking. But when they saw that even a multitude was not safe against beasts, they also began to fortify towns; either to make the quiet of night safe for themselves, or to ward off the incursions and attacks of beasts not by fighting but by throwing up earthworks.

O minds unworthy of men, who put forward these absurdities! Wretched and pitiable, who committed their folly to writing and to memory! Who, when they saw that even dumb animals have an inborn instinct for gathering together, for seeking one another, for fleeing danger, for guarding against harm, for preparing lairs and hiding-places for themselves; yet supposed that men themselves could not have learned, except by the warning of examples, what they ought to fear, what to guard against, what to do; or that they would never have come together among themselves, nor found the faculty of speech, had not beasts devoured them. This seemed to others (as it was) deranged, and they said that it was not the maulings of wild beasts that was the cause of their coming together, but rather humanity itself: and so they gathered among themselves, because the nature of man is averse to solitude and desirous of fellowship and society. The dispute between them is not great. For the causes are different, the result is the same.

Both could therefore have occurred, since they do not contradict each other: yet neither is in any way true; because men were not born throughout the whole earth as if sown from the teeth of some dragon (as the poets tell), but one man was fashioned by God, and from that one man the whole earth was filled with the human race, by the same process, namely, by which it was again replenished after the flood: which they certainly cannot deny. No such gathering therefore took place in the beginning; and that there were ever men on earth who, beyond infancy, did not speak, will be understood by anyone who is not lacking in reason. Yet let us suppose those things to be true which idle and foolish old men fable, so that we may refute them by their own perceptions and their own reasoning.

If men came together for this reason, that they might protect their weakness by mutual aids; then aid must be given to the man who needs help. For since men entered into and established society with men for the sake of protection, it must be counted the greatest impiety either to violate or not to preserve that covenant struck among men from the very beginning of their existence. For he who withdraws himself from rendering aid must of necessity withdraw himself from receiving it as well; because he who denies his own service to another supposes that he has no need of anyone's service. But he who thus dissociates and separates himself from the body must live not after the manner of a man, but after the manner of wild beasts. But if this cannot be, then the bond of human society must be maintained by every means, because man without man can in no way live. The maintenance of society, moreover, is community, that is, to render aid so that we may be able to receive it.

But if indeed (as those others argue) the gathering of men was brought about by humanity itself, then man certainly owes recognition to man. And if those rough and still savage men did this, and did it before the faculty of speech was yet established, what must we think men who are refined, and bound together by the commerce of speech and of all things, who being accustomed to men cannot endure solitude, ought to do?

Humanity must therefore be preserved, if we wish to be rightly called human beings. But what else is it to preserve humanity itself, than to love a human being because he is a human being, and the same as what we are? Discord and dissension, therefore, are not in accordance with the nature of man. And that saying of Cicero is true, where he says that a man obedient to nature cannot harm a man. Therefore if to harm a man is contrary to nature, then to benefit a man must necessarily be in accordance with nature. He who does not do this strips himself of the name of man; because it is the duty of humanity to come to the aid of a man's need and danger. I ask, therefore, of those who think it is not the part of a wise man to be moved and to show pity: if a man is seized by some wild beast and implores the help of an armed man, do they think he ought to be helped, or not?

They are not so shameless as to deny that what humanity demands and requires ought to be done. Likewise, if someone is surrounded by fire, crushed by a falling ruin, drowning at sea, or swept away by a river, do they think it is the part of a man not to help? They are not men themselves, if they think so. For no one can be exempt from dangers of this kind. Nay, they will say it is the part of a man and a brave man to save one who is about to perish. If, therefore, in dangers of this kind, which bring peril of life to a man, they concede that it is the part of humanity to come to his aid, what reason is there why, if a man is hungry, thirsty, or cold, they should not think he ought to be helped?

Since these things are by nature equal to those chance misfortunes, and call for one and the same humanity, yet they make a distinction between them, because they measure all things not by the true reality itself, but by present utility. For those whom they snatch from danger they hope will return the favor to them. But the needy, because they have no such hope, they consider that whatever they bestow upon men of that sort is lost. Hence comes that detestable saying of Plautus: yet perhaps the poet spoke in the character of a person. What of Marcus Tullius in his books on Duties—does he not advise the very same thing, that nothing at all should be given freely?

For he said thus: "Largess, which is made from one's private means, drains the very source of generosity; and so generosity is destroyed by generosity, since the more persons you have used it toward, the less you can use it toward many." And the same author a little later: "But what is more foolish than to take care that you cannot continue to do what you do willingly?" Evidently a professor of wisdom restrains men from humanity, and warns them to guard their private means carefully; and to prefer to preserve their strongbox rather than justice. And since he understood this to be inhuman and wicked, soon in another chapter, as if moved by repentance, he says thus: "Sometimes, however, something must be given; nor is this kind of generosity to be entirely rejected, and often something from one's private means must be bestowed upon suitable men in need." What is meant by suitable? Namely, those who are able to repay and return the favor.

If Cicero were now alive, I would surely cry out: Here, here, Marcus Tullius, you have strayed from true justice; and with one word you have abolished it; when you measured the duties of piety and humanity by utility. For largess must be given not to suitable men, but as much as possible to those who are not suitable. For that which you do without hope of receiving in return is done justly, piously, and humanely. This is that true and genuine justice, of which you say you hold no solid and clear image. You yourself cry out in many places that virtue is not mercenary; and you confess in your books of Laws that liberality is gratuitous, in these words: "Nor is there any doubt that he who is called liberal and kind follows duty, not profit." Why then do you give rather to suitable men, unless that you may afterward receive a reward?

Therefore, by your authority and teaching as a guide of justice, whoever is not suitable will be worn down by nakedness, thirst, and hunger; and men of abundance, overflowing even to luxury, will not come to the aid of the uttermost necessity. If virtue demands no reward, if it is to be sought for its own sake as you say; then estimate justice, the mother and chief of virtues, at its own worth, not at your convenience. Bestow it most especially upon him from whom you hope for nothing. Why do you choose persons? Why do you inspect their limbs? Whoever prays to you for that reason—because he thinks you a man—must be regarded by you as a man. Cast aside those shadows and images of justice, and hold fast to the true and clear reality itself. Give to the blind, the infirm, the lame, the destitute; who, unless you give, must die. They are useless to men, but useful to God, who keeps them in life, who grants them breath, who deems them worthy of light.

Cherish, as much as is in you, even the souls of men, and sustain them with humanity lest they be extinguished. He who can come to the aid of one about to perish, if he does not come to his aid, kills him. But these men, because they neither retain nature nor know what reward lies in such an act, while they fear to lose, do lose; and fall into the very thing they most guard against, so that whatever they give either perishes entirely or is of use for the briefest time. For those who deny a small pittance to the wretched, who wish to preserve humanity without loss to themselves, pour out their patrimonies in order either to acquire for themselves things that will perish and are fragile, or certainly to gain nothing at the cost of their greatest losses. For what must be said of those who, led by popular fickleness, spend resources sufficient for great cities on the exhibition of shows?

Only that they are mad and frenzied, who bestow upon the people what they themselves lose, and none of those upon whom it is bestowed receives it. And so, as all pleasure is fleeting and brief—especially that of the eyes and ears—men either forget, and count another's losses as ingratitude; or are even offended if the lust of the crowd has not been satisfied: so that even the most foolish of men have purchased evil for themselves with evil; or if they have pleased so greatly, they gain nothing more than empty favor and the talk of a few days. Thus daily the patrimonies of the most frivolous of men are squandered on superfluous things. Are those, then, wiser who provide more useful and lasting gifts to their fellow citizens? Those, namely, who by erecting public works seek a memorial for their name?

Not even these rightly bury their goods in the earth; because neither does memory confer anything upon the dead, nor are their works everlasting: since they are either scattered and fall by a single trembling of the earth, or are consumed by accidental fire, or are demolished by some hostile assault, or certainly dissolve and crumble away through age itself. "For there is nothing," as the orator says, "made by work and by hand, which age does not wear away and consume. But this justice and gentleness flourishes more greatly day by day." Those, then, do better who give freely to their tribesmen or clients: for they do bestow something upon men, and are of benefit; but that is not true and just liberality. For there is no beneficence wherever there is no necessity. Therefore whatever is given for the sake of favor to those who are not in need is lost; or it returns with interest, and will not be beneficence.

And even if it is welcome to those to whom it is given, it is nevertheless not just, because if it were not done, no harm would follow. There is therefore one certain and true duty of liberality: to feed the needy and the useless.

This is that perfect justice which preserves human society, of which the philosophers speak. This is the greatest and truest fruit of riches: not to use wealth for the private pleasure of one person, but for the welfare of many; not for one's own present enjoyment, but for justice, which alone does not perish. It must therefore be maintained in every way that the hope of receiving anything be entirely absent from the duty of mercy. For the reward of this work and duty is to be expected from God alone; for if you expect it from a man, that will no longer be humanity, but the lending out of a benefit at interest; nor can he seem to have deserved well who, in what he does, provides not for another but for himself. And yet the matter comes to the same thing: so that whatever anyone has provided for another, hoping for no advantage from him, he truly provides for himself, because he will receive his reward from God.

God likewise commanded that whenever we prepare a feast, we should invite to the table those who cannot invite us back and return the favour, so that every act of our life may not lack the gift of mercy. Nor yet let anyone think it forbidden to him either to share fellowship with friends or to show affection to neighbours. But God has made known to us what is the true and just work; we ought so to live with our neighbours, provided we know that the one pertains to man, the other to God. The chief virtue therefore is hospitality, as the philosophers also say; but they twist it away from true justice and drag it toward advantage. "Rightly," says Cicero, "has hospitality been praised by Theophrastus. For it is (as it seems to me at least) very fitting that the houses of distinguished men should be open to distinguished guests." He erred in the same way again as when he said that the wealthy were the proper recipients of generosity.

For the house of a just and wise man ought to be open not to the illustrious and powerful, but to the humble and lowly. For those illustrious and powerful persons can be in want of nothing; their own opulence both protects and honours them. Now nothing ought to be done by a just man unless it be a benefit. But a benefit, if it is repaid, perishes and comes to an end; for we cannot hold intact that for which the price has been paid back to us. In these benefits, therefore, the principle of justice is exercised—those which have remained safe and uncorrupted; and they remain so only if they are bestowed upon men who can in no way be of profit. But that man, in receiving the illustrious, had regard for nothing but advantage; nor did the clever man conceal what profit he hoped to gain from it.

For he says that whoever does this will be powerful among foreigners through the favour of princes, whom he will have bound to himself by the right of hospitality and friendship. Oh, with how many arguments the inconsistency of Cicero could be convicted, if that were my purpose! And he would be refuted not so much by our words as by his own. For he himself says that the more anyone refers whatever he does to his own advantage, the less he is a good man. He likewise denies that it is the mark of a straightforward and open man to seek favour, to simulate something and put it forward, to appear to be doing one thing while doing another, to pretend to be providing for another what he is providing for himself; but rather that it is the mark of a malicious, crafty, deceitful, and cunning man. How then would he defend that ambitious hospitality from being malice?

"You run around through every gate to invite the arriving princes of peoples and cities to your house, so that through them you may obtain power among their citizens; and you wish to appear just, and humane, and hospitable, while you are pursuing your own advantage." But did he not say this rather incautiously? For what is less fitting for Cicero? But through ignorance of true right, knowingly and willingly he entangled himself in these snares. That he may be pardoned for it, he testified that he was not giving precepts toward true justice, which he does not possess, but toward the shadow and image of justice. Pardon must therefore be granted to a teacher of shadows and images; nor is truth to be demanded of one who confesses that he does not know it. The ransoming of captives is a great and noble duty of justice, which Tullius himself also approved. "And this kindness," he says, "is also useful to the state: to ransom captives from slavery, to enrich the poor.

This custom of kindness I far prefer to the giving of gifts. This is the mark of serious and great men." It is therefore the proper work of the just to feed the poor and ransom captives, since even among the unjust, those who do these things are called serious and great. For it is the highest praise for those to do good from whom no one expected it would be done. For he who does good to a kinsman, or a neighbour, or a friend, deserves either no praise or certainly no great praise; because he ought to do it, and he is impious and detestable if he does not do what both nature itself and obligation demand of him; and if he does it, he does so not so much to gain glory as to avoid blame. But he who has done it for a stranger and an unknown person is truly worthy of praise, since he was led to do it by humanity alone.

There, therefore, is justice, where there is no bond of necessity to do good. This duty of kindness, then, he ought not even to have set above the giving of gifts, which is the act of one who compares and chooses from two goods that which is better. For that giving of gifts by men who cast their patrimony into the sea is empty, and trivial, and most remote from all justice. And so those gifts ought not even to be called gifts, in which no one receives except one who does not deserve to receive. No less great a work of justice is to protect and defend orphans and widows who are destitute and in need of help. This that divine law prescribes to all universally; since indeed all good judges consider it to belong to their duty to cherish them with natural humanity and to strive to be of benefit to them. But these works are properly ours, who have received the law, who have received the very words of God commanding it.

For those others feel indeed by nature that it is just to protect those who lack protection; but why this is so they do not perceive. For God, whose clemency is perpetual, commands widows and orphans to be defended and cherished for this reason: that no one may be held back by regard and pity for his own dear ones from undertaking death for justice and faith, but may face it unhesitatingly and bravely, knowing that he leaves his beloved ones to God, and that protection will never be lacking to them. Also to take up the care and tending of the sick who have no one to attend them is an act of the highest humanity and great merit; and whoever does this will gain a living sacrifice for God, and what he has given to another for a time, he himself will receive from God for eternity. That last and greatest duty of piety is the burial of strangers and the poor, which those teachers of virtue and justice have not touched upon at all.

Nor could they see it, who measured all duties by advantage. For in the other matters mentioned above, although they did not hold to the true boundary, yet, since they found some advantage in them, held back as it were by a certain scent of truth, they wandered nearer; but this, because they could see no advantage in it, they left aside. Indeed there were even those who made burial superfluous, and said there was nothing wrong in lying unburied and cast out; whose impious wisdom the whole human race rejects, as do the divine voices which command it to be done. But those men do not dare to say that it ought not to be done; only that, if by chance it is not done, there is no harm. And so in this matter they perform the office not so much of those who give precepts as of those who console, so that if by chance this should befall a wise man, he may not think himself wretched on that account.

But we do not say what a wise man must endure; but what he himself ought to do. And so we do not now inquire whether the whole practice of burial is useful or not; but this, even if it be without purpose (as they think), must nevertheless be done, if for no other reason than that it is seen to be done well and humanely among men. For the spirit is sought out, and the intention is weighed. We will not therefore allow the form and fashioning of God to lie as prey to wild beasts and birds, but we will return it to the earth from which it arose; and we will fulfil the necessary duty even for an unknown man, in whose place, since his own are absent, let humanity succeed, and wherever a man is missed, there we will consider our duty to be required.

And in what does the principle of justice more consist than in this: that what we provide for our own through affection, we provide for strangers through humanity, which is far more certain and more just? When this is done, it is no longer provided for a man, who feels nothing, but for God alone, to whom a just work is the most precious sacrifice. Someone will perhaps say: If I do all these things, I will have nothing. For what if a great number of men are in need, are cold, are taken captive, are dying, so that it is necessary for one who does these things to be stripped of his patrimony in a single day—shall I ruin the family estate, acquired by my own or my ancestors' labour, so that I myself must then live on the mercy of others? Why do you fear poverty with so faint a heart? Your own philosophers praise it; they testify that nothing is safer than this, nothing more tranquil. What you fear is a harbour from anxieties.

Do you not know how many dangers, how many chances of loss you lie under together with these evil riches? They will deal well with you if they pass away without your blood. You walk laden with plunder and carry spoils that inflame the minds even of your own people. Why then do you hesitate to invest well that which perhaps a single act of robbery, or a proscription suddenly arising, or some hostile plundering will snatch from you? Why do you fear to make a fleeting and fragile good into something everlasting, or to entrust your treasures to God as their guardian, where you need fear neither thief nor robber, neither rust nor tyrant? He who is rich with God can never be poor. If you value justice so highly, follow it, casting aside the burdens that weigh you down; free yourself from fetters and chains, so that unencumbered you may run to God. It is the mark of a great and lofty spirit to despise and trample upon mortal things.

But if you are not capable of this virtue—to lay your riches upon the altar of God, to purchase for yourself things more lasting in exchange for fragile ones—I will free you from fear. All these precepts are given not to you alone, but to the whole people who are joined in mind and hold together as one man. If alone you are not sufficient for great works, practise justice according to your ability, yet in such a way that as much as you surpass others in riches, so much you surpass them in work. Nor should you think that you are now being persuaded to diminish or exhaust your family estate; but to turn to better purposes what you were going to spend on superfluous things. From the source whence you buy beasts, ransom captives; from the source whence you feed wild animals, feed the poor; from the source whence you procure men for the sword, bury the innocent dead.

What profit is it to enrich beast-fighters in ruinous wickedness and to equip them for shameful deeds? Transfer to the great sacrifice what was going to perish to no purpose, so that in return for these true gifts you may have from God an eternal gift. Great is the reward of mercy, to which God promises that he will remit all sins. If you hear, he says, the prayers of your suppliant, I also will hear yours. If you have had pity on those who labour, I also will have pity on you in your labour. But if you have not looked upon them, nor helped them, I also will turn my mind against you, and will judge you by your own laws.

As often, therefore, as you pray, believe that you are being tested by God, whether you are worthy to be heard. Examine your conscience and, as much as you are able, heal your wounds. Yet do not think that, because sins are taken away by generosity, license to sin is granted to you. For they are abolished if you give to God because you have sinned; for if you sin in confidence of giving, they are not abolished. For God desires above all that men be cleansed from sins, and therefore commands that penance be done. But to do penance is nothing other than to profess and affirm that one will sin no more. Pardon is granted, therefore, to those who slip into sin imprudently and incautiously; he who sins knowingly has no forgiveness. Yet if someone has been purified from every stain of sin, let him not think he should restrain himself from the work of generosity on the ground that he has no sins to blot out.

Nay rather, he ought then all the more to practise justice when he has become just, so that what he formerly did for the healing of wounds he may afterwards do for the praise and glory of virtue. There is the further consideration that no one can be without fault so long as he is burdened with the garment of flesh. The weakness of that flesh is subject to the dominion of sin in three ways: in deeds, in words, in thoughts. Through these degrees justice advances to the highest summit. The first degree of virtue is to abstain from evil deeds; the second, also from evil words; the third, also from the thought of evil things. He who ascends the first degree is sufficiently just; he who ascends the second is now of perfect virtue, since he offends neither in deeds nor in speech; he who ascends the third seems truly to have attained the likeness of God.

For it is almost beyond human measure not to admit even into thought what is either evil in deed or base in speech. And so even just men, who are able to restrain themselves from every unjust act, are sometimes nevertheless overcome by that very frailty, so that either in anger they speak evil, or at the sight of pleasing things they covet in silent thought. But if mortal condition does not permit a man to be pure from every stain, then sins of the flesh must be abolished by continual generosity. For the one work of the wise, just, and living man is to place his riches in justice alone; and he who lacks this, though he surpass Croesus or Crassus in wealth, must be reckoned poor, naked, and a beggar. Care must therefore be taken that we be clothed with the garment of justice and piety, which no one may strip from us, and which may provide us with everlasting adornment.

For if the worshippers of gods adorn insensible images and pour into them whatever precious things they have—things which can neither use what they receive nor give thanks for it—how much more just and true it is to adorn the living images of God, so that you may deserve well of the living God? For as these have use of whatever they receive and give thanks, so God, in whose sight you shall have done good, will both approve it and render the reward of piety.

If, therefore, mercy is a noble and excellent good in man, and is judged by divine testimonies and by the agreement of good and bad men alike to be the highest good, it is plain that the philosophers were far removed from human good, who neither taught anything of this kind nor practised it; but always regarded as a vice that virtue which is in man almost singular. It is fitting here to introduce one topic from philosophy, so that we may more fully refute the errors of those who call mercy, desire, fear, and grief diseases of the soul. They do indeed attempt to distinguish virtues from vices, which is in truth a very easy matter.

For who could not separate the liberal man from the prodigal (as they do), or the frugal from the sordid, or the calm from the sluggish, or the cautious from the timid?—on the ground that these things which are good have their proper limits, and if they exceed those limits they slide into vices: so that constancy, unless it be undertaken on behalf of truth, becomes impudence; likewise courage, if it faces a certain danger without any compelling necessity or without an honourable cause, is turned into rashness. Freedom of speech also, if it attacks others rather than resisting those who attack, is contumacy. Severity likewise, unless it confines itself within fitting punishments for the guilty, becomes savage cruelty.

And so they say that those who appear evil do not sin of their own will, nor do they choose evil things in preference; but, having been led astray by the appearance of good things, they fall into evils while they are ignorant of the distinction between good and evil. These things are indeed not false; but they are all referred to the body. For to be frugal, or constant, or cautious, or calm, or brave, or severe, are virtues indeed, but of this temporal life. We, however, who despise this life, have other virtues set before us, of which the philosophers were unable by any reasoning even to form a suspicion. And so they held certain virtues as vices, and certain vices as virtues. For the Stoics remove from man all the passions by whose impulse the mind is moved—desire, joy, fear, grief—of which the first two arise from goods either future or present, and the latter two from evils.

In the same way they call these four, diseases (as I said), not so much implanted by nature as taken up through false opinion. And therefore they think they can be rooted out entirely, if the false opinion of goods and evils is removed. For if the wise man judges nothing to be good and nothing to be evil, he will neither burn with desire, nor exult with joy, nor be terrified by fear, nor be contracted by grief. We shall presently see whether they accomplish what they wish, or what they accomplish; but in the meantime their purpose is arrogant and almost mad, in that they think they can heal and strive against the force and order of nature.

For the reason of all living beings demonstrates that these passions are natural, not voluntary, since all are shaken by the same passions. The Peripatetics therefore speak more rightly, who deny that all these can be removed, because they were born together with us; and they endeavour to show how providently and how necessarily God, or nature (for so they say), has armed us with these passions—which, however, because they frequently become vicious if they are excessive, can be healthfully moderated by a man who applies measure, so that only as much is left to man as is sufficient for nature. This is not a foolish argument, if (as I said) everything were not referred to this life. The Stoics therefore are mad, who do not moderate these passions but cut them off, and wish in a manner to castrate man of things implanted by nature. This is like wishing to take away fear from deer, or venom from serpents, or anger from wild beasts, or gentleness from cattle.

For the things given singly to dumb animals are given all together at once to man. But if, as physicians affirm, the passion of joy is in the spleen, of anger in the gall, of lust in the liver, of fear in the heart, it is easier to kill the animal itself than to tear something out of the body; which is to wish to change the nature of a living being. But prudent men do not understand that, when they remove vices from man, they also remove virtue, for which alone they make room. For if virtue is to restrain and check oneself in the very impulse of anger—which they cannot deny—then whoever lacks anger lacks virtue. If virtue is to contain the lust of the body, he who has no lust to moderate must necessarily lack virtue. If virtue is to bridle desire from coveting what belongs to another, he who lacks that which virtue is employed to restrain can certainly have no virtue.

Where there are no vices, therefore, there is no place for virtue either; just as there is no place for victory where there is no adversary. Thus it comes about that good cannot exist without evil in this life. The passions, therefore, are as it were the natural fertility of souls. For just as a field which is naturally fruitful teems with thorns, so an uncultivated mind, with vices growing of their own accord, is overgrown as with briars. But when the true cultivator has come, straightway, as the vices give way, the fruits of virtue spring up. God therefore, when He first fashioned man, by wonderful providence implanted in him first those emotions of the soul, so that he might be capable of virtue as the earth is of cultivation; and He placed the material of vices in the passions, and of virtue in the vices. Virtue will assuredly either be nothing, or will not be able to be exercised, if those things are absent through which its force either appears or consists.

Let us now see what those same men who utterly excise vices have accomplished. Those four passions which they suppose to arise from opinion of goods and evils, by the uprooting of which they think the mind of the wise man is to be healed—since they understand that these are implanted by nature and that without them nothing can be moved or done—they substitute certain other things in their place and stead: so that in place of desire they substitute will, as though it were not far better to desire good than merely to will it. Likewise in place of joy, gladness; in place of fear, caution. But in the case of that fourth passion, reason failed them for changing the name. And so they removed grief entirely, that is, sadness and sorrow of mind; which cannot be done at all. For who could fail to grieve if pestilence has drained his country, or an enemy has overthrown it, or a tyrant has oppressed it?

Can anyone fail to grieve if he has seen liberty taken away; if he has seen his kinsmen, his friends, good men either driven into exile or most cruelly slaughtered?—unless one whose mind has become so stupefied that all feeling has been taken from him. Wherefore they ought either to have removed everything, or this incomplete and feeble argument should have been filled out; that is, something should have been substituted also for grief, since, given the ordering of the foregoing, this was the logical consequence.

For just as we rejoice in present goods, so we are distressed and grieve at evils. If therefore they gave another name to joy, because they judged it vicious, so it was fitting that another term be assigned to grief, because they judged it likewise vicious. From this it is plain that it was not the thing that was lacking to them, but the word; and through want of it they wished to remove that entire passion, which is the greatest of all, contrary to what nature would allow. For I could refute those changes of names at greater length, and show that either many names have been applied to the same things for the sake of adorning speech and increasing its abundance, or at any rate that those names do not differ greatly from one another. For desire also begins from will; and caution arises from fear; and joy is nothing other than openly expressed gladness. But let us suppose, as they themselves wish, that these are different things.

They will say, then, that desire is a persistent and perpetual will; joy, a gladness that lifts itself up insolently; fear, a caution that is excessive and beyond measure. Thus it comes about that the things they judge ought to be removed are not removed but moderated; since they change only the names, while the things themselves remain. Therefore, unwittingly, they arrive at the same point to which the Peripatetics come by reasoning—that vices, since they cannot be removed, must be moderately tempered. They err, therefore, because they do not accomplish what they wish, and by a long and rough circuit return to the same road.

But I do not think that even the Peripatetics have come near to the truth, who concede that these are vices but moderate them in a middling way. For even moderate vices must be guarded against; nay rather, the first thing to be accomplished was that there should be no vices. For nothing can be born vicious; but vices are made if we make bad use of the passions; if good use, they become virtues. Then it should have been shown that not the passions themselves but their causes are to be regulated. One ought not, they say, to exult with excessive joy, but moderately and temperately. This is like saying that one ought not to run swiftly but to walk quietly. Yet even one who walks may go astray, and one who runs may keep the right road.

What if I show that there is something in which not only a moderate amount, but even a single point of rejoicing is vicious; and another thing, on the contrary, in which even to exult with joy is in no way blameworthy? What in the end will that moderation of theirs profit us? I ask whether they think the wise man should rejoice if he sees some evil befall his enemy; or whether he ought to restrain his joy if, with enemies defeated or a tyrant overthrown, liberty and safety have been secured for the citizens?

No one doubts that to rejoice too little in the one case, and to rejoice too little in the other, is the greatest crime. The same may be said of the other affections. But, as I have said, the principle of wisdom is not concerned with moderating these affections, but with their causes: since they are stirred from without; nor was it fitting that restraints be imposed chiefly upon the affections themselves, since even slight ones can exist in the greatest crime, and great ones can exist without crime. Rather, they ought to have been assigned to definite times, and circumstances, and places; lest those things become vices which it is right to use. For just as it is good to walk rightly, but evil to go astray: so it is good to be moved by affections toward what is right, and evil toward what is wrong. For lust, if it does not wander beyond the lawful marriage-bed, though it be vehement, is nevertheless free from fault.

But if it seeks what belongs to another, though it be moderate, it is nevertheless the greatest vice. It is not therefore a disease to be angry, or to desire, or to be moved by lust: but to be irascible is a disease, as is being covetous, or licentious. For he who is irascible grows angry even at one toward whom he ought not, or at a time when he ought not. He who is covetous desires even what is not needed. He who is licentious pursues even what the laws forbid. Therefore all reason ought to have been directed to this end: that since the impulse of these things cannot be restrained, nor ought to be, because it is necessarily implanted for the preservation of life's duties, it should rather be directed into the right path, where even its course may be free from stumbling and danger.

But I have been carried further than I intended by my zeal for refutation; since my purpose is to show that those things which the philosophers have considered vices are not only not vices, but are even great virtues. From among others I shall take, for the sake of instruction, those which I think most pertinent to the matter. Fear, or dread, they place among the greatest vices, and consider it the highest weakness of the soul; to which fortitude is opposed, which, if it be present in a man, leaves no room for fear. Does anyone then believe that it is possible for the same fear to be the highest fortitude? By no means. For nature does not seem to admit that something should fall into its contrary. Yet I will show, not by some subtle argument, as Socrates does in Plato, who compels those against whom he argues to confess what they had denied; but plainly, that the highest fear is the highest virtue.

No one doubts that it belongs to a timid and weak soul to fear either pain, or poverty, or exile, or prison, or death: and whoever has not shuddered at all these things is judged most brave. But he who fears God does not fear any of those things. To prove this, arguments are not needed; for the punishments of the worshippers of God have always been witnessed, and are still witnessed throughout the world, in the tormenting of whom new and unaccustomed tortures have been devised. For the mind shudders to recall the kinds of death; when the butchery of savage beasts has raged beyond death itself. Yet this blessed and unconquered patience endured these execrable lacerations of bodies without any groan. This virtue furnished the greatest wonder to all peoples, and provinces, and to the torturers themselves; when cruelty was overcome by patience. Yet nothing other than the fear of God produced this virtue.

And so (as I was saying) fear is not to be uprooted, as the Stoics wish, nor to be tempered, as the Peripatetics desire; but it is to be directed into the true path, and fears are to be taken away; but in such a way that this one alone remains, which, since it is lawful and true, alone brings it about that all other things can be unafraid. Desire also is counted among the vices: but if it covets those things which are earthly, it is a vice; but it is a virtue if it covets heavenly things. For he who desires to obtain justice, God, everlasting life, eternal light, and all those things which God promises to man, will despise those riches, and honors, and powers, and kingdoms themselves. The Stoic will perhaps say that will is needed to obtain these things, not desire: but in truth, to will is too little.

For many do will: but when pain has entered into the vitals, the will yields, while desire perseveres; which, if it brings it about that all things which others seek after are held in contempt, is the highest virtue, since it is indeed the mother of continence. And therefore we ought rather to bring it about that we direct toward what is right those affections which it is a vice to use wrongly. For those agitations of the soul are like a yoked chariot; in the right guiding of which the highest duty of the driver is to know the road: which if he shall hold, however swiftly he may have gone, he will not stumble. But if he shall have gone astray, though he go gently and slowly, he will either be jolted over rough ground, or slide over precipices, or at least be carried where there is no need to go. So that chariot of life, which is driven by affections as by swift horses, if it holds the right road, will fulfill its duty.

Fear therefore, and desire, if they are cast down to earth, will become vices; but virtues, if they are referred to divine things. Frugality on the other hand they hold in the place of a virtue: which, if it is a zeal for possessing, cannot be a virtue; because it is wholly occupied in increasing or preserving earthly goods. But we do not refer the highest good to the body; but measure every duty by the preservation of the soul alone. But if (as I taught above) patrimony is by no means to be spared, so that we may maintain humanity and justice; then to be frugal is not a virtue: a name which deceives and misleads by the appearance of virtue. For frugality is indeed abstinence from pleasures: but it is a vice for this reason, that it descends from the love of possessing; whereas one ought both to abstain from pleasures and by no means to be sparing with money.

For to use money sparingly, that is, moderately, is a kind of smallness of soul, either fearing lest it be lacking to oneself, or despairing of being able to recover it, or incapable of contempt for earthly things. But they in turn call him who does not spare his own estate a spendthrift. For they distinguish the liberal man from the spendthrift thus: that he is liberal who bestows upon those who have deserved well, and when it is fitting, and as much as is sufficient; but the spendthrift is he who lavishes upon those who have not deserved it, and when there is no need, and without regard for his estate. What then? Shall we call him a spendthrift who gives food to the needy out of mercy?

And yet it makes a great difference whether you give lavishly to harlots for the sake of lust, or to the wretched for the sake of humanity: whether pimps, gamblers, and procurers plunder your money, or you bestow it upon piety and God: whether you pour it into your belly and gullet, or lay it up in the treasury of justice. Therefore just as it is a vice to pour out in an evil direction, so in a good direction it is a virtue. If it is a virtue not to spare wealth, which can be recovered, in order to sustain the life of a man, which cannot be recovered; then frugality is a vice. Wherefore I would say nothing other than that those men are mad who strip man, a gentle and social animal, of his proper name; who, having torn out the affections upon which all humanity depends, wish to lead him to an immovable stupor of mind; while they strive to free the soul from disturbances, and (as they themselves say) to render it quiet and tranquil.

This not only cannot be done, because its force and nature consists in motion; but it ought not to be done either. Because just as water always lying still and quiet is unwholesome and more turbid: so a soul unmoved and torpid is useless even to itself; nor will it be able to preserve life itself, because it will neither do anything nor think anything: since thought itself is nothing other than the agitation of the mind. Finally, those who assert this immobility of the soul wish to deprive the soul of life: because life is active, death is quiet. Some things also they rightly hold as virtues: but they do not maintain their proper measure.

Constancy is a virtue: not in the sense that we resist those who inflict injury upon us, for to these we must yield; why this ought to be done I shall presently explain: but in the sense that when commanded to act against the law of God and against justice, we are not terrified by any threats or punishments from preferring the command of God to the command of man. Likewise it is a virtue to despise death: not in the sense that we seek it and voluntarily inflict it upon ourselves, as very many and very great philosophers have often done; which is wicked and impious: but in the sense that when compelled to abandon God and betray the faith, we prefer to accept death, and defend our freedom against the foolish and mad violence of the powerful, and challenge all the threats and terrors of the age with fortitude of soul. Thus those things which others fear, we tread down with lofty and unconquerable mind—pain and death.

This is virtue, this is true constancy, to be maintained and preserved in this alone: that no terror, no force can turn us away from God. True therefore is that saying of Cicero: "No one," he says, "can be just who fears death, who fears pain, who fears exile, who fears poverty." Likewise that of Seneca in the books of Moral Philosophy, saying: "This is that honorable man, distinguished not by cap or purple, not by the attendance of lictors, but inferior to nothing, who when he sees death in his neighborhood is not so disturbed as though he had seen something new; who, whether torments must be endured throughout his whole body, or flame must be drawn in through his mouth, or his hands must be stretched out upon the cross, does not ask what he suffers, but how well." But he who worships God suffers these things, and does not fear them. Therefore he is just.

By these considerations it follows that neither the virtues, nor the most exact limits of the virtues, can be known or maintained at all by anyone who is wholly estranged from the Religion of God.

But let us leave aside the philosophers, who either know nothing at all and put forward that very ignorance as the height of knowledge; or who do not perceive even what they do know; or who, because they think they know what they do not know, are foolishly and arrogantly senseless. We therefore (to return to our subject), to whom alone truth has been revealed by God and wisdom sent down from heaven, let us do what our illuminator God commands: let us bear with one another, and endure the labors of this life with mutual assistance; and yet, if we have done any good work, let us not seek glory from it. For God warns that the doer of justice ought not to be boastful; lest he seem to have performed the duty of humanity not so much out of obedience to heavenly commands as out of eagerness to please; and let him already have as his reward the glory he sought, and not receive the recompense of that heavenly and divine wage.

The other things which the worshipper of God ought to observe are easy, once those virtues are embraced; such as never to lie for the purpose of deceiving or harming. For it is a sin for one who is devoted to truth to be deceitful in any matter, and to depart from the very truth which he follows. In this path of justice and all the virtues, there is no place for falsehood. And so that true and just wayfarer will not speak that saying of Lucilius; but will judge that even toward an enemy and a stranger it is not his part to lie; and will never allow his tongue, the interpreter of the mind, to be at variance with his feeling and thought. If he has lent any money, he will not receive usury, so that the benefit which relieves necessity may remain intact, and he may keep himself entirely from what belongs to another.

For in this kind of duty he ought to be content with his own, he who in other respects ought not even to spare his own in order to do good; but to receive more than he gave is unjust. He who does this lays a kind of snare, so as to prey upon another's necessity. But the just man will never pass over an opportunity to do something mercifully; nor will he defile himself with gain of this sort: but he will bring it about that, without any loss to himself, the very thing he lends is counted among his good works. Let him not accept a gift from a poor man; so that if he has rendered any service, it may be the better for being freely given. Let him answer one who curses with a blessing; let him never himself curse; lest an evil word proceed from the mouth of a man who worships the good Word.

Moreover, let him take careful heed never to make an enemy through his own fault; and if anyone so shameless should arise as to do injury to a good and just man, let him bear it calmly and moderately, and not take vengeance into his own hands, but reserve it for God the judge. Let him guard innocence always and everywhere. This precept avails not only to the end that he himself inflict no injury, but that he not avenge injury done to him. For the greatest and most just judge sits, the observer and witness of all things. Let him set this judge before man; let him prefer that one to pronounce upon his cause, from whose sentence no one can escape, neither by anyone's defense nor by anyone's favor. Thus it comes about that the just man is held in contempt by all; and because he will be thought unable to defend himself, he will be regarded as sluggish and inert.

But he who has avenged himself upon an enemy is judged brave, is judged vigorous: him they honor, him all revere. Yet that good man, though he may be able to benefit many, they look up to the one who can harm rather than the one who can benefit. But the depravity of men will not be able to corrupt the just man so as to prevent him from striving to obey God; and he will prefer to be despised, provided he always performs the office of the good man and never that of the bad. Cicero in those same books On Duties says: "But if anyone shall wish to unfold the complex notion of his own mind, let him teach himself that the good man is one who benefits those he can, and harms no one, unless provoked by injury." O how simple and true a sentiment he corrupted by the addition of two words! For what need was there to add, unless provoked by injury?

So as to attach a vice to the good man like a most shameful tail, and to make him a stranger to patience, which is the greatest of all virtues. He said that the good man would do harm if he were provoked: from this very fact he must necessarily lose the name of good man, if he does harm. For it is no less evil to return an injury than to inflict one. For whence do quarrels among men, whence do fights and contentions arise, if not because impatience set against wickedness often stirs up great storms? But if you oppose patience, than which no virtue truer, none more worthy of man can be found, to wickedness, it will be extinguished at once, as if you had poured water on fire. But if that provoking wickedness has found impatience as its match, as if drenched with oil, it will kindle so great a conflagration that not some river but an outpouring of blood will extinguish it.

Great therefore is the importance of patience, which that wise man took away from the good man. For this alone brings it about that no evils occur: and if it were granted to all, there would be no crime, no fraud in human affairs. What therefore can be so calamitous and so contrary to the good man as to give free rein to anger; which would strip him not only of the name of good man, but even of the name of man? Since to harm another, as he himself most truly says, is not in accordance with human nature. For even cattle, if you provoke them, fight back with hoof or horn; and serpents and wild beasts, unless you pursue them to kill them, give no trouble; and (to return to examples from men) even the unskilled and foolish, if they ever receive an injury, are led by blind and irrational fury, and strive to repay in kind those who harm them.

In what then does the wise and good man differ from the bad and foolish, unless in that he has unconquered patience, which fools lack; unless in that he knows how to govern and calm his anger, which they, because they lack virtue, cannot restrain? But evidently this thing deceived him, that when speaking of virtue, he thought it was virtue to prevail in any contest; and he could in no way see that a man who yields to pain and anger, and indulges those passions against which he ought rather to struggle, and who rushes wherever wickedness provokes him, does not hold to the office of virtue. For he who strives to return an injury is eager to imitate the very one by whom he was harmed. Thus he who imitates the bad man can in no way be good. With two words therefore he took away from the good and wise man the two greatest virtues, innocence and patience.

But because he himself practiced that canine eloquence (as Sallust reports was said by Appius), he wished also that a man should live in canine fashion, so as to bite back when provoked. How pernicious this repayment of insult is, and what havoc it is wont to produce, from where could a more fitting example be sought than from the most grievous fate of that teacher himself; who, while he was eager to comply with these precepts of the philosophers, destroyed himself? For if, provoked by injury, he had maintained patience; if he had learned that it belongs to a good man to dissemble, to endure insult; and had not, through impatience and levity and madness, poured forth those famous speeches inscribed with another's title: he would never have stained with his own blood the rostra on which he had previously flourished; nor would that proscription have utterly destroyed the republic.

It is not therefore the part of the wise and good man to wish to contend and to commit himself to danger: since victory is not in our power, and every contest is uncertain: but it is the part of the wise and best man not to wish to destroy his adversary, which cannot be done without crime and danger: but to wish to end the contest itself, which can be done both usefully and justly. The highest virtue therefore must be held to be patience: and that the just man might possess it, God willed (as was said above) that he be despised as inert. For unless he has been subjected to insults, it will not be known how much fortitude he has in restraining himself. But if, provoked by injury, he begins to pursue the one who harms him, he is conquered. If however he has suppressed that impulse by reason, this man plainly commands himself; this man can govern himself. This self-restraint is rightly called patience: which alone is set against all vices and passions.

This recalls the troubled and wavering mind to its tranquility: this calms it, this restores a man to himself. Therefore, since it is impossible and useless to resist nature so as not to be moved at all; yet before that impulse leaps out to do harm, let it be stilled as quickly as possible. God commanded that the sun not set upon our anger, lest it depart as a witness of our fury. Finally, Marcus Tullius, contrary to his own precept of which I spoke a little before, placed the forgetting of injuries among great praises. "I hope, Caesar," he said, "that you, who are accustomed to forget nothing except injuries." But if that man did this, a man most remote not only from heavenly but also from public and civil justice; how much more ought we to do it, who are as it were candidates for immortality?

The Peripatetics oppose the Stoics when they attempt to tear out the passions from man as if they were diseases; and they not only retain them but even defend them, and say that nothing is in man which was not implanted with great reason and providence. That is indeed correct, if they knew the true limits of each thing. And so they call anger itself the whetstone of virtue, as though no one could fight bravely against enemies unless he were roused by anger. By which they plainly show that they know neither what virtue is, nor why God gave anger to man. If it was given to us in order that we might use it for killing men, what is more savage than man? What must be thought more like wild beasts than that creature which God made for fellowship and innocence? There are therefore three passions which drive men headlong into all crimes; anger, greed, and lust.

For this reason the poets said there are three Furies which torment the minds of men: anger desires revenge, greed desires wealth, lust desires pleasures. But God set fixed limits to all of these: which if they transgress, and begin to be greater, they must necessarily corrupt their own nature and turn into diseases and vices. And what those limits are, it is not a great labor to show. Greed was given to us for obtaining those things which are necessary for life; lust, for propagating offspring; the passion of anger, for restraining the sins of those who are in our power, that is, so that by stricter discipline the younger age may be formed toward uprightness and justice: which unless it be restrained by fear, license will produce boldness, which will issue in every wickedness and crime. And so just as it is both just and necessary to use anger against those who are lesser: so against equals it is both destructive and impious.

Impious, because humanity is violated; destructive, because, with them resisting, one must either destroy or perish. Moreover, this reason which I have said is why the passion of anger was given to man can be understood from the very precepts of God, who commands that we not be angry at those who curse and harm us; but that we always keep our hands over those who are lesser; that is, that we correct those who sin with continual stripes; lest through useless love and excessive indulgence they be brought up to evil and nurtured in vices. But those who are ignorant of things and unacquainted with reason have banished those passions which were given to man for good uses; and they range more widely than reason demands. They use anger against equals: hence dissensions, hence expulsions, hence wars born against justice have arisen. They use greed for heaping up wealth: hence frauds, hence robberies, hence all kinds of crimes have sprung up. They use lust only for seizing pleasures: hence fornications, hence adulteries, hence all corruptions have appeared.

Whoever therefore has brought those passions back within their limits (which those who are ignorant of God cannot do)—this man is patient, this man is brave, this man is just.

It remains that I speak briefly against the pleasures of the five senses; for the measure of the book itself now demands a limit: all of which, since they are vicious and deadly, must be overcome and suppressed by virtue; or (as I was saying a little before concerning the passions) recalled to their proper reason. The other living creatures, apart from the one pleasure that pertains to generation, feel none. They therefore use their senses for the necessity of their nature: they see, in order to seek those things which are needed for sustaining life; they hear one another and distinguish each other, so that they may be able to gather together. What is useful for sustenance they find either by smell or perceive by taste; what is useless they reject or refuse. The function of eating and drinking they measure by the fullness of the belly.

But to man the providence of a most skilful craftsman gave pleasure that is boundless and prone to vice; because it set before him virtue, which might always fight with pleasure as with a domestic enemy. Cicero in the Cato Major says: "Fornications indeed, and adulteries, and every shameful act are excited by no other enticements than those of pleasure. And since nature, or some God, had given to man nothing more excellent than mind, to this divine gift and endowment nothing is so hostile as pleasure. For where lust holds dominion, there is no place for temperance; nor can virtue stand firm in the kingdom of pleasure:" but on the contrary God gave virtue for this reason, that it might overcome and conquer pleasure; and might restrain it, when it oversteps the bounds set for it, within its prescribed limit, lest it subdue man, beguiled and captivated by its sweetnesses, to its own dominion, and punish him with everlasting death.

The pleasure of the eyes is varied and manifold, which is taken from the sight of things that are in human use, delightful either by nature or by art. The philosophers have most rightly done away with this. For they say it is far more excellent and worthy of man to contemplate the heavens rather than engraved work: and to admire this most beautiful work adorned with the glittering lights of the stars as with flowers, rather than painted and fashioned things and things set with gems. But although they have eloquently exhorted us to contempt of earthly things and roused us to the spectacle of heaven, they nevertheless do not despise these public spectacles. And so they both take delight in them and attend them willingly. These, since they are the greatest incitements to vices and have the most powerful force for corrupting souls, must be removed from us, because they not only contribute nothing toward a blessed life, but also do very great harm.

For he who counts it a pleasure to see a man, however justly condemned, slaughtered before his eyes, pollutes his own conscience, just as surely as if he were to become a spectator and partaker of a murder committed in secret. Yet they call these games, in which human blood is shed. So far has humanity withdrawn from men, that while they destroy the lives of men, they think themselves to be at play, more guilty than all those whose blood they hold as a pleasure. I ask now whether those men can be pious and just who, when men are placed under the stroke of death and begging for mercy, not only suffer them to be killed but even demand it, and cast cruel and inhuman votes for their death, not satisfied with wounds nor content with blood; nay, even order those who have been struck down and are lying there to be struck again, and their bodies to be mangled with blows, lest anyone deceive them with a feigned death.

They are even angry with the combatants unless one of the two is quickly killed; and as though they thirst for human blood, they hate delay. They demand that others be given to them as fresh opponents, so that they may as soon as possible satisfy their eyes. Imbued with this habit, they have lost their humanity. And so they spare not even the innocent, but practise upon all what they have learned in the slaughter of the wicked. It is therefore not fitting for those who strive to hold the path of justice to be associates and partakers in this public murder. For when God forbids killing, he does not merely prohibit us from brigandage, which is not permitted even by the public laws; but he also warns that those things must not be done which are reckoned lawful among men.

Thus neither will it be lawful for a just man to serve as a soldier, since his soldiering is justice itself; nor indeed to accuse anyone on a capital charge, because it makes no difference whether you kill with a sword or rather with a word, since the killing itself is what is forbidden. Therefore in this commandment of God no exception whatsoever ought to be made, but that it is always a sin to kill a man, whom God has willed to be a sacred creature. Let no one therefore suppose that even this is conceded, that it is lawful to destroy newborn children, which is the greatest impiety of all; for God breathes souls into life, not into death. But men, lest there be any crime by which they do not defile their hands, deny the light—not given by themselves—to souls still raw and simple. Let someone expect that they spare another's blood, who spare not their own; but these are without any dispute wicked and unjust.

What of those whom a false piety compels to expose their children? Can they be considered innocent, who cast their own flesh to be prey for dogs, and, as far as in them lies, kill more cruelly than if they had strangled them? Who would doubt that he is impious who gives place to another's mercy? Who, even if it happens to him as he wished, that the child is fed, has certainly consigned his own blood either to slavery or to the brothel. And what things can or are wont to happen in either sex through error, who does not understand? Who does not know? Which the example of Oedipus alone declares, confounded by a twofold crime. It is therefore as wicked to expose as to kill.

But indeed these parricides complain of the straitness of their means, and pretend that they cannot suffice for rearing more children; as though truly either means were in the power of those who possess them, or God did not daily make the poor from the rich and the rich from the poor. Wherefore if anyone shall not be able to rear children on account of poverty, it is better that he abstain from intercourse with his wife, than that he corrupt the works of God with criminal hands.

If therefore it is in no way lawful to commit murder, nor is it granted to be present at all, lest any blood stain the conscience—since that blood is furnished for the people's pleasure—I know not whether the corruption of the stage may not be even more vicious. For comic plays speak of the defilements of maidens or the loves of harlots; and the more eloquent those are who have poured forth those shameful acts, the more they persuade by the elegance of their sentiments, and the more easily do the well-measured and ornate verses cling to the memory of the hearers. Likewise tragic histories set before the eyes parricides and the incests of wicked kings, and display crimes in the buskin. The most shameless gestures of actors too—what else do they both teach and inflame but lusts? Their bodies, enervated and softened into a womanly gait and appearance, counterfeit unchaste women with indecent movements. What shall I say of mimes, which display the teaching of corruptions?

Who teach adulteries while feigning them, and instruct in the real by means of the simulated? What are young men or maidens to do, when they see these things both done without shame and watched willingly by all? They are reminded, to be sure, of what they can do, and are inflamed with lust, which is most powerfully aroused by sight; and each one, according to his sex, pictures himself in those representations, and approves them while laughing, and returns to their chambers more corrupt, with vices clinging to them; and not only boys, who ought not to be imbued with premature vices, but also old men, whom it is no longer fitting to sin. The character of the circus games too—what else does it contain but frivolity, vanity, madness? For souls are roused to frenzy with as great an impulse as the racing there is carried on with; so that those who come for the sake of watching now furnish more of a spectacle themselves, when they begin to shout and be carried away and leap up.

All spectacles therefore are to be avoided, not only lest any taint of vices settle in hearts which ought to be calm and peaceful, but also lest the habit of any pleasure beguile us and turn us away from God and from good works. For the celebrations of games are the festivals of the gods; since they were established on account of their birthdays or the dedications of new temples. And at first indeed the hunts, which are called munera, were assigned to Saturn; the scenic games to Liber; the circus games to Neptune. Gradually, however, the same honour began to be paid to the other gods as well; and individual games were consecrated to their names, as Sisinius Capito teaches in his books On Spectacles. If anyone therefore attends spectacles to which people gather for the sake of religion, he has departed from the worship of God and betaken himself to the gods whose birthdays and festivals he has celebrated.

The pleasure of the ears is received from the sweetness of voices and songs; which is assuredly as vicious as that delight of the eyes of which we have spoken. For who would not think him luxurious and worthless who keeps theatrical arts in his home? And yet it makes no difference whether you practise luxury alone at home or with the people in the theatre. But enough has now been said about spectacles. There remains one thing which must be overcome by us; lest we be captivated by those things which penetrate to the inmost sense. For all those things which lack words, that is, the sweet sounds of wind and strings, can easily be despised, because they do not cling and cannot be written down. But a composed poem, and speech that beguiles with sweetness, captures minds and drives them wherever it will. Hence when learned men have come to the religion of God, if they have not been grounded by some skilled teacher, they believe less readily.

For being accustomed to sweet and polished orations or poems, they disdain the simple and common speech of the divine scriptures as sordid. For they seek that which may soothe the sense. But whatever is sweet persuades, and settles deep in the mind while it delights. Can God then, the craftsman of mind and voice and tongue, not speak eloquently? Nay indeed, by the highest providence he willed that divine things should be without adornment, so that all might understand what he himself spoke to all. Therefore he who is devoted to truth, who does not wish to deceive himself, let him cast aside the hostile and harmful pleasures which bind the soul to themselves, as sweet foods bind the body: let true things be preferred to false, eternal to brief, useful to pleasant. Let nothing be pleasing to the sight, except what you see done piously and justly; let nothing be sweet to the hearing, except what nourishes the soul and makes you better.

And this sense especially must not be twisted toward vice, which was given to us for this purpose, that we might be able to receive the teaching of God. Therefore if there is pleasure in hearing songs and poems, let it be pleasant to sing and hear the praises of God. This is the true pleasure, which is the companion and associate of virtue. This is not fleeting and brief like those pleasures which are sought by those who serve the body like cattle; but perpetual, and delighting without any interruption. If anyone shall have exceeded its bounds and sought nothing else from pleasure but pleasure itself, he is meditating death, because just as perpetual life is in virtue, so death is in pleasure. For he who has preferred temporal things will lack eternal ones; he who has preferred earthly things will not have heavenly ones.

As for the pleasures of taste and smell, which two senses pertain to the body alone, there is nothing that needs to be argued by us; unless perhaps someone requires us to say that it is base for a wise and good man if he serves his belly and his gullet; if he walks about anointed with perfumes and crowned with flowers: he who does these things is assuredly foolish, inept, and worthless, and one whom not even the fragrance of virtue has touched. Perhaps someone will say: Why then were those things made, if not that we might enjoy them? But indeed it has already been said many times that there would have been no virtue, unless it had something to overcome. And so God made all things to equip the contest of two opposing realities. These enticements of pleasures therefore are the weapons of that one whose single work is to overcome virtue and to exclude justice from men. With these flatteries and sweetnesses he tickles souls. For he knows that pleasure is the fabricator of death.

For just as God calls man to life only through virtue and toil, so that one calls to death through delights and pleasures; and just as the true good is reached through false evils, so the true evil is reached through false goods. These allurements therefore are to be guarded against as snares and nets; lest, captured by the softness of sweetnesses, we be brought together with the body itself under the dominion of death, to which we have enslaved ourselves.

I come now to that pleasure which is perceived through touch, a sense that belongs indeed to the whole body. But I think I must speak not of ornaments or garments, but of lust alone; which must be restrained above all, because it does the most harm. When God had devised the arrangement of two sexes, He assigned to them that they should desire one another and take delight in union. And so He mingled a most ardent longing in the bodies of all living creatures, that they might rush most eagerly into these affections, and by this means the kinds might be propagated and multiplied. This longing and desire is found more vehement and keen in man; either because He wished the multitude of men to be greater, or because He gave virtue to man alone, so that there might be praise and glory in restraining pleasures and in self-abstinence.

That adversary of ours therefore knows how great is the force of this desire, which some have preferred to call a necessity; and he transfers it from what is right and good to what is evil and perverse. For he sends in unlawful desires, that men may defile what belongs to others, when they are permitted to enjoy what is their own without sin. He sets before the eyes alluring forms, suggests fuel, and supplies nourishment to vices; then he stirs and arouses all the goads within the inmost vitals, and kindles and inflames that natural ardour, until he deceives the man whom he has ensnared and entangled. And lest there should be anyone who might abstain from another's property out of fear of punishment, he also established brothels; and he made public the shame of unhappy women, so that he might make a mockery both of those who act and of those who are compelled to suffer.

In these obscenities he has plunged souls born for holiness, as it were in a whirlpool of filth; he has extinguished modesty, he has overthrown chastity. He likewise mingled males with males; and contrived abominable unions contrary to nature and contrary to the ordinance of God: thus he has imbued men and armed them for every wickedness. For what can be holy to those who have laid down the weak and defenceless age of youth to be ravaged and defiled by their lust? This matter cannot be told in proportion to the greatness of the crime. I can call these men nothing more than impious and parricides, for whom the sex given by God does not suffice, unless they also profanely and wantonly abuse their own. Yet among them these things are trivial, and as it were honourable. What shall I say of those who practise not abominable lust, but rather madness! I am loath to speak; but what do we think will become of those who are not loath to act?

And yet it must be said, because it is done. I speak of those whose most foul lust and execrable frenzy spares not even the head. With what words, or with what indignation, shall I pursue so great a wickedness? The greatness of the crime surpasses the duty of the tongue. Since therefore this lust produces such works and perpetrates such deeds, we must arm ourselves against it with the greatest virtue. Whoever cannot bridle those affections, let him restrain them within the bounds of the lawful marriage-bed, so that he may both obtain what he eagerly desires, and yet not fall into sin. For what do abandoned men want for themselves? Surely pleasure follows upon honourable acts: if they seek pleasure for its own sake, they may enjoy what is just and lawful. But if some necessity shall prevent this, then truly the greatest virtue must be applied, so that continence may struggle against desire.

And God has commanded that we abstain not only from the wives of others, whom it is not lawful to touch, but also from common and promiscuous bodies; and He teaches us that when two bodies have been joined together, they make one body. Thus he who has plunged himself into filth must necessarily be smeared with filth; and the body indeed can quickly be washed clean, but the mind, once polluted by contact with an unchaste body, cannot be purged from the defilement that has clung to it except by a long time and many good works. It is fitting therefore that each person set before himself the truth that the union of two sexes has been given to living beings for the purpose of generation, and that this law has been laid down for these affections, that they may produce offspring.

For just as God gave us eyes not that we might gaze and take pleasure, but that we might see for those acts which pertain to the necessities of life, so the generative part of the body—as its very name teaches—we have received for no other purpose than the producing of children. This divine law must be obeyed with the utmost devotion. Let all who profess themselves disciples of God be so formed and trained in character that they can command themselves. For those who indulge in pleasures, who yield to lust, enslave their soul to the body and condemn it to death; because they have given themselves over to the body, over which death has power. Let each person therefore, as much as he can, form himself to modesty, cultivate shame, guard chastity in conscience and in mind; and let him not merely obey the public laws, but let him who follows the law of God be above all laws.

If he has grown accustomed to these good things, he will then be ashamed to fall away to worse things: provided that what is right and honourable pleases him, which is more agreeable to better men than what is base and dishonourable is to worse men.

I have not yet discharged all the duties of chastity: which God bounds not only within private walls, but also by the prescribed limit of the marriage-bed; so that when a man has a wife, he should not wish to have in addition either a slave-woman or a free woman, but should keep faith with his marriage. For it is not the case, as the principle of public law holds, that only the woman is an adulteress who has another man, while the husband, even if he has several women, is free from the charge of adultery. But divine law so joins two persons in marriage, which is into one body, with equal right, that whoever has torn apart and divided the union of the body in different directions is held to be an adulterer.

And for no other reason did God, when He willed that all other female creatures should resist the male after conception, make woman alone of all creatures receptive of the man; namely, lest, with women resisting, lust should compel men to seek something else, and by so doing they should not retain the glory of chastity. But neither would a woman attain the virtue of modesty if she could not sin. For who would say that a dumb animal is chaste, which resists the male after conception? It does this because it must necessarily come into pain and danger if it admits him. There is therefore no praise in not doing what you cannot do. The reason why chastity in man is praised is that it is not natural but voluntary. Faith must therefore be kept by each to the other; nay, the wife must be taught by the example of continence to conduct herself chastely. For it is unjust to demand what you yourself cannot render.

This injustice has assuredly brought it about that there are adulteries, with women resenting that they do not receive mutual affection from those who do not show them faithfulness. In the end there is no adulteress of such abandoned modesty who does not put forward this as the excuse for her vices; that in sinning she does not commit an injury but repays one. This Quintilian has expressed most aptly: A man, he says, who neither abstains from another's marriage nor guards his own—things which are by nature connected with each other. For neither can a husband occupied in corrupting the wives of others have leisure for the sanctity of his own home; and a wife, when she falls into such a marriage, stirred by the very example, thinks either that she is imitating or that she is taking revenge. We must therefore take care lest our own intemperance give occasion to vices; but let the characters of two persons grow accustomed to each other, and let them bear the yoke with equal minds.

Let us think of ourselves in the other. For the sum of justice consists chiefly in this, that you do not do to another whatever you yourself would be unwilling to suffer from another. These are the things which are enjoined by God concerning continence. But yet lest anyone think he can circumscribe the divine precepts, those further rules are added, so that all pretext and occasion of deceit may be removed: that he is an adulterer who takes as wife one dismissed by her husband, and that he who dismisses his wife except for the crime of adultery, in order to take another, is likewise an adulterer; for God has not willed that the union of the body be dissolved and torn apart. Moreover, not only adultery itself must be avoided, but even the thought of it; lest anyone look upon another man's wife and desire her in his mind: for the mind becomes adulterous if it has even painted for itself the image of pleasure.

For it is the mind that truly sins; it is the mind that embraces in thought the fruit of immoderate lust: in the mind is the crime, in the mind is every offence. For even if the body be stained with no defilement, the account of chastity does not stand if the mind is unchaste; nor can chastity appear undefiled where desire has polluted the conscience. Nor indeed should anyone suppose that it is difficult to put reins upon pleasure and to confine it, wandering and straying, within the bounds of chastity and modesty; since it is set before men even to conquer it, and very many have retained the blessed and uncorrupted integrity of the body; and there are many who most happily enjoy this heavenly manner of life. This indeed God has not so commanded as though He compels it, because men must be born; but as though He permits it. For He knows what great necessity He has imposed upon these affections.

If anyone, He says, shall be able to do this, he will have an extraordinary and incomparable reward. This kind of continence is, as it were, the summit and the consummation of all virtues. And if anyone shall have been able to strive and struggle toward it, him the Lord will acknowledge as His servant, him the master will acknowledge as His disciple; he will triumph over the earth; he will be like unto God, who has taken on the virtue of God. These things indeed seem difficult; but we are speaking of one for whom, with all earthly things trodden underfoot, the way to heaven is being prepared. For since virtue consists in the knowledge of God, all things are burdensome while you are ignorant; when you have come to know, they are easy. We who press toward the highest good must make our way through difficulties themselves.

Yet let no one lose heart, or despair of himself, if overcome by desire, or driven by lust, or deceived by error, or compelled by force, he has slipped into the way of injustice. For he can be brought back and set free, if he repents of his deeds and, turned to better things, makes satisfaction to God. Cicero did not think this possible, whose words in the third book of the Academica are these: "But if it were permitted, as to those who have gone astray on a journey, so to those who have followed a wrong path to correct their error by repentance, the amendment of rashness would be easier." It is indeed permitted. For if, when we see our children repenting of their offences, we judge them to be corrected, and though disowned and cast off we nevertheless receive them again, cherish them, embrace them: why should we despair that the clemency of God the Father can be appeased by repentance?

Therefore the same Lord and most indulgent Father promises that He will remit sins to those who repent, and will blot out all the iniquities of him who has begun again to work justice. For just as the uprightness of a past life profits nothing to one who lives wickedly, because the wickedness that has supervened has destroyed the works of justice: so old sins are no hindrance to one who has been corrected, because the justice that has supervened has abolished the stain of the former life. For he who repents of his deed understands his former error; and therefore the Greeks more aptly and significantly say μετάνοια, which we in Latin can render as resipiscentia. For he comes to his senses again, and recovers his mind as it were from madness, who is sorry for his error; and he chastises himself for his folly, and strengthens his mind for living more rightly: then he takes especial care of this very thing, lest he be led again into the same snares.

Finally, even dumb animals, when they are caught by a trick, if they have in some way extricated themselves in flight, become more cautious afterwards, and always avoid all those things in which they have sensed traps and ambushes. So repentance makes a man cautious and diligent in avoiding the sins into which he has once fallen through deceit.

For no one can be so prudent, so circumspect, as not to slip at some time. And therefore God, knowing our weakness, has in his goodness opened to man a harbor of salvation, so that the medicine of repentance might come to the aid of that necessity to which our frailty is subject. Therefore, whoever has gone astray, let him retrace his step, and recover and reform himself as quickly as possible. For having tasted pleasures that are wrongly pleasant, they can scarcely be torn away from them: they would more easily follow the right path if they had not touched the sweetness of those pleasures. But if they tear themselves free from evil servitude, all their error will be forgiven them, if they have corrected their error by a better life.

Nor let anyone think he gains anything if he has no one aware of his transgression: for he knows all things, in whose sight we live; and if we can hide from all men, we cannot hide from God, from whom nothing can be concealed, nothing can be secret. Seneca concluded his exhortations with a remarkable saying: "There is," he says, "some great power, greater than can be conceived, to whose service we devote our lives. Let us commend ourselves to this power. For it profits nothing that the conscience be shut away: we lie open to God." What truer thing could be said by one who knew God, than was said by a man ignorant of true religion? For he both expressed the majesty of God, saying it is greater than the thought of the human mind can grasp; and he touched the very fountain of truth, by perceiving that the life of men is not purposeless, as the Epicureans would have it, but that service is rendered to God by living, provided they have lived justly and piously.

He could have been a true worshipper of God, if someone had shown him the way; and he would surely have despised Zeno, and his own master Sotion, had he found a guide to true wisdom. "Let us commend ourselves to this power," he says. A heavenly utterance indeed, were it not preceded by a confession of ignorance: "It profits nothing that the conscience be shut away: we lie open to God." There is therefore no place for lying, no place for dissimulation; because the eyes of men are kept out by walls: but the divinity of God cannot be kept out even by one's inmost parts, so as to prevent him from seeing through the whole man and knowing him. The same author, in the first book of the same work: "What are you doing?" he says. "What are you contriving? What are you hiding? Your guardian follows you; one companion has been taken from you by travel, another by death, another by illness: this one clings to you, from whom you can never be free.

Why do you choose a hidden place and remove witnesses? Do you think it has fallen to your lot to escape the eyes of all? You are mad! What does it profit you to have no witness, when you have a conscience?" No less remarkably does Cicero speak of conscience and God.

"Let him remember," he says, "that he has God as his witness; that is, as I think, his own mind, than which God himself has given man nothing more divine." Likewise, when speaking of the just and good man: "And so such a man," he says, "will dare not only not to do, but not even to think, anything which he would not dare to proclaim openly." Let us therefore cleanse our conscience, which is open to the eyes of God; and, as the same author says, "let us always so live as to think that we must render an account of ourselves;" and let us consider that at every moment we are watched, not, as he said, in some theatre of the world by men, but from above by him who will be both judge and witness alike; to whom, when he demands an account of our life, it will not be permitted to deny our deeds.

It is therefore better either to flee from conscience, or to open our own mind of our own accord, and pour out the poison by lancing the wounds: which no one else can heal but he alone who restored the step to the lame, sight to the blind, cleansed polluted limbs, and raised the dead. He will extinguish the burning of desire, will root out lusts, will remove envy, will calm anger. He will restore true and lasting health. This medicine is to be sought by all, since the soul is afflicted with greater peril than the body; and the cure must be applied as quickly as possible to hidden diseases.

For even if someone enjoys clear sight of eyes, all his limbs intact, and the most robust health of his whole body, I would not call him healthy if he is carried away by anger, swells with the inflation of pride, is enslaved to lust, and burns with desires: but rather him who does not lift his eyes toward another's prosperity, does not admire wealth, looks upon another man's wife with purity, desires nothing at all, does not covet what belongs to another, envies no one, disdains no one; who is humble, merciful, beneficent, gentle, humane; and in whose soul perpetual peace abides. That man is healthy, that man is just, that man is perfect. Whoever therefore has obeyed all these heavenly precepts, he is the true worshipper of God, whose sacrifices are gentleness of soul, and an innocent life, and good deeds. He who offers all these things sacrifices as often as he does something good and pious.

For God does not desire a victim, neither of a dumb animal, nor of death and blood, but of man and of life. For this sacrifice there is no need of garlands, nor of purifications, nor of turf, which are altogether most vain: but of those things which are brought forth from the inmost breast. And so upon the altar of God, which is truly the greatest, and which, placed in the heart of man, cannot be defiled with blood, justice is laid, patience, faith, innocence, chastity, abstinence. This is the truest rite: this is that law of God, which, as Cicero said, is illustrious and divine, always commanding what is right and honorable, forbidding what is base and shameful; to which law, as to a most holy and most certain law, it is necessary for those who obey it to live justly and lawfully. Of this law I have indeed set forth but a few chapters, because I promised to say only those things which would place the highest summit upon virtue and justice.

If anyone wishes to comprehend all the rest, let him seek it from the very source from which this stream has flowed to us.

Now we shall say a few things about sacrifice itself. "Ivory," says Plato, "is not a pure gift to God." What then? Painted things, of course, and costly woven things? Nay rather, whatever can be stolen, whatever can be corrupted, is not a pure gift to God. But just as he saw this, that one ought not to offer to the living God anything that comes from a dead body; why did he not see that, that a corporeal gift ought not to be offered to an incorporeal being? How much better and more truly does Seneca speak? "Do you wish," he says, "to think of God as great and calm, and venerable with gentle majesty, a friend, and always near at hand? He is not to be worshipped with immolations and much blood (for what pleasure is there in the slaughter of innocent creatures?): but with a pure mind, and a good and honorable purpose.

Temples are not to be built for him of stones piled up to a great height: in his own breast each man must consecrate him." Therefore, garments, gems, and the other things that are held in esteem, if anyone thinks these are dear to God, he plainly does not know what God is, to whom he supposes those things give pleasure, which even a man, if he despises them, will rightly be praised for despising. What then is pure, what is worthy of God, except what he himself demanded in that divine law of his? There are two things which ought to be offered: a gift, and a sacrifice: a gift in perpetuity, a sacrifice for a time. But among those who in no way understand the nature of divinity, a gift is whatever is fashioned of gold and silver; likewise whatever is woven of purple and silk. A sacrifice is a victim, and whatever is burned upon an altar. But God makes use of neither; because he himself is incorruptible, and all that is entirely corruptible.

And so both must be offered to God in incorporeal form, such as he can use. The gift is integrity of soul; the sacrifice, praise and hymn. For if God is not seen, then he ought to be worshipped with those things which are not seen. There is therefore no true religion other than that which consists in virtue and justice. How God makes use of man's justice is easy to understand. For if a man is just, having received immortality, he will serve God forever. Moreover, that men are born for nothing but justice is the conjecture of both the ancient philosophers and also of Cicero. For when discoursing on laws he says: "But of all the things that are discussed in the disputations of learned men, nothing is surely more excellent than the plain understanding that we are born for justice." This therefore is the only thing we ought to exhibit and offer to God, for the receiving of which he himself begat us.

Now that this twofold kind of sacrifice is most true, Hermes Trismegistus is a fitting witness; who agrees with us, that is, with the prophets whom we follow, both in words and in substance; and he spoke thus of justice: "This word, O son, worship and revere." Moreover the worship of God is one thing: not to be evil. Likewise in that perfect discourse, when he had heard Asclepius asking his son whether it pleased his father to have incense and other fragrances offered to him for the sacrifice of God, he exclaimed: "Speak well, speak well of good omens, O Asclepius. For it is the greatest impiety to bring such a thought into one's mind concerning that one and singular Good. For these things and the like do not befit him. For he is full of all things that exist, and is in need of none of them at all. But let us give thanks and adore. For the sacrifice of this one is blessing alone." And rightly so.

For God ought to be sacrificed to with the word; since God is the Word, as he himself has confessed. The highest rite therefore of worshipping God is praise directed to God from the mouth of a just man: yet even this, that it may be acceptable to God, requires humility, and fear, and the greatest devotion; lest anyone, perhaps bearing confidence in his integrity and innocence, incur the fault of pride and arrogance, and by so doing lose the grace of virtue. But that he may be dear to God and free from every stain, let him always implore the mercy of God, and pray for nothing else but pardon for his sins, even if there be none. If he has desired anything else, there is no need to speak of it to one who knows what we want.

If any good has befallen him, let him give thanks; if any evil, let him make satisfaction, and confess that this has happened to him on account of his sins; and nonetheless let him give thanks even in evils, and make satisfaction even in goods: so that he may always be the same, and steadfast, and unchangeable, and unshaken. Nor let him think this is to be done only in the temple, but also at home, and even in his own bedchamber. In short, let him always have God consecrated in his heart; since he himself is the temple of God. But if he shall have served God, father and lord, with this assiduity, this obedience, this devotion, justice is consummated and perfect; and whoever holds to this has (as we have testified before) obeyed God, has satisfied religion and his own duty.

It is well; the foundations have been laid, as the distinguished Orator says. But we have not only laid foundations; which were firm and adequate for bearing the work through to completion; but with great and sturdy masses we have carried the whole building almost to the very top. It remains, which is much easier, either to roof it or to adorn it; without which, however, the prior work is both useless and ungratifying. For what does it profit either to be freed from false religions, or to understand the true one? What does it profit either to see through the vanity of false wisdom, or to come to know what the true wisdom is? What, I say, does it profit to defend that heavenly Justice? What to hold fast, with great difficulties, the worship of God, which is the highest virtue? Unless the divine reward of perpetual blessedness follows upon it.

Concerning which we must discourse in this book; lest all that preceded seem void and fruitless, if we leave in uncertainty that for the sake of which those things were undertaken; lest anyone perhaps think that such great labors are undertaken in vain, while he distrusts their heavenly recompense, which God has appointed for him who shall have despised these pleasant goods of earth in preference to virtue alone and bare. Let us give sufficient satisfaction to this part as well, both with the testimonies of the divine Scriptures, and also with probable arguments, so that it may be equally clear that things future are to be preferred to things present, and divine things to earthly, and eternal things to brief, since the rewards of vices are temporal, and those of virtues are everlasting.

I shall therefore set forth the reason of the world, so that it may easily be understood both when and why it was made by God: which Plato, who discoursed on the fashioning of the world, could neither know nor explain; for he was ignorant of the heavenly mystery, which is learned only through the prophets and through God's teaching; and therefore he said it was made to last forever. But this is far otherwise: for whatever exists in solid and heavy body, as it once had a beginning, so must it necessarily have an end. For Aristotle, since he could not see how so great a magnitude of things could perish, and wished to escape this conclusion, says that the world always has been and always will be. He saw nothing at all; because whatever exists must at some point have had a beginning, nor can anything whatsoever exist unless it has begun.

For since we see that earth, and water, and fire perish, are consumed, and are extinguished—which are indeed parts of the world—it is understood that the whole is mortal whose members are mortal. Thus it comes about that whatever can perish was born. But also everything that comes under the sight of the eyes is, as Plato says, both corporeal and necessarily dissoluble. Epicurus alone, therefore, following Democritus as his authority, was truthful in this matter; who says that the world both came into being at some time and will at some time perish. Yet he could give no account of the causes by which, or the time at which, so great a work would be dissolved.

Since God has revealed this to us, and we attain it not by conjecture but by heavenly tradition, we shall teach it diligently; so that at last it may be apparent to those who are eager for truth that the philosophers neither saw nor grasped the truth, but caught only so faint a scent of it that they could in no way perceive whence that odor of wisdom, so sweet and so pleasant, had breathed upon them.

In the meantime I think it necessary to warn those who are about to read, that what we here set forth: depraved and corrupt minds will either not understand at all (for their keenness of sight is dulled by earthly desires, which weigh down all the senses and render them feeble); or even if they do understand, they will nevertheless dissemble, and will be unwilling that these things are true, because they are drawn by their vices, and knowingly favor their own evils, by whose sweetness they are captivated, and they forsake the path of virtue, by whose harshness they are offended. For those who burn with avarice and a certain insatiable thirst for wealth, because they cannot sell or give away what they love and live life on slender means, without doubt prefer that to be fiction by which they are compelled to renounce their desires.

Likewise, those who are goaded by the spurs of lust, as the poet says, declare that we bring forth things utterly incredible; because the precepts of continence wound their ears, which forbid them from their pleasures, to which they have consigned their soul together with their body. But those who are puffed up with ambition or inflamed with love of power, and have directed all their effort toward acquiring honors—even if we were to carry the sun itself in our hands, they will lend no credence to that teaching which bids them, with all power and honor despised, to live humbly, and so humbly that they can both receive an injury and be unwilling to return it if they have received one. These are the men who bark in whatever fashion against the truth with eyes shut.

But those who are sound, or will be—that is, not so sunk in vices as to be incurable—will both believe these things and come to them willingly; and whatever we say will appear to them open, and plain, and simple, and, what is most needful, true and unassailable.

No one favors virtue unless he can follow it; but to follow it is not easy for all: those can do so whom poverty and want of things has exercised and made capable of virtue. For if virtue is the endurance of evils, those who have always been in good circumstances do not therefore receive virtue, because they have neither experienced evils nor can bear them, by reason of their habit and desire for the good things which alone they have known. Hence it comes about that the poor and humble more easily believe in God, who are unencumbered, than the rich, who are entangled in many impediments: nay rather, chained and shackled, they serve at the nod of their mistress desire, who has ensnared them in inextricable bonds; and they cannot look up to heaven, since their mind is bent toward the earth and fixed upon the ground. But the path of virtue does not admit those who carry great burdens. The track is exceedingly narrow by which justice leads a man to heaven.

He cannot keep to it unless he is unencumbered and stripped bare. For those wealthy men, loaded with many and heavy packs, walk along the road of death, which is very broad; since destruction holds wide dominion. To these men the bitter things are harsh, the poisons which God prescribes for justice, and which we, under God's instruction, set forth concerning virtue and truth. If they shall dare to resist these things, they must needs confess themselves to be enemies of virtue and justice. I shall now proceed to what remains, so that an end may be put to the work. What remains is that we discourse on the judgment of God: which will be established when our Lord shall have returned to earth, to render to each according to his merit either reward or punishment.

And so, as in the fourth book we spoke of his first coming, so in this we shall relate the second coming, which the Jews also both acknowledge and hope for, but in vain, since it is necessary that he return to confound those to whom he had previously come to call together. For those who impiously violated him in his humility shall feel him as a conqueror in his power; and all those things which they read and do not understand they shall suffer, God repaying them; for they, defiled by all sins and moreover drenched with holy blood, are destined by that very one upon whom they laid their wicked hands to eternal punishments. But we shall have a separate subject against the Jews, in which we shall convict them of error and wickedness.

Now let us instruct those who are ignorant of the truth. It has been so ordained by the disposition of the most high God, that this unjust age, when the span of times has run its course, shall come to an end, and when all wickedness has been immediately extinguished and the souls of the pious called back to a blessed life, a quiet, tranquil, peaceful, and finally golden age—as the poets call it—shall flourish, with God himself reigning. In the first place, the cause of all these errors in the philosophers was this: that they did not comprehend the reason of the world, which contains all wisdom. But this cannot be comprehended by one's own sense and inward understanding, which is what they wished to do by themselves without a teacher.

And so they fell into various opinions, often contradictory to one another, from which they had no way out; and they stuck fast in the same mud (as the Comic poet says); namely, because the reasoning did not correspond to their assumptions, since they had indeed assumed true things, but such as could not be affirmed and proved without knowledge of the truth and of heavenly things: which (as I have already said many times) cannot exist in a man unless received through God's teaching. For if a man can understand divine things, he will also be able to do them; for to understand is, as it were, to follow close upon the footsteps. But he cannot do what God does, because he is clothed in a mortal body; therefore he cannot even understand what God does. Whether this can happen, each person may easily measure from the immensity of divine things and works.

For if you wish to contemplate the world with all that is in it, you will surely understand how far God's work surpasses human works. Thus, as great as is the difference between divine and human works, so great must be the difference between the wisdom of God and of man. For because God is incorrupt and immortal, and therefore perfect because he is everlasting, his wisdom also, just as he himself, is perfect; nor can anything obstruct him, because God himself is subject to nothing.

But since man is subject to passion, his wisdom also is subject to error; and just as many things hinder man's life from being able to be perpetual, so also his wisdom must necessarily be hindered by many things from being perfect in penetrating to the truth. Therefore there is no human wisdom, if it strives by itself toward the knowledge and understanding of truth; since the mind of man, bound together with a frail body and shut up in a dark dwelling, can neither range more freely nor perceive the truth more clearly; the knowledge of which belongs to the divine condition. For God's works are known to God alone. Man, however, cannot attain it by thinking or disputing, but by learning and hearing from him who alone can know and teach.

Therefore Marcus Tullius, transferring to Plato the opinion of Socrates who said that the time had come for him to depart from life, while those before whom he was pleading his cause were living their lives, says: Whether it is better, the immortal gods know; I think no man knows. Wherefore it is necessary that all the schools of philosophy be alien to the truth; because they were men who established them, and they can have no foundation or firmness, since they are supported by no oracles of divine utterances.

And since we are speaking of the errors of the philosophers, the Stoics divide nature into two parts: one which produces; the other which offers itself as tractable for producing. In that first part they place the power of sensation; in this, matter; and that neither can exist without the other. How can the same thing be both that which handles and that which is handled? If someone were to say that the potter is the same as the clay, or that the clay is the same as the potter, would he not appear to be plainly mad? Yet these men comprehend under the single name of nature two most different things, God and the world, the craftsman and the work; and they say that neither can do anything without the other, as though God were nature mingled with the world. For sometimes they so confuse them that God himself is the mind of the world and the world is the body of God.

As though indeed the world and God had begun to exist at the same time, and God had not himself made the world: which they themselves also acknowledge elsewhere, when they declare it was fashioned for the sake of men, and that he could exist without the world if he wished; since God is a divine and eternal mind, loosed and free from body. Because they could not understand his power and majesty, they mingled him with the world, that is, with his own work. Hence comes that passage of Virgil: Where then is that which these same men say, that the world was both made by divine providence and is governed by it? For if he made the world, he existed therefore without the world. If he governs it, he does so not at all as a mind governs a body, but as a master his household, a helmsman his ship, a charioteer his chariot. Nor are they mingled with the things which they govern.

For if all these things which we see are members of God, then God is constituted as without sensation by these, since members lack sensation, and as mortal, since we see that the members are mortal.

I could enumerate how often the earth, shaken by sudden upheavals, has either gaped open or sunk into an abyss; how often cities and islands, swallowed by floods, have gone down into the deep; how marshes have inundated fruitful plains; how rivers and pools have dried up; how mountains too have either fallen away in ruin or been leveled to the plains. A hidden and internal fire consumes very many regions and the foundations of many mountains. And this is too little, if God spares not his own members, unless it is also permitted to man to do something against the body of God: seas are built up; mountains are cut through, and the inner bowels of the earth are dug out to extract riches. What of the fact that the earth cannot even be plowed without lacerating the divine body? So that we are already wicked and impious who violate the members of God. Does God therefore endure his body to be vexed, and permit himself to be made weak, either by himself or by man?

Unless perhaps that divine sense which is mingled throughout the world and all the parts of the world has abandoned the surface of the earth and sunk itself into the depths, so as to feel no pain from the continual laceration. But if this is vain and absurd, then those who did not perceive that the divine spirit is indeed diffused everywhere and that all things are held together by it, yet not in such a way that God himself, who is incorrupt, is mingled with heavy and corruptible elements, were themselves as much in want as these things are in want of sense. That view is therefore more correct which they took from Plato, that the world was made by God and is governed by his providence. It was fitting therefore that both Plato and those who held the same opinion should teach and explain what cause, what reason there was for fashioning so great a work; why he made this, or for whose sake he made it.

But those same Stoics say: the world was made for the sake of men. I hear it. But Epicurus does not know why men themselves were made, or by whom. For Lucretius, when he said that the world was not established by the gods, spoke thus (book, On the Nature of Things): Then he added: And rightly so. For they offered no reason why the human race was either created or established by God. It is our task to set forth the mystery of the world and of man, of which those men, being ignorant, could neither touch nor see the sanctuary of truth. Therefore (as I was saying a little before) although they had taken up what was true—that is, that the world was made by God and was made for the sake of men—yet, because reason failed them in the consequences, they could not defend what they had assumed. Finally, Plato, lest he make the work of God weak and perishable, said it would endure forever.

If it was made for the sake of men, and was so made as to be eternal, why then are those very men for whose sake it was made not everlasting? If those for whose sake it was made are mortal, then it too is mortal and dissoluble. For it is not of greater worth than those for whose benefit it was made. But if reason had been consistent for him, he would have understood that it must perish, because it was made; and that nothing can endure forever except what cannot be touched. But he who denies that it was made for the sake of men holds no rational position. For if he says that the maker himself undertook such great works for his own sake, why then were we born? Why do we enjoy the world itself? What is the purpose of the fashioning of the human race and of the other living creatures? Why do we take possession of goods that belong to others? Why, finally, do we increase, diminish, and perish?

What rational account is there of generation itself? What of the perpetual succession? Surely God wished to be seen by us, and to fashion likenesses of himself as it were in seals, by which he might take delight; and yet even so, if that were the case, he would take care of living creatures, and especially of man, to whose dominion he subjected all things. But those who say the world has always existed—I pass over the fact that it cannot exist without some beginning, from which they cannot extricate themselves—but I say this: if the world always existed, it can have no rational purpose. For what could reason have contrived in that which never had a beginning? For before anything is made or constructed, deliberation is needed, so that it may be arranged how it is to be made, and nothing can be begun without the foresight of reason. And so reason precedes every work. That which was not made, therefore, has no rational purpose.

But the world has a rational order by which it both subsists and is governed; therefore it was also made: if it was made, it will also be dissolved. Let those men therefore give a rational account, if they can, of why it was either made in the beginning or will afterward be dissolved.

Because Epicurus, or Democritus, could not teach this, he said that it came into being of its own accord, from seeds coming together everywhere of themselves, and that when these are again dissolved, discord and destruction will follow. He therefore corrupted what he had rightly seen, and overturned the whole rational account by his utter ignorance of reason; and he reduced the world, and all things that take place in it, to the likeness of some utterly vain dream, since no rational principle underlies human affairs.

But since a wondrous reason governs the world and all its parts, as we see—the tempering of the sky, and the uniform course of the stars and heavenly lights amid their very variety, the constant and wonderful ordering of the seasons, the varied fertility of the lands, the level defenses of the plains and the ramparts of the mountains, the greenness and abundance of the forests, the most healthful bursting forth of springs, the opportune flooding of rivers, the rich and plentiful spreading of the sea, the diverse and useful blowing of the winds, and all other things besides, which are ordered by supreme reason—who is so blind as to think that things were made without cause, in which the wondrous arrangement of most provident reason shines forth?

If therefore nothing whatsoever either exists or comes to be without cause; if both the providence of the supreme God is manifest from the ordering of things, and his power from their greatness, and his authority from his governance: then those who said there is no providence are dull and mad. I would not find fault with them if they denied the gods in order to affirm one God; but since they do so in order to affirm none, whoever does not think them to have been raving is himself raving.

But we have said enough about providence in the first book. For even if it exists, as is apparent from the wonderfulness of its works, it must also be the case that the same providence created man and the other living creatures. Let us therefore consider what reason there was for fashioning the human race; since it is established, as the Stoics say, that the world was made for the sake of men—although in this very point they err not slightly, in that they say for the sake of men rather than for the sake of man. For the designation of one individual comprehends the entire human race. But this is because they do not know that one man was formed by God, and they suppose that men were generated in all lands and fields like mushrooms. But Hermes was not ignorant that man was both fashioned by God and fashioned in the likeness of God. But I return to my subject.

Nothing, I think, is made for its own sake; but whatever is made at all must necessarily be made for some use.

For who is so foolish or so idle as to undertake to make something in vain, from which he hopes for no utility, no advantage? He who builds a house does not build it merely so that a house may exist, but so that it may be lived in. He who constructs a ship does not expend his labor merely so that a ship may appear, but so that it may be sailed in. Likewise he who fashions and shapes some vessel does not do so merely to seem to have made something, but so that the finished vessel may hold something necessary. Similarly all other things, whatever they are made, are worked not at all in vain but for some useful purposes. The world therefore was made by God, not for the sake of the world itself; for it has no need of the sun's heat, or of light, or of the breath of winds, or of the moisture of rains, or of the nourishment of crops, since it lacks sensation.

But neither can it be said that God made the world for his own sake; since he can exist without the world, as he did before, and God himself makes no use of all those things that are in it and that are generated in it. It is apparent therefore that the world was constructed for the sake of living creatures; since living creatures enjoy those things of which it consists, and all things necessary for them to live and to subsist are supplied to them at fixed seasons. Again, that the other living creatures were fashioned for the sake of man is clear from the fact that they serve man and are given for his protection and use; since whether they are land creatures or water creatures, they do not perceive the rational order of the world as man does. An answer must be given here to the philosophers, and especially to Cicero, who says: "Why, when God made all things for our sake, did he make so great a multitude of water-snakes and vipers?

Why did he scatter so many pestilential things over land and sea?" This is a vast subject for discussion, but it must be briefly touched upon in passing. Since man is configured from diverse and opposing things—soul and body, that is, heaven and earth, the subtle and the tangible, the eternal and the temporal, the sentient and the brute, that which is endowed with light and that which is dark—the very reason and necessity of the case required that both good things and evil things be set before man; good things for him to use, evil things for him to avoid and beware of. For this reason wisdom was given to him, so that, having come to know the nature of good and evil, he might exercise the force of his reason both in seeking good things and in turning away from evil ones.

For the other animals, because wisdom was not given to them, are both protected with natural coverings and armed; but to man, in place of all these, God gave reason alone, which was the chief thing. And so he formed him naked and unarmed, so that wisdom might both protect and clothe him. He established his protection and adornment not outside but within, not in the body but in the heart. Unless therefore there were evils to beware of, to distinguish from good and useful things, wisdom would not be necessary for him. Let Marcus Tullius therefore know either that reason was given to man so that he might catch fish for his own use and avoid water-snakes and vipers for the sake of his safety; or that good and evil things were set before him because he had received wisdom, whose entire force is exercised in distinguishing good from evil.

Great therefore, and right, and admirable is the force and reason and power of man, for whose sake God made the world itself and all things whatsoever that exist; and he held him in such honor as to set him over all things, since he alone was able to marvel at the works of God. Most excellently therefore our Asclepiades, discoursing on the providence of the supreme God in that book which he wrote to me, says: "And therefore one might rightly judge that divine providence gave to him who was able to understand its ordering the place nearest to itself. For there is the sun; who sees it in such a way as to understand that it is the sun, and how much grace it brings to the other created things? There is the sky; who gazes up at it? There is the earth; who cultivates it? There is the sea; who sails upon it?

There is fire; who makes use of it?" The supreme God therefore established these things not for his own sake, because he needs nothing, but for the sake of man, who would make fitting use of them.

Let us now give the reason why God made man himself. Had the philosophers known this, they would either have defended those things which they had found to be true, or they would not have fallen into the greatest errors. For this is the sum, this is the hinge of all things. He who does not hold fast to it loses all truth. This is finally what causes their reasoning not to be consistent: if this had shone upon them, if they had known the whole mystery of man, never would the Academy have cut across their disputations and all their philosophy from the side. Just as therefore God made the world not for its own sake, because he has no need of its advantages, but for the sake of man who uses it; so he made man himself for his own sake. What use is man to God, asks Epicurus, that he should make him for his own sake?

Namely, that there might be one who would understand his works, who could admire with sense and proclaim with voice the providence of his ordering, the reason of his making, the power of his completing. The sum of all these things is this: that he should worship God. For he worships God who understands these things; he follows with due veneration the maker of all things, his true father, who measures the power of his majesty from the discovery, inception, and completion of his works. What plainer argument can be brought forward that God made the world for man and man for his own sake, than that of all living creatures man alone was so formed that his eyes are directed toward heaven, his face looks toward God, his countenance is shared with his parent, so that God seems to have raised man up from the ground as if by an outstretched hand and roused him to the contemplation of himself?

"What then," he says, "does the worship of man contribute to God, who is blessed and in need of nothing? Or if he held man in such honor as to make the world for his sake, to equip him with wisdom, to make him lord of living things, and to love him as a son, why did he make him mortal and fragile? Why did he expose to all evils the one he loved? When man ought to be both blessed, as one joined and near to God, and everlasting, just as he is to whom man was fashioned to render worship and contemplation." Although we have taught these things for the most part scattered through the earlier books, yet since the subject matter now properly requires it—because it is our purpose to discourse on the blessed life—these things must be set forth more carefully and fully, so that the disposition, work, and will of God may be known.

Although he could always have produced innumerable souls from his immortal spirits, just as he begot the angels, for whom immortality is assured without any danger or fear of evils; yet he devised an ineffable work, by which he might create an infinite multitude of souls, which he would first establish bound to frail and weak bodies, placed midway between good and evil, so that by proposing virtue to natures composed of both, they might not attain immortality softly and delicately, but might arrive at that unutterable reward of eternal life with the greatest difficulty and great labors. Therefore, in order to clothe them with heavy and vexing members—since they could not subsist in the middle of empty space, with the weight and heaviness of the body pressing them downward—he decreed that a seat and dwelling place must first be established for them.

And so with ineffable power and might he wrought the glorious works of the world, with the light elements suspended on high and the heavy ones pressed down to the depths; and he established the heavenly things and set the earthly things in place. It is not necessary now to go through each detail, since we went through all of them in the second book.

He placed, therefore, lights in the heaven, whose regulation, brightness, and motion are most aptly tempered to the needs of living things. To the earth, moreover, which he willed to be a dwelling-place, he gave fertility for generating and bringing forth varied things, so that by the abundance of crops and green herbs, according to the nature and use of each kind, it might supply nourishment.

Then, when all things pertaining to the fashioning of the world had been completed, he formed man from that very earth which he had prepared from the beginning as a habitation for him; that is, he clothed and wrapped his spirit in an earthly body, so that, being compounded of diverse and opposing things, man might receive good and evil; and just as the earth itself is fruitful for bearing crops, so the body of man, which was taken from the earth, received the capacity for begetting and the faculty of producing offspring, so that, since he had been formed of fragile matter and could not endure forever, when the span of his temporal life was completed he might give way, and might renew by perpetual succession that which he bore as fragile and weak. Why, then, did he fashion him mortal and fragile, when he had built the world for his sake?

First, so that an infinite multitude of souls might be begotten and might fill all the earth with their number; then, so that he might set before man virtue, that is, the endurance of evils and labors, through which he might be able to attain the reward of immortality. For since man consists of two things, body and soul, of which the one is earthly and the other heavenly, two lives have been assigned to man: one temporal, which is allotted to the body; the other everlasting, which belongs to the soul. The former we receive by being born; the latter we attain by laboring, lest immortality should come to man (as we said before) without any difficulty. The former is earthly, like the body, and therefore has an end; the latter is heavenly, like the soul, and therefore has no limit. The former, the first, we receive unknowingly; the latter, the second, knowingly; for it is given to virtue, not to nature, because God willed us to procure life for ourselves in this life.

For this reason he gave us this present life, so that we might either lose that true and everlasting life through vices, or merit it through virtue. In this bodily life there is no supreme good; for just as it was given to us by divine necessity, so again it will be dissolved by divine necessity. Thus that which has an end does not have the supreme good. But in that spiritual life, which we ourselves acquire by our own effort, the supreme good is contained; because it can have neither evil nor end. The nature and constitution of the body furnishes proof of this. For other animals bend toward the ground, because they are earthly; nor do they receive immortality, which is from heaven. But man, upright, looks toward heaven, because immortality is set before him; yet he does not attain it unless it is granted to man by God.

For there would be no difference between the just and the unjust, if every man born were to become immortal; therefore immortality is not a consequence of nature, but the reward and prize of virtue. Finally, man does not walk upright as soon as he is born: but first on all fours, because the constitution of the body and of this present life is common to us with the dumb animals; afterwards, when his strength has been confirmed, he is raised upright, and his tongue is loosed for speech, and he ceases to be a mute animal. This principle teaches that man is born mortal; but afterwards becomes immortal, when he has begun to live from God, that is, to follow justice, which is contained in the worship of God, when God has roused man to the beholding of heaven and of himself. This comes to pass when man, purified by the heavenly washing, puts off infancy together with all the defilement of his former life, and, having received the increase of divine vigor, becomes a perfect and complete man.

Therefore, because God set virtue before man, although soul and body are joined together, they are nevertheless contrary to one another and fight against each other. The goods of the soul are evils of the body; that is, the flight from wealth, the forbidding of pleasures, the contempt of pain and death. Likewise the goods of the body are evils of the soul; that is, greed and lust, by which both wealth is sought and the pleasures of various delights, by which the soul, enfeebled, is extinguished. Therefore it is necessary that the just and wise man be in all evils, since fortitude is the conqueror of evils; but the unjust in riches, in honor, in power. For these are bodily and earthly goods. But those men lead an earthly life, and cannot attain immortality, because they have given themselves over to pleasures, which are the enemies of virtue. And so this temporal life ought to be subject to that eternal one, just as the body is to the soul.

Whoever, therefore, has preferred the life of the soul must of necessity despise the life of the body; nor can he strive toward the summit in any other way than by looking down upon what is lowest. But he who has embraced the life of the body and has cast his desires down to the earth cannot attain that higher life. But he who prefers to live well forever will live ill for a time, and will be afflicted with all troubles and labors as long as he is on earth, so that he may have divine and heavenly consolation. And he who has preferred to live well for a time will live ill forever; for he will be condemned by the sentence of God to eternal punishment, because he preferred earthly things to heavenly goods. For this reason, therefore, God desires to be worshipped and honored by man as a father, so that man may hold fast to virtue and wisdom, which alone gives birth to immortality.

For since no one other than God himself can bestow it, because he alone possesses it, the piety of man, by which he shall have honored God, will reward him with this prize: that he be blessed forever, and be with God, and always with God. « Nor let anyone now take refuge in saying that the fault belongs to him who both established good and evil. For why did he will evil to exist, if he hates it? Why did he not make only good, so that no one would sin, no one would do evil? Although I have taught this in nearly all the preceding books, and have already touched upon it above, though briefly, yet it must be recalled from time to time, because the whole principle rests upon it. For no virtue could exist unless he had made things diverse; nor can the power of good appear at all except by comparison with evil. So thoroughly is evil nothing other than the interpretation of good.

If evil, therefore, is removed, good must of necessity be removed as well. If you were to cut off the left hand or foot, neither would the body be whole, nor would life itself hold together. So thoroughly are left things joined most aptly with right things for the tempering of the body's frame. Likewise, if you were to make the counters equal, no one would play. If you were to give one color to the Circus, no one would think it worth watching, all the pleasure of the Circus games being removed. Surely he who first established those games was a lover of one color: but he set another against it, as a rival, so that there might be a contest and some delight in the spectacle. So God, when he established good, when he gave virtue, also established things contrary to it, with which virtue might contend. If there is no enemy and no battle, there is no victory. Remove the contest, and virtue itself is nothing.

How many are the contests among men, and established by how many varied arts? Yet no one would be considered braver, swifter, or more excellent, if he did not have an adversary with whom to contend. But where victory is absent, glory and reward must of necessity be absent as well. Therefore, in order to strengthen virtue itself by continual exercise and to make it perfect through conflict with evils, he gave both at once, because neither can retain its force without the other. Therefore it is diversity upon which the whole principle of truth rests. « It does not escape me what may be objected at this point by more learned men. If good cannot exist without evil, how do you say that the first man, before he offended God, existed in good alone, or that afterwards he will exist in good alone? We must examine this question, which I passed over in the preceding books in order to complete it here. We said above that the nature of man consists of opposing elements.

For the body, because it is earth, is comprehensible, temporal, brutish, and dark. But the soul, because it is from heaven, is subtle, eternal, sentient, and bright. Because these are contrary to one another, it is necessary that man be subject to good and evil. Good is ascribed to the soul, because it is indissoluble; evil to the body, because it is fragile. Since, therefore, body and soul are joined and united, good and evil must equally cohere, nor can either be separated from the other unless those two are separated. Finally, the knowledge of good and evil was given to the first man at one and the same time. When he had received it, he was immediately driven from the holy place, in which there is no evil. While he was there in good alone, he did not know that that very good was good.

But after he received the understanding of good and evil, it was now unlawful for him to remain in the place of blessedness, and he was banished to this common world, so that he might experience both together, whose nature he had come to know equally. It appears, therefore, that wisdom was given to man for this reason: that he might discern good from evil; that he might distinguish the advantageous from the disadvantageous, the useful from the useless; that he might have judgment and deliberation as to what he ought to avoid, what to seek, what to flee, what to follow. Wisdom, therefore, cannot exist without evil; and that first father of the human race lived, as long as he was in good alone, like an infant, ignorant of good and evil. But afterwards man must of necessity be both wise and blessed without any evil.

Yet this cannot come to pass as long as the soul is clothed in the dwelling of the body. « But when the separation of body and soul shall have come to pass, then evil will be separated from good. And just as the body perishes while the soul remains, so evil will perish and good will remain. Then man, having received the garment of immortality, will be wise, free from evil, like God. He, therefore, who wishes us to be in good alone, desires above all that we live without the body, in which evil resides. If that is removed, either wisdom will be taken from man, as I said, or the body: wisdom, so that he may not know evil; the body, so that he may not feel it. But now, since man is both equipped with wisdom to know, and with a body to feel, God willed both to exist equally in this life, so that the principle of virtue and wisdom might hold together.

He placed man, therefore, in the middle between both, so that he might have the freedom to follow either evil or good. But into evil he mingled certain apparent goods, that is, various and delightful pleasures, so that by their allurements he might lead man toward hidden evil. Into good, however, he mingled certain apparent evils, that is, hardships, miseries, and labors, by whose harshness and trouble the soul, offended, might recoil from the hidden good. Here, therefore, the office of wisdom is needed, so that we may see more with the mind than with the body: which very few are able to do; because virtue is difficult and rare, while pleasure is common and universal. Thus it is necessary that the wise man be regarded as a fool, who, while he seeks goods that are not seen, lets slip from his hands those that are visible; and while he avoids evils that are not perceived, falls into evils that are before his eyes.

This befalls us when we refuse neither torture nor death for the faith: when we are compelled to the greatest impiety, to pour libations to dead and death-dealing gods, having betrayed the faith and denied the true God. This is the reason why God made man both mortal and subject to evils; although he had built the world for his sake, namely that man might receive virtue, and that his virtue might give him immortality. But virtue, as we have shown, is the worship of the true God.

Let us now mark the whole account in a brief summary. For this reason the world was made, that we might be born; for this reason we are born, that we might acknowledge God, the maker of the world and of ourselves; for this reason we acknowledge him, that we might worship him; for this reason we worship him, that we might receive immortality as the reward of our labors, since the worship of God consists in very great labors; for this reason we are rewarded with immortality, that, made like the angels, we might serve the most high Father and Lord forever, and be the eternal kingdom of God. This is the sum of things, this the secret of God, this the mystery of the world; from which those are estranged who, following present pleasure, have devoted themselves to earthly and fragile goods, and have submerged souls born for heavenly things in death-dealing delights as in mud and mire.

Let us now inquire in turn whether any reason underlies the worship of the gods: if they are many, if they are worshipped by men for this purpose alone, that they may bestow upon them wealth, victories, honours, and whatever else is of value only for the present; if we are born without purpose; if no providence is at work in the begetting of men; if we are born by chance and for our own pleasure; if after death we are nothing—what can be so superfluous, so empty, so vain, as the human condition, and as the world itself? Which, though constructed with incredible greatness and with such marvellous order, is yet occupied with worthless things. For why do the blasts of winds drive the clouds? Why do lightnings flash? Why do thunders roar? Why do rains fall, so that the earth may bring forth crops, so that it may nourish its varied offspring?

Why, in short, does all the nature of things labour, lest anything be lacking of those things by which the life of man is sustained, if it is empty, if we perish into nothing, if there is nothing in us of greater profit to God? But if it is impious to say so, and it must not be thought possible that what you see to be constituted with the greatest reason was not established for some very great purpose—what reason can there be in these errors of corrupt religions, and in this persuasion of the philosophers, by which they think that souls perish? Assuredly none. For what have they to say as to why the gods so diligently provide for men each thing in its proper season?

Is it so that we may give them spelt and unmixed wine, and the scent of incense, and the blood of cattle?—things which can neither be pleasing to immortals, because they are perishable; nor be of use to those who lack bodies, because these things are given for the use of bodily beings. And yet if they desired them, they could provide them for themselves whenever they wished. Whether, therefore, souls perish or endure forever, what reason does the worship of the gods contain, or by whom was the world established? Why, or when, or how long, or in what measure were men, or for what reason were they created? Why are they born, why do they die, why do they succeed one another, why are they renewed? What do the gods gain from the worship of those who after death will be nothing? What do they bestow? What do they promise? What do they threaten that is worthy either of men or of gods?

Or if souls endure after death, what do they do with them, or what will they do? What need have they of a treasury of souls? From what source do those souls themselves arise? How, or why, or whence are they many? Thus it comes about that if you have strayed from that sum of things which we set forth above, all reason perishes, and all things are reduced to nothing.

Because the philosophers did not comprehend this whole, they could not comprehend the truth, although they both saw and set forth nearly all the things of which that sum itself consists. But they brought forth all those things separately and in different ways, not connecting either the causes of things, or their consequences, or their reasons; so as to join together and fill out that sum which contains all things. It is easy to show that nearly the whole truth has been divided among the philosophers by sects. For we do not overthrow philosophy as the Academics are wont to do, whose purpose is to answer everything, which is rather to cavil and mock; but we show that no sect has been so errant, nor any philosopher so empty, as not to have seen something of the truth.

But while they rage with the zeal of contradiction, while they defend even their own falsehoods, they overturn also the truths of others, and not only has the truth slipped away from them, which they pretended to seek, but they themselves above all have lost it through their own fault. But if there had arisen someone who would gather into one the truth scattered through individuals and diffused through the sects, and reduce it into a body, he assuredly would not disagree with us. But no one can do this except one who is skilled and knowing in the truth. To know the truth, however, belongs only to one who has been taught by God. For otherwise he cannot reject what is false, and choose and approve what is true; but if even by chance he should accomplish this, he would philosophize most certainly; and although he could not defend those things by divine testimonies, yet the truth itself would shine forth by its own light.

Wherefore the error of those is incredible who, having approved some sect and devoted themselves to it, condemn the rest as false and empty, and arm themselves for battle, knowing neither what they ought to defend nor what to refute; and they rush about indiscriminately against all things, whatever those who disagree bring forward.

On account of these their most stubborn contentions, no philosophy arose that came nearer to the truth; for the whole truth was comprehended by them in parts. That the world was made by God, Plato said. The prophets say the same; and the same appears from the Sibylline verses. They err, therefore, who said either that all things were born of their own accord, or were gathered together from minute seeds; since so great a thing, so adorned, so vast, could neither be made, nor arranged and ordered, without some most wise author; and that very reason by which all things are perceived to hold together and be governed confesses an artificer of most consummate intelligence. That the world and all things in it were made for the sake of men, the Stoics say: the same divine Scriptures teach us. Democritus therefore erred, who thought that men were poured forth from the earth like worms, with no author and no reason.

For why man was formed is a matter of divine mystery: which because he could not know, he reduced human life to nothing. That men are born to pursue virtue, Ariston argued: the same thing we are admonished and taught by the prophets. Aristippus therefore was wrong, who subjected man to pleasure—that is, to evil—as a beast of burden. That souls are immortal, Pherecydes and Plato argued: this indeed is the proper doctrine in our religion. Dicaearchus therefore erred with Democritus, who argued that the soul perishes and is dissolved with the body. That there is an underworld, Zeno the Stoic taught, and that the abodes of the pious are separated from those of the impious; and that the former dwell in peaceful and delightful regions, while the latter pay penalties in dark places and in horrible abysses of mire: the same things our prophets make plain to us. Epicurus therefore erred, who thought this was a fiction of the poets, and interpreted those punishments of the underworld, which are reported, as existing in this present life.

The philosophers, therefore, touched upon the whole truth and every mystery of divine Religion. But when others refuted them, they were unable to defend what they had discovered; because the reasoning did not fit together for each of them individually, nor were they able to reduce into a sum the things which they had perceived to be true, as we have done above.

There is therefore one supreme good—immortality—to receive which we were both formed from the beginning and born. Toward this we tend; toward this human nature looks; toward this virtue carries us forward: and since we have grasped this good, it remains also to speak of immortality itself. The arguments of Plato, although they contribute much to the matter, yet have too little firmness for proving and filling out the truth; since he had not consummated the reason of the whole great mystery, nor gathered it into one, nor had he comprehended the supreme good. For although he held the truth concerning the immortality of the soul, yet he did not argue about it as about the supreme good. We therefore can draw out the truth by more certain signs, we who have gathered it not by uncertain conjecture, but have come to know it by divine tradition.

Now Plato argued thus: that whatever both perceives by itself and is always in motion is immortal; for that which has no beginning of motion will have no end either, because it cannot be abandoned by itself. Which argument would also grant eternity to dumb animals, had he not distinguished them by the addition of wisdom.

He added, therefore, in order to escape this commonality, that it cannot but be that the human mind is immortal, whose wondrous keenness of discovery, and swiftness of thought, and ease of perceiving and learning, and memory of things past, and foresight of things to come, and knowledge of very many innumerable arts—of which the other living creatures are destitute—appears divine and heavenly: because even the origin of a mind that can contain so much, hold so much, is found nowhere on earth; since from earthly composition it has nothing mixed in it: but that what is heavy and dissoluble in man must necessarily be resolved into earth; while what is fine and subtle is truly indivisible, and, freed from the dwelling of the body as from a prison, flies up to heaven and to its own nature. These are in brief the collected arguments of Plato, which are set forth at length and copiously in his own works.

Pythagoras before him was of the same opinion, and his teacher Pherecydes, whom Cicero records as the first to have argued about the eternity of souls. All of these, although they excelled in eloquence, yet in this particular controversy had no less authority against them than those who argued on the other side—first Dicaearchus, then Democritus, and lastly Epicurus—so much so that the very matter about which they contended was called into doubt. Finally even Tullius, having set forth the opinions of all these concerning immortality and death, declared that he did not know what was true. "Which of these opinions is true," he said, "some god will have seen." And again elsewhere: "Since each of these opinions," he said, "has had most learned authors, and what is certain cannot be divined." But we have no need of divination, to whom the divine power itself has revealed the truth.

By these arguments, therefore, which neither Plato nor any other has discovered, the eternity of souls can be proved and made clear: and we have gathered them briefly, since our discourse hastens toward the narration of the great judgment of God, which will be held on earth as the end of the ages draws near. First of all, since God cannot be seen by man, lest anyone on that very account should think that God does not exist because he cannot be seen by mortal eyes, among the other wonders of his creation he also made many things whose power is indeed apparent, yet whose substance cannot be seen, such as voice, odor, and wind; so that by the evidence and example of these things we might also discern God, even though he does not come before our eyes, yet through his power, and effect, and works. What is clearer than a voice? Or stronger than the wind? Or more penetrating than an odor?

Yet these things, when they are borne through the air and come to our senses and strike them with their power, are not perceived by the keenness of our eyes, but are sensed by other parts of the body. In like manner, God is not to be grasped by sight or by any other frail sense, but is to be beheld with the eyes of the mind, when we see his works, which are glorious and wonderful. For those who have said that there is no God at all, I would say were not only not philosophers, but not even men, who, most like to dumb animals, constituted themselves of body alone, perceiving nothing at all with the mind, but referring all things to bodily sense, who thought nothing existed except what they could behold with their eyes. And because they saw either adversity befalling the good, or prosperity befalling the wicked, they believed that all things are governed by chance, and that the world was constituted by nature, not by providence.

From this they then slid into the follies which necessarily followed upon such an opinion. But if God exists and is incorporeal, and invisible, and eternal; then it is not credible that the soul perishes for this reason, that it is not seen after it has departed from the body, since it is established that there is something sentient and vigorous which does not come under sight. But it is difficult, one may say, to comprehend with the mind how the soul can retain sensation without those parts of the body in which the function of sensing resides. What of God? Is it easy to comprehend how he is vigorous without a body? But if they believe that gods exist, who, if they exist, are certainly without bodies, it is necessary that human souls subsist by the same reasoning; since from reason and prudence itself it is understood that there is a certain likeness between man and God.

Finally, that argument which even Marcus Tullius perceived is sufficiently strong: that the eternity of the soul can be recognized from the fact that there is no other animal which has any knowledge of God; and that religion is almost the sole thing which distinguishes man from dumb animals: and since this falls to man alone, it assuredly testifies that we strive after, desire, and worship that which will be familiar to us, which will be near to us in the future.

Can anyone, having considered the nature of the other living creatures, which the providence of the most high God has made with bodies bent down and prostrated upon the earth, so that from this it may be understood that they have no connection with heaven, fail to understand that man alone of all is a heavenly and divine animal, whose body raised up from the ground, whose lofty countenance, whose upright posture seeks its own origin, and as though scorning the lowliness of the earth, strives upward, because it perceives that the highest good is to be sought for itself in the highest place, and mindful of its condition in which God made it exceptional, looks toward its maker? This looking Trismegistus most rightly called θεωπίδα: which is found in no dumb animals.

But since wisdom, which is given to man alone, is nothing other than the knowledge of God, it is clear that the soul does not perish nor is dissolved, but remains forever, because it both seeks and loves God, who is eternal, nature itself compelling it, sensing both whence it arose and whither it is to return. Moreover, it is no small argument for immortality that man alone makes use of the heavenly element. For since the nature of things consists of these two elements, which are opposed and hostile to each other, fire and water, of which the one is assigned to heaven and the other to earth: the other living creatures, because they are earthly and mortal, make use of the earthly and heavy element; man alone makes use of fire, which is the light, lofty, and heavenly element. Now those things which are heavy press down toward death, and those which are light lift up toward life, because life is in the highest place, death in the lowest.

And as light cannot exist without fire, so life cannot exist without light. Fire, therefore, is the element of light and life: whence it appears that man, who makes use of it, has received an immortal condition, because that which produces life is familiar to him. Virtue also, given to man alone, is a great argument that souls are immortal. It would not be in accordance with nature, if the soul is extinguished; for it harms this present life. For this earthly life, which we lead in common with dumb animals, both seeks pleasure, in whose varied and sweet fruits it delights, and flees pain, whose harshness injures the nature of living beings with bitter sensations, and strives to lead toward death, which dissolves the living creature.

If therefore virtue both forbids man those goods which are naturally sought, and drives him to endure those evils which are naturally fled; then virtue is evil, and hostile to nature, and he who follows it must necessarily be judged a fool, since he harms himself both by fleeing present goods and by equally seeking evils without hope of greater fruit. For since we are permitted to enjoy the most pleasant pleasures, would we not seem to be lacking in sense if we preferred to live in humility, in poverty, in contempt, in disgrace, or not even to live, but to be tormented with pain and to die, from which evils we gain nothing further by which the pleasure foregone could be compensated? But if virtue is not evil, and acts honorably in that it despises vicious and base pleasures, and courageously in that it fears neither pain nor death, in order to preserve duty; then it must necessarily attain some greater good than those things which it scorns.

But when death has been accepted, what further good can be hoped for, unless it be eternity?

Let us now pass in turn to those things which are opposed to virtue, so that from these also the immortality of the soul may be gathered. All vices are temporal; for they are stirred up with respect to the present. The impulse of anger is calmed when vengeance has been received. The pleasure of lust is the end of the body. Cupidity is destroyed either by satiety of those things which it seeks, or by the stirrings of other passions. Ambition, after it has attained the honors it desired, grows old. Likewise the other vices cannot stand firm and persist, but are ended by the very fruit which they seek. They therefore depart and return. But virtue is perpetual without any interruption, nor can one who has once taken hold of it depart from it. For if it has intervals, if we can sometimes be without it, the vices which always assail virtue will straightway return. It has not therefore been grasped, if it departs, if it sometimes withdraws.

But when it has established a stable dwelling-place for itself, it must necessarily be present in every action; nor can it faithfully drive away and put to flight the vices, unless it has fortified the breast in which it has settled with a perpetual garrison. The very perpetuity of virtue therefore indicates that the human soul, if it has taken hold of virtue, endures; because virtue too is perpetual, and the human soul alone is capable of virtue. Since therefore vices are contrary to virtue, all their character must necessarily be different and contrary. Because vices are agitations and disturbances of the soul, virtue on the contrary is calmness and tranquility of the soul. Because vices are temporal and brief, virtue is perpetual and constant, and always equal to itself. Because the fruits of vices, that is, pleasures, are equally brief and temporal as the vices themselves; the fruit and reward of virtue is therefore everlasting, because the advantage of vices is in the present, and therefore the advantage of virtue is in the future.

Thus it comes about that in this life there is no reward of virtue, because virtue is still itself. For just as vices, when they are ended in their own act, are followed by their pleasures and rewards: so virtue, when it is finished, is followed by its recompense. But virtue is never finished except by death, since even in the acceptance of death its highest duty lies. Therefore the reward of virtue is after death. Finally Cicero in the Tusculans, though with hesitation, yet perceived that the highest good for man comes only after death. "With confident spirit," he says, "if circumstances so require, he will march toward death; in which we have learned that either the highest good, or no evil, exists." Death therefore does not extinguish man, but admits him to the reward of virtue.

But he who has contaminated himself (as the same author says) with vices and crimes, and has been a slave to pleasure, will indeed, condemned, pay an eternal punishment; which the divine scriptures call the second death, which is both perpetual and full of the most grievous torments. For just as two lives are set before man, of which one belongs to the soul and the other to the body: so also two deaths are set before him, one pertaining to the body, which all must necessarily undergo according to nature; the other pertaining to the soul, which is acquired by wickedness and avoided by virtue; and as this life is temporal and has fixed limits, because it belongs to the body: so also death is equally temporal and has a fixed end, because it touches the body.

When therefore the times which God has appointed for death have been fulfilled, death itself will come to an end. And because temporal death follows temporal life; it follows that souls rise again to everlasting life, because temporal death has received its end. Again, just as the life of the soul is everlasting, in which it receives the divine and inexpressible fruits of its immortality: so also its death must necessarily be perpetual, in which it pays unending punishments and infinite torments for its sins. The matter is therefore placed in this condition, that those who are blessed in this bodily and earthly life will always be wretched in the future; because they have already obtained the goods which they preferred: which happens to those who worship gods and neglect God.

Then those who, following justice, were wretched and despised and destitute in this life, and were often harassed with insults and injuries on account of justice itself, because virtue cannot otherwise be maintained, will always be blessed in the future; so that, because they have already endured evils, they may also enjoy goods. This assuredly befalls those who, having despised earthly gods and fragile goods, follow the heavenly religion of God; whose goods, like himself who bestows them, are everlasting. What of the works of body and soul? Do they not indicate that the soul is free from death? For the body, because it is itself fragile and mortal, whatever works it undertakes are equally perishable. For Tullius says that there is nothing wrought by human hands which is not at some time reduced to destruction, either by the injury of men or by old age itself, which consumes all things.

But the works of the mind we see to be eternal. For all those who, devoting themselves to contempt of present things, have left behind in memory monuments of their talents and great deeds, have plainly sought an indelible name for their mind and virtue. If therefore the works of the body are mortal because the body itself is mortal, it follows that the soul appears immortal from the fact that we see its works are not mortal. In the same way the desires of body and soul also declare that the one is mortal and the other everlasting. For the body desires nothing but what is temporal, that is, food, drink, clothing, rest, pleasure; and yet even these things it can neither desire nor attain without the direction and assistance of the soul. But the soul by itself desires many things which do not overflow into the duty or profit of the body; and these are not fragile but eternal, such as the fame of virtue, such as the memory of a name.

For the worship of God, which consists in abstinence from desires and lusts, in endurance of pain, in contempt of death, the soul desires even against the body. Whence it is credible that the soul does not perish, but is separated from the body; because the body without the soul can do nothing, but the soul can do many and great things without the body. Furthermore, those things which are visible to the eyes and tangible to the hand, because they can suffer external force, cannot be eternal. But those things which come neither under touch nor under sight, but only their power and reason and effect appear, are eternal, because they suffer no force from without. But if the body is mortal because it is subject both to sight and to touch; then the soul is also immortal for this reason, that it can neither be touched nor seen.

Now let us refute the arguments of those who argue on the other side; which Lucretius set forth in his third book. Since the soul, he says, is born with the body, it must necessarily perish with the body. But the reasoning is not the same for both. For the body is solid and tangible, both to the eyes and to the hand: but the soul is tenuous, and eludes both touch and sight. The body is fashioned and solidified from earth: the soul has nothing compacted in it, nothing of earthly weight, as Plato argued. For it could not have such great keenness, such great power, such great swiftness, unless it drew its origin from heaven. Therefore, since the body is fashioned from a heavy and corruptible element, and is both tangible and visible, it is corrupted and dies; nor can it repel force, because it comes under sight and under touch. But the soul, because by its tenuousness it eludes all touch, can be dissolved by no blow.

Therefore, although they are born joined and united with each other, and the one, which is formed from earthly matter, is as it were a vessel of the other, which is derived from heavenly subtlety: when some force has separated the two, which separation is called death; then each returns to its own nature: that which was from earth is resolved back into earth; that which was from heavenly spirit endures and flourishes always, since the divine spirit is everlasting. Finally, the same Lucretius, forgetting what he was asserting and what doctrine he was defending, set down these verses: which it was not for one who argued that souls perish with bodies to say: but he was overcome by truth, and true reason crept in upon him unawares. Moreover, that very conclusion which he draws, that the soul is dissolved, that is, that it perishes together with the body, because they are born together, is both false and can be turned to the contrary.

For it does not perish at the same time: but when the soul departs, the body remains intact for many days, and is often preserved by medicines for so long that it remains in the same form for a great length of time. It endures for a very long time. For if, as they are born together, they were to perish together, the soul would not suddenly depart and forsake the body: but in one moment of time both would be dissipated equally, and the body too, while the spirit still remained in it, would melt away and perish just as swiftly as the soul withdraws; nay rather, with the body dissolved, the soul would vanish, as moisture poured out when a vessel is broken. For if the earthly and fragile body does not immediately dissolve after the departure of the soul, nor waste away into the earth from which it had its origin; then the soul, which is not fragile, remains for eternity, since its origin is eternal.

Because sensation, he says, grows in children, and is vigorous in the young, and diminishes in the old, it is apparent that it is mortal. First, mind and soul are not the same thing; for that by which we live is one thing, that by which we think is another. For in those who sleep, the mind, not the soul, is at rest; and in the mad, the mind is extinguished while the soul remains; and therefore they are called not lifeless but demented. The mind therefore, that is, the understanding, is either increased or diminished according to age. The soul is always in its own state, and from the time it receives the faculty of breathing, it endures the same until the last, until, released from the prison of the body, it flies back to its own abode. Then, because the soul, although it has been breathed in by God, yet because it is enclosed in the dark dwelling of earthly flesh, does not have the knowledge which belongs to divinity.

It therefore hears and learns all things, and acquires wisdom by learning and hearing; and old age does not diminish wisdom but increases it, provided that the years of youth have been spent in virtue. But if extreme old age has broken the limbs, it is not a fault of the soul if sight has faded, if the tongue has grown numb, if hearing has become deaf, but of the body. But memory fails, he says. What wonder, if the mind is weighed down by the ruin of a collapsing dwelling, and forgets the past, no less than it divines the future, unless it escapes the prison by which it is confined? But the soul itself, he says, is subject to grief and sorrow, and is maddened by drunkenness, from which it appears fragile and mortal.

For this reason therefore virtue and wisdom are necessary, so that both the sorrow which is contracted by suffering and witnessing unworthy things may be repelled by fortitude, and pleasure—not only of drinking but of all other things as well—may be overcome by abstinence. For if it lacks virtue, if it is softened by devotion to pleasures, it will become subject to death, since virtue, as we have taught, is the maker of immortality, and pleasure of death. Death, however, as I have shown, does not utterly destroy and annihilate, but afflicts with eternal torments. For the soul cannot perish utterly; since it took its origin from the spirit of God, which is eternal. The soul, he says, also feels the sickness of the body, and suffers forgetfulness of itself, and just as it falls sick, so also it is often healed. This therefore is why virtue must especially be applied, lest it be broken by any pain of the body, and that it is not the soul but the mind that suffers forgetfulness of itself.

Which, since it is situated in a definite region of the body, when some force of disease has damaged that part, it is displaced, and as if shaken, departs from its seat, to return of course when remedy and health have restored its dwelling. For because the soul is joined with the body, if it lacks virtue, it falls sick through contagion from it, and weakness overflows from the fellowship of fragility into the mind. But when it has been separated from the body, it will be vigorous in itself, and will no longer be assailed by any condition of fragility, because it has cast off the fragile garment. Just as the eye, he says, torn out and separated from the body can see nothing: so also the soul when separated can feel nothing, because it too is a part of the body. This is false and unlike; for the soul is not a part of the body, but is in the body.

Just as that which is contained in a vessel is not a part of the vessel, and those things which are in a house are not said to be parts of the house: so neither is the soul a part of the body, because the body is either the vessel of the soul or its receptacle.

Now that argument is far more empty, by which he says that the soul appears mortal because it is not emitted from the body more swiftly, but gradually withdraws itself from all the members, beginning from the tops of the feet: as though, if it were eternal, it would burst forth in one moment of time; which happens in those who perish by the sword. But those whom disease destroys breathe out their spirit for a longer time, so that as the members grow cold little by little the soul is exhaled. Since it is contained in the substance of the blood, as a flame by oil, when that substance is consumed by the heat of fevers, it is necessary that all the extremities of the members grow cold; because the finer veins extend to the outermost parts of the body, and the outermost and thinnest streams dry up when the vein of the source fails. Yet it must not be thought that, because the sensation of the body fails, the sensation of the soul is extinguished and perishes.

For it is not when the body fails that the soul grows dull, but when the soul departs that the body grows dull, because it takes all sensation away with it. But since the soul when present bestows its sensation upon the body and causes it to live; it cannot be that it does not itself both live and feel on its own, since it is itself both sensation and life. For as to what he says: Indeed I have never seen anyone who complained of being dissolved in death. But perhaps he had seen some Epicurean philosophizing even while dying, and discoursing in his last breath about his own dissolution.

How can it be known whether one feels oneself being dissolved or being freed from the body, when in the moment of departure the tongue falls silent? For while one still feels and can speak, one is not yet dissolved: when one is dissolved, one can neither feel nor speak; and so one either cannot yet complain of dissolution, or can no longer do so. But before being dissolved, one understands that one is about to be dissolved. What of the fact that we see very many of the dying not complaining, as he says, of being dissolved, but testifying that they are going out and departing and walking; and this they indicate either by gesture, or if they are still able, they declare it also by voice? From which it is apparent that there is not a dissolution but a separation, which shows that the soul endures.

The remaining arguments of the Epicurean doctrine are directed against Pythagoras, who argues that souls migrate from bodies worn out by age and death, and enter into new and newly born ones, and that the same souls are always reborn, now in a human being, now in a beast of burden, now in a wild animal, now in a bird, and that for this reason they are immortal, because they frequently change the dwellings of various and dissimilar bodies. Which opinion, being that of a deranged man, since it was ridiculous and more worthy of a mime than of a school, ought not even to have been refuted seriously: for one who does so seems to fear that someone might believe it. We must therefore pass over those things which were argued on behalf of falsehood against falsehood: it is enough to have refuted those things which were argued against the truth.

I have shown, as I think, that the soul is not dissoluble. It remains to cite witnesses, by whose authority the arguments may be strengthened. Nor will I now call the Prophets as testimony, whose reasoning and divination is placed in this alone, that they teach man to have been created for the worship of God and for the reception of immortality from him: but rather those whom those who reject the truth are compelled to believe. Hermes, describing the nature of man, in order to teach how he was made by God, introduced these words: from both natures, the immortal and the mortal, he made one human nature, making the same being immortal in part and mortal in part; and placing him between divine and immortal nature and mortal and changeable nature, he established him so that, seeing all things, he might marvel at all things.

But perhaps someone may reckon him among the number of philosophers, although he has been enrolled among the gods and is honored by the Egyptians under the name of Mercury, and may grant him no more authority than Plato or Pythagoras. Let us therefore seek a greater testimony. A certain Polites consulted the Milesian Apollo as to whether the soul remains after death or is dissolved; and he answered in these verses: "As long as the soul is held by bonds to the body, perceiving corruptible passions, it yields to mortal pains. But when, after the body has withered, it finds the swift release of mortals, it is wholly borne into the ether, forever ageless, and remains altogether without limit; for the providence of the firstborn God ordained this." What of the Sibylline oracles? Have they not declared this to be so, when they announce that there will come a time when judgment will be rendered by God upon the living and the dead? Examples of which we shall introduce a little later.

False therefore is the opinion of Democritus, and Epicurus, and Dicaearchus concerning the dissolution of the soul: who surely would not dare to argue about the destruction of souls in the presence of some magician who knew how to summon souls from the underworld by certain incantations, and to make them present, and to offer them to be seen by human eyes, and to speak, and to foretell the future; and if they dared, they would be overcome by the very fact and by present proofs. But because they did not perceive the nature of the soul, which is so subtle that it escapes the eyes of the human mind, they said it perishes. What of Aristoxenus, who denied altogether that there is any soul, even while it lives in the body?

But that just as in strings a harmonious sound and melody is produced from the tension of the strings, which musicians call harmony: so in bodies the power of sensation arises from the composition of the organs and the vigor of the members; than which nothing more deranged can be said. But he had his eyes indeed unimpaired, yet a blind heart, by which he did not see that he was alive and had a mind by which he was thinking that very thing. But this happens to most philosophers, that they think there is nothing at all of whatever does not appear to the eyes, whereas the keenness of the mind ought to be far clearer than that of the body, for perceiving those things whose force and nature is felt rather than seen.

Since we have spoken of the immortality of the soul, it follows that we should teach to what extent and when it is granted to man, so that in this matter too those may perceive the errors of their depravity and folly, who think that certain mortals have been made gods by the decrees and resolutions of mortals, either because they had discovered arts, or because they had taught the use of certain crops, or because they had brought forth things useful to the lives of men, or because they had slain savage beasts. How far removed such merits are from immortality, we have both taught in the earlier books and will now teach; so that it may be apparent that justice alone is what brings forth eternal life for man, and God alone is he who bestows the reward of eternal life.

For those who are said to have been made immortal by their own merits, because there was neither justice nor any true virtue in them, did not win immortality for themselves but death through their sins and lusts; nor did they merit a heavenly reward, but the punishments of the underworld, which hang over them together with all those who worshipped them. The time of this judgment I shall show to be drawing near, so that both a worthy recompense may be paid to the just, and deserved punishment may be inflicted upon the impious.

Plato and many other philosophers, since they were ignorant of the origin of things and of that supreme moment when the world was made, said that many thousands of ages had flowed by since this most beautiful ornament of the world came into existence: following perhaps the Chaldeans, who madly boast that they possess in their records four hundred and seventy thousand years, and because they did not think they could be refuted in this, they believed themselves free to lie. We, however, whom the divine scriptures instruct in the knowledge of truth, have come to know the beginning and the end of the world, of which we shall now discourse at the close of this work; for we explained the beginning in the second book.

Let the philosophers therefore know, who count thousands of ages from the beginning of the world, that not yet has the six thousandth year been completed: when that number is fulfilled, it is necessary that a consummation take place, and that the condition of human affairs be reformed for the better; the argument for this must first be set forth, so that the reasoning may be made clear. God completed the world, and this wondrous work of nature (as is contained in the secrets of holy Scripture), in the space of six days; and he hallowed the seventh day, on which he had rested from his works. Now this is the day of the Sabbath, which in the Hebrew tongue receives its name from a number, whence the number seven is lawful and complete. For there are also seven days, by whose revolving succession the cycles of years are completed; and seven stars that never set; and seven bodies called wandering stars, whose unequal courses and irregular motions are believed to produce the varieties of things and seasons.

Therefore, since all the works of God were perfected in six days, it is necessary that the world endure in this state through six ages, that is, six thousand years. For the great day of God is bounded by a circuit of a thousand years, as the prophet indicates who says: Before thine eyes, O Lord, a thousand years are as one day. And just as God laboured through those six days in fashioning such great things, so too must religion and truth labour through these six thousand years, while wickedness prevails and holds dominion. And again, since after his works were completed he rested on the seventh day and blessed it, it is necessary that at the end of the six thousandth year all wickedness be abolished from the earth, and that justice reign for a thousand years; and that there be tranquillity and rest from the labours which the world has long endured. But in what manner this shall come to pass, I shall explain in due order.

We have often said that lesser and smaller things are figures and foreshadowings of greater ones; so that this our day of ours, which is bounded by the rising and setting of the sun, bears the likeness of the great day, which a circuit of a thousand years determines. In the same way also the fashioning of the earthly man bore in advance the future formation of the heavenly people. For just as, when all things which God had contrived for the use of man were completed, he made man himself last on the sixth day, and brought him into this world as into a house already carefully furnished: so now on the great sixth day the true man is fashioned by the word of God; that is, the holy people is shaped unto righteousness by the teaching and precepts of God.

And just as then a mortal and imperfect man was formed from the earth, to live a thousand years in this world: so now the perfect man is fashioned out of this earthly age; that he, quickened by God, may hold dominion in this same world for a thousand years. How the consummation is to come about, and what manner of end hangs over human affairs, whoever shall have searched the divine scriptures will find. But also the voices of secular prophets, agreeing with the heavenly ones, announce the end and ruin of things after a short time, describing as it were the last old age of a weary and declining world. What things are said by the prophets and seers to be yet to come, before that final conclusion overtakes us, I shall append, gathered and heaped together from all sources.

It is recorded in the secrets of the holy scriptures that the prince of the Hebrews crossed into Egypt with all his household and kindred, compelled by a scarcity of grain. When his descendants, dwelling for a long time in Egypt, had grown into a great nation and were oppressed by a heavy and intolerable yoke of servitude, God smote Egypt with an incurable plague and delivered his people, leading them through the midst of the sea with the waves parted and driven apart on either side, so that the people might walk on dry ground. And when the king of the Egyptians attempted to pursue the fugitives, the sea closing back to its former state, he was overwhelmed together with all his forces. This deed, so glorious and so wonderful, although it displayed the power of God to men at that present time, was nevertheless a foreshadowing and figure of a greater thing which the same God is to do at the final consummation of the ages; for he delivered his people from the heavy servitude of the world.

But because then the one people of God existed among one nation, Egypt alone was smitten. Now, however, since the people of God, gathered from all tongues, dwells among all nations and is oppressed by those who hold dominion over them, it is necessary that all nations, that is, the whole world, be scourged with heavenly plagues, so that the righteous people, the worshippers of God, may be delivered. And just as then signs were wrought by which the coming destruction was shown to the Egyptians, so at the last there shall be wrought wondrous portents through all the elements of the world, by which the impending end may be understood by all nations.

As the end of this age draws near, therefore, it is necessary that the condition of human affairs be changed and sink into worse, as wickedness grows strong; so that our present times, in which iniquity and wickedness have grown to the highest degree, may yet, in comparison with that incurable evil, be judged happy and almost golden. For so will justice grow scarce, so will impiety and avarice and greed and lust multiply, that if any good men happen to exist at that time, they will be prey to the wicked and harassed on all sides by the unjust; while only the evil will be wealthy, and the good will be cast about in every kind of insult and in poverty. All law will be confounded, and the laws will perish. No one will then possess anything except what has either been ill-gotten or defended by force; boldness and violence will possess all things.

There will be no faith among men, no peace, no humanity, no shame, no truth; and thus neither security, nor government, nor any rest from evils. For all the earth will be in tumult; wars will rage everywhere; all nations will be in arms and will attack one another. Neighbouring cities will fight among themselves; and first of all Egypt will pay the penalty for its foolish superstitions, and will be covered as with a river of blood. Then the sword will range through the world, reaping all things and laying everything low as if it were a harvest. The cause of this devastation and confusion will be this: that the Roman name, by which the world is now governed—my mind shudders to say it, but I will say it, because it is to come—will be removed from the earth, and the empire will revert to Asia, and once again the East will hold dominion, and the West will be in servitude.

Nor ought it to seem wonderful to anyone if a kingdom founded with such great mass and increased for so long by so many and such great men, and confirmed at last by such great resources, shall nevertheless one day fall. For nothing wrought by human strength can fail to be destroyed equally by human strength, since the works of mortals are mortal. So too other kingdoms before it, though they had flourished for a long time, nevertheless perished. For it is recorded that the Egyptians, and the Persians, and the Greeks, and the Assyrians held dominion over the earth; and when all of these were destroyed, the supreme power of affairs came also to the Romans. And the more they surpass all other kingdoms in greatness, the more greatly will they fall, because those things which are higher than others have more weight for their ruin. Not inaptly did Seneca distribute the ages of the city of Rome.

He said that its first age was infancy under king Romulus, by whom Rome was both begotten and, as it were, nursed; then its boyhood under the remaining kings, by whom it was both enlarged and shaped and formed by many disciplines: but that under the reign of Tarquin, when it had begun to be as it were grown up, it did not endure servitude, and casting off the yoke of arrogant domination, preferred to obey laws rather than kings; and when its adolescence was ended at the close of the Punic War, then at last, with its strength confirmed, it began to grow into youth. For with Carthage destroyed, which had so long been the rival of its empire, it stretched its hands over the whole world by land and sea; until, with all kings and nations brought under its dominion, when the material for wars was now failing, it made ill use of its own strength, by which it consumed itself.

This was its first old age, when, torn by civil wars and oppressed by internal evil, it fell back again into the rule of a single power, as if revolving to a second infancy. For having lost the liberty which it had defended under the leadership and authority of Brutus, it grew old in such a way that it could not sustain itself unless it leaned upon the support of those who governed it. But if these things are so, what remains but that death should follow old age? And that this will happen shortly, the discourses of the prophets announce under the veil of other names, lest anyone should easily understand. The Sibyls, however, openly declare that Rome is to perish, and indeed by the judgment of God, because it held his name in hatred, and as an enemy of righteousness slaughtered the people that was the nursling of truth.

Hystaspes also, who was the most ancient king of the Medes, from whom the river now called the Hydaspes also received its name, handed down to the memory of posterity a remarkable dream interpreted by the prophecy of a boy, and foretold long before that Trojan race was founded that the empire and name of Rome would be removed from the world.

But how this is to come about, lest anyone think it incredible, I shall show. First of all, the kingdom will be multiplied, and the supreme power of affairs, scattered and divided among very many, will be diminished. Then civil discords will be sown in perpetuity, and there will be no rest from ruinous wars, until ten kings arise at the same time who will divide the world, not to govern it, but to consume it. These, with armies swollen to immense size and with the cultivation of the fields abandoned—which is the beginning of overthrow and disaster—will lay waste all things and break them down and devour them. Then suddenly against them a most powerful enemy will arise from the farthest borders of the northern region, who, having destroyed three of that number who will then hold Asia, will be taken into partnership by the rest and set up as prince over all.

He will vex the world with unbearable tyranny; he will mingle things divine and human; he will devise things unspeakable and execrable; he will turn over new counsels in his heart, so as to establish his own empire for himself, to change the laws and enact his own; he will defile, plunder, despoil, and slay. Finally, with the name changed and the seat of empire transferred, confusion and disorder of the human race will follow. Then indeed a detestable and abominable time will arise, in which life will be pleasant to no man.

Cities will be utterly overthrown and will perish, not only by sword and fire, but also by continual earthquakes, and by floods of waters, and by frequent diseases, and by repeated famine. For the air will be tainted, and becoming corrupt and pestilential, will be now with untimely rains, now with useless drought, now with cold, now with excessive heat; nor will the earth yield fruit to man: no crop, no tree, no vine will bear anything. But when in their flowering they have given the greatest hope, they will disappoint in their fruit. Springs too will dry up along with rivers, so that not even drink will be at hand; and the waters will be changed into blood or bitterness. On account of these things, the four-footed beasts on land, and the birds in the air, and the fish in the sea will fail.

Portents also, wondrous in the sky, will confound the minds of men with the greatest terror: the tresses of comets, and the darkening of the sun, and the colour of the moon, and the fall of falling stars. Nor will these things happen in the usual manner: but stars unknown and unseen by eyes will suddenly appear; the sun will be darkened continually, so that it will scarcely be possible to distinguish between night and day. The moon will no longer fail for three hours, but perpetually suffused with blood will pursue extraordinary courses, so that it will not be easy for man to recognise either the courses of the stars or the reckoning of the seasons: for either summer will come in winter, or winter in summer. Then the year will be shortened, and the month will be diminished, and the day will be compressed into a narrow space. Stars indeed will fall most frequently, so that the whole sky will appear dark without any lights.

The highest mountains too will fall and be levelled to the plains: the sea will be rendered unnavigable.

And lest anything be wanting to the evils of men and of the earth, a trumpet shall be heard from heaven; which the Sibyl announces in this manner, saying: Therefore all shall tremble, and shall shudder at that mournful sound. Then indeed, through the wrath of God against men who have not acknowledged justice, the sword shall rage, fire, famine, disease, and above all a fear ever hanging over them. Then they shall pray to God, and He shall not hear them; death shall be desired, and shall not come: not even night shall give rest to their fear; nor shall sleep draw near to their eyes; but anxiety and wakefulness shall wear away the souls of men: they shall weep, and groan, and gnash their teeth; they shall congratulate the dead, and lament the living.

By these and many other evils, desolation shall come upon the earth, and the world shall be disfigured and deserted; which is thus expressed in the Sibylline verses: For the human race shall be so consumed that scarcely a tenth part of men shall remain; and where a thousand had gone forth, scarcely a hundred shall come out. Of the worshippers of God also, two parts shall perish, and the third part, which shall have been proved, shall remain.

But I shall set forth more plainly how this shall come to pass. When the end of the ages is now drawing near, a great prophet shall be sent by God, who shall turn men to the knowledge of God, and shall receive power to work miracles. Wherever men shall not hear him, he shall shut up the heaven; and shall withhold the rains, and shall turn the water into blood, and shall torment them with thirst and famine; and whosoever shall attempt to harm him, fire shall proceed from his mouth and shall consume him. By these prodigies and mighty works he shall convert many to the worship of God; and when his works are accomplished, another king shall arise out of Syria, born of an evil spirit, the overthrower and destroyer of the human race, who shall destroy the remnants of that former evil together with himself. He shall fight against the prophet of God; shall overcome and slay him, and shall suffer him to lie unburied.

But after the third day he shall come to life again; and while all behold and marvel, he shall be caught up into heaven. But that most foul king shall himself also be a prophet of lies; and shall set himself up and call himself God, and shall command that he be worshipped as the Son of God; and power shall be given him to perform signs and wonders, by the sight of which he may ensnare men to worship him. He shall command fire to come down from heaven, and the sun to stand still in its course, and an image to speak; and these things shall be done at his word: by which miracles even very many of the wise shall be drawn away by him. Then he shall attempt to destroy the temple of God, and shall persecute the righteous people; and there shall be tribulation and crushing such as has never been from the beginning of the world.

All who shall have believed and attached themselves to him shall be marked by him as cattle: but those who shall refuse his mark shall either flee to the mountains, or shall be seized and put to death with exquisite torments. He shall likewise wrap the righteous in the books of the prophets, and shall burn them; and it shall be given to him to lay waste the earth for forty-two months. That shall be the time when justice shall be cast aside, and innocence shall be held in hatred; when the wicked shall prey upon the good as enemies: no law, nor order, nor military discipline shall be maintained; no one shall reverence grey hairs, nor acknowledge the duty of piety; none shall take pity on sex or infancy: all things shall be confounded and mingled together against right, against the laws of nature. Thus, as if by one common act of brigandage, the whole earth shall be laid waste.

When things shall be thus, then the righteous and the followers of truth shall separate themselves from the wicked, and shall flee into the wilderness. When the impious king hears of this, inflamed with anger he shall come with a great army, and bringing up all his forces shall surround the mountain on which the righteous shall be dwelling, in order to seize them. But they, when they see themselves shut in on every side and besieged, shall cry out to God with a loud voice and shall implore heavenly aid; and God shall hear them, and shall send a great king from heaven, who shall rescue and deliver them, and shall scatter all the impious with sword and fire.

That these things are so to come to pass, both all the prophets by the spirit of God, and also the seers by the instigation of demons, have foretold. For Hystaspes, whom I named above, having described the iniquity of this last age, says that the pious and faithful, separated from the wicked, shall stretch forth their hands to heaven with weeping and groaning, and shall implore the protection of Jupiter; and that Jupiter shall look upon the earth and hear the voices of men, and shall destroy the impious. All of which is true, save one thing only, that he said Jupiter would do those things which God will do. But also that other thing was suppressed not without the fraud of demons, that the Son of God would then be sent by the Father, who, having destroyed all evils, should set the pious free. Yet Hermes did not conceal this.

For in that book which is entitled the Perfect Word, after the enumeration of the evils of which we have spoken, he added these words: When these things have thus come to pass, O Asclepius, then the Lord and Father and God, the maker of the first and one God, looking upon what has happened and by his own will opposing good to such disorder, calling back error and cleansing away evil, sometimes dissolving it with much water, sometimes burning it with fiercest fire, and sometimes crushing it with wars and plagues, brought his world back to its ancient state and restored it. The Sibyls also show that it shall come to pass in no other way than that the Son of God shall be sent by the supreme Father, who shall both deliver the righteous from the hands of the impious, and shall destroy the unjust together with the raging tyrants; of whom one thus declared: Likewise another Sibyl: And again another:

When therefore the world shall be oppressed, and human strength shall have failed to destroy the tyranny of immeasurable power, since the world having been captured shall lie under the great armies of brigands, that so great a calamity shall stand in need of divine aid. God therefore, moved both by the perilous crisis and by the pitiful lamentation of the righteous, shall straightway send a deliverer. Then the middle of the heaven shall open in the dead and dark of night, so that the light of the descending God may appear throughout the whole world like lightning; which the Sibyl has spoken in these verses: When he comes, there shall be fire and darkness in the black midnight. This is the night which is kept by us with a vigil on account of the coming of our king and God: of which night there is a twofold significance, because in it He both then received life when He suffered, and afterwards is to receive the kingdom of the whole earth.

There is He the deliverer, and judge, and avenger, and king, and God, whom we call Christ, who before He descends shall give this sign. A sword shall suddenly fall from heaven, so that the righteous may know that the leader of the holy warfare is about to descend; and He shall descend with angels accompanying Him into the midst of the earth; and before Him shall go an inextinguishable flame; and the power of the angels shall deliver into the hands of the righteous that multitude which had surrounded the mountain, and they shall be cut down from the third hour until evening, and blood shall flow like a torrent; and when all his forces have been destroyed, the impious one alone shall escape, and his power shall perish from him.

He it is who is called Antichrist: but he shall falsely claim to be Christ, and shall fight against the true one, and being overcome shall flee, and shall renew the war often, and often be overcome; until in the fourth battle, all the impious having been destroyed, he shall be defeated and captured, and shall at last pay the penalty of his crimes. But also the other princes and tyrants who have crushed the world shall be brought bound together with him before the king, and he shall rebuke them and convict them; and shall reproach them with their deeds, and shall condemn them, and deliver them to deserved torments. Thus when wickedness is extinguished and impiety suppressed, the world shall rest, which through so many ages, subjected to error and crime, endured an unspeakable servitude.

The gods made by hand shall no longer be worshipped: but the images, cast down from their temples and shrines, shall be given to the fire, and shall burn together with their wondrous gifts, which also the Sibyl, agreeing with the Prophets, foretold should come to pass: Mortals shall grind to pieces idols and all their wealth. The Erythraean also promised the same: The handmade works of the gods shall be burned up.

After these things the underworld shall be opened, and the dead shall rise again: concerning whom the same king and God shall hold a great judgment, to whom the supreme Father shall give the greatest power both of judging and of reigning; concerning which judgment and kingdom the following is found in the Erythraean Sibyl: When it reaches its appointed end for mortals, then the judgment of the immortal God shall come, and a great judgment and dominion shall come upon humankind. Then in another: Then the gaping earth shall reveal Tartarean chaos, and all shall come before the judgment-seat of God the King.

And in another place in the same: Yet not all shall then be judged by God: but only those who have been conversant in the religion of God. For those who have not known God, since a sentence of acquittal cannot be pronounced concerning them, are already judged and condemned, the sacred writings testifying that the impious shall not rise again unto judgment. Those therefore shall be judged who have known God, and their deeds, that is, their evil works weighed against their good, shall be balanced; so that if the good and just deeds shall be more and weightier, they may be given to a blessed life: but if the evil shall have prevailed, they shall be condemned to punishment. Here perhaps someone may say: If the soul is immortal, how is it represented as capable of suffering and feeling punishment? For if it shall be punished on account of its deserts, it shall certainly feel pain, and thus also death.

If it is not subject to death, neither is it subject to pain; therefore it is not capable of suffering.

To this question, or argument, the Stoics respond in this manner: that the souls of men indeed endure, and are not dissolved into nothing by the intervention of death: but that those who have been just, being pure and impassible and blessed, return to the heavenly seat whence they had their origin; or are caught away to certain fortunate fields, where they enjoy wondrous pleasures: but that the souls of the impious, since they have defiled themselves with evil desires, bear a certain nature midway between the immortal and the mortal, and retain something of weakness from the contagion of the flesh. Addicted to its desires and lusts, they draw with them a certain indelible stain and earthly pollution; which when it has deeply adhered through length of time, the souls are rendered of such a nature that, if not wholly extinguishable, since they are from God, yet they may become capable of torment through the defilement of the body, which, branded by sins, imparts the sense of pain.

Which opinion the poet has thus set forth: These things are for the most part true. For the soul, when it has made its separation from the body, is, as the same poet says, Par levibus ventis, volucrique simillima somno. Because it is itself a spirit incomprehensible by reason of its very tenuousness: but incomprehensible to us, who are corporeal; yet comprehensible to God, to whom all things are subject by His power.

First therefore we say that the power of God is so great that He comprehends even incorporeal things, and affects them in whatever manner He wills. For even Angels fear God, because they can be chastised by Him in some ineffable manner; and demons tremble, because they are tormented and punished by Him. What wonder then, if, though souls are immortal, they are nevertheless capable of suffering at the hand of God? For since they have nothing solid and tangible in themselves, they can suffer no force from solid and corporeal things: but because they live in spirits alone, they are tractable by God alone, whose power and substance is spiritual. Yet the sacred Scriptures teach us in what manner the impious are to render their punishments.

For because they contracted their sins in bodies, they shall be clothed again in flesh, so that they may pay the penalty in bodies; and yet that flesh which God shall have put upon them shall not be like this earthly one: but insoluble and enduring forever, so that it may suffice for torments and for everlasting fire, whose nature is different from this fire of ours, which we use for the necessities of life, and which, unless fed by the fuel of some material, is extinguished. But that divine fire lives and is vigorous of itself always without any nourishment, nor has it smoke mingled with it: but it is pure, and clear, and fluid after the manner of water. For it is not driven upward by any force, as ours is, which the impurity of the earthly body by which it is held, and the smoke intermingled, compels to leap up and to soar with trembling motion toward its celestial nature.

That same divine fire therefore, by one and the same force and power, shall both burn the impious and restore them, and whatever it shall consume from their bodies it shall replace, and shall minister to itself an eternal fuel; which the poets have transferred to the vulture of Tityus; thus without any diminution of the bodies that grow again it shall only scorch and afflict with the sense of pain. But also when He shall have judged the righteous, He shall try them also in fire. Then those whose sins shall have prevailed either in weight or in number shall be touched by the fire and burned: but those whom full justice and the ripeness of virtue shall have refined shall not feel that fire; for they have something of God in themselves, which repels and rejects the force of the flame. So great is the power of innocence, that the fire flees from it unharmed; which has received from God this power, to burn the impious and to yield to the just.

Yet let no one think that souls are judged immediately after death. For all are held in one common custody, until the time shall come when the greatest judge shall make examination of their deserts. Then those whose justice shall have been proved shall receive the reward of immortality: but those whose sins and crimes shall have been detected shall not rise again, but shall be hidden with the impious in the same darkness, appointed to certain punishments.

Some think these are fictions of the poets, not knowing whence the poets received them, and they deny that these things can happen; nor is it surprising that they seem so to them. For the matter is handed down by the poets otherwise than it truly is: who, although they are much more ancient than historians, and orators, and the other kinds of writers, yet because they did not know the mystery of the divine sacrament, and the mention of the future resurrection had reached them by obscure rumor, they published it, having heard it rashly and carelessly, after the manner of a fabricated fable. And yet those same poets testified that they were not following a certain authority, but an opinion; as Maro who says: Although therefore they have corrupted the secrets of truth in part, yet the thing itself is found to be the more true in that they agree in part with the prophets: which is sufficient for us as proof of the matter. Nevertheless there is some reason underlying their error.

For since the prophets in their continual discourses proclaimed that the Son of God would judge the dead, and this announcement was not hidden, since they thought the ruler of heaven to be none other than Jupiter, they handed down that a son of Jupiter judges among the dead: yet not Apollo, or Liber, or Mercury, who are considered celestial, but one who was both mortal and just, either Minos, or Aeacus, or Rhadamanthus.

The poets therefore corrupted with poetic license what they had received; or opinion, scattered through diverse mouths and various conversations, changed the truth. For as to what they sang, that after a thousand years spent in the underworld, souls are restored again to life, Maro saying thus: "All these, when they have rolled the wheel through a thousand years, God summons in a great crowd to the river Lethe, so that, forgetful, they may revisit the upper vault and begin again to wish to return into bodies." They were deceived by this reasoning, that the dead will rise not after a thousand years from their death, but so that, restored again to life, they may reign with God for a thousand years. For God will come, so that, when this world has been purged of all defilement, he may raise up the revived souls of the just, with bodies renewed, to everlasting blessedness.

And so, apart from the river of forgetfulness, the rest is true: which they invented for this reason, lest anyone should object: Why then do they not remember that they once lived, or who they were, or what they did? But nonetheless it is not considered plausible; and the whole matter is rejected as licentiously and fabulously invented. But when we affirm and teach the resurrection, and that souls will return to another life not forgetful of themselves but in the same consciousness and form, this objection is raised: So many ages have now passed—who has ever risen from the dead even once, that we might believe it possible by his example? But indeed resurrection cannot happen while injustice still holds sway. For in this age men are slain by force, by the sword, by treachery, by poisons; they are afflicted with wrongs, poverty, prisons, torments, proscriptions.

To this is added that justice is hated; that all who wish to follow God are not only held in hatred, but are harassed with every kind of insult, and tormented with manifold kinds of punishments, and are compelled to impious worship of man-made gods not by reason or truth, but by the abominable laceration of their bodies.

Is it fitting then that men should rise again to these same conditions, and return to a life in which they cannot be safe? Since therefore the just are held so cheap, so easily removed, what do we think would have happened if someone returning from the dead had recovered life by right of return? He would surely be taken away from the sight of men, lest, upon seeing or hearing him, all should abandon the gods and turn to the worship and religion of the one God. Therefore resurrection must happen once, when evil has been removed; since those who have risen must neither die any further nor be violated in any way, so that they may lead a blessed life, whose death has been unsealed.

The poets indeed, knowing that this age abounds in all evils, introduced the river of forgetfulness, lest souls, mindful of their labors and miseries, should refuse to return to the upper world; whence Virgil: "O father, must it be thought that some souls go from here to heaven, lofty ones, and return again to sluggish bodies? What dreadful desire for light belongs to the wretched?" For they did not know how or when this ought to happen. And so they supposed that souls are reborn, and return again to the womb, and regress to infancy. Hence also Plato, discoursing on the soul, says from this that souls can be known to be immortal and divine, because in children the minds are quick and ready to receive; because they seize so swiftly what they learn, that they seem not to be learning those things for the first time, but to be recognizing and recollecting them: in which matter that wise man most foolishly believed the poets.

They will not therefore be reborn, which cannot happen: but they will rise again, and will be clothed with bodies by God; and they will be mindful of their former life and all their deeds; and placed in heavenly goods, and enjoying the delight of innumerable abundance, they will give thanks to God present with them, because he has destroyed all evil, because he has raised them up to a kingdom and everlasting life. Concerning this anastasis the philosophers too have attempted to say something, as corruptly as the poets. For Pythagoras argued that souls pass into new bodies: but foolishly, in that they pass from men into beasts, and from beasts into men, and that he himself had been restored from Euphorbus.

Better is Chrysippus, whom Cicero says is the prop of the Stoic porch, who in the books he wrote on Providence, when speaking of the renewal of the world, introduced these words: Since this is so, it is clear that nothing prevents us, after we have died and certain periods of time have elapsed, from being restored again to the form in which we now are. But let us return from human matters to divine. The Sibyl says these things: But if not only prophets, but also seers, and poets, and philosophers agree that the anastasis of the dead is to come, let no one ask of us how it can happen. For no account can be given of divine works. But if from the beginning God fashioned man in some indescribable manner, let us believe that the same one can restore the old, who made the new.

Now I will append the remaining matters. The Son of the highest and greatest God will therefore come to judge the living and the dead, as the Sibyl testifies and declares: But when he has destroyed injustice, and executed the great judgment, and restored to life the just who have existed from the beginning, he will dwell among men for a thousand years, and will rule them with most just dominion. Which the Sibyl elsewhere, prophesying and raving, proclaims: Then those who are alive in their bodies will not die, but through those same thousand years will beget an infinite multitude, and their offspring will be holy and dear to God. But those who are raised from the dead will preside over the living as judges. The nations however will not be utterly destroyed: but certain ones will be left for the victory of God, that they may be triumphed over by the just, and subjected to perpetual servitude.

At the same time the prince of demons also, who is the contriver of all evils, will be bound in chains; and he will be in custody for a thousand years of the heavenly reign, during which justice will rule in the world, so that he may not devise any evil against the people of God. After whose coming the just will be gathered from all the earth; and when the judgment has been completed, a holy city will be established in the midst of the earth, in which God himself the founder will dwell together with the just who reign. Which city the Sibyl designates when she says: Then those shadows by which the sky is overspread and blinded will be taken away from the world; and the moon will receive the brightness of the sun, nor will it wane any further.

But the sun will become seven times brighter than it now is. The earth moreover will open its fruitfulness, and will bring forth most abundant crops of its own accord: the rocks of the mountains will sweat with honey, wine will flow through streams, and rivers will overflow with milk. The world itself at last will rejoice; and all the nature of things will be glad, snatched and freed from the dominion of evil, and of impiety, and of wickedness, and of error. During this time beasts will not be fed on blood, nor birds on prey: but all things will be quiet and peaceful. Lions and calves will stand together at the manger; the wolf will not seize the sheep, the dog will not hunt, hawks and eagles will do no harm: the infant will play with serpents. Then at last those things will come to pass which the poets said had already come to pass in the golden ages under the reign of Saturn.

Their error arose from this, that the prophets set forth and announce many things concerning the future as though already accomplished. For visions were presented to their eyes by the divine spirit, and they saw those things in their sight as though being done and completed. When the fame of these prophecies had gradually spread abroad, since the profane, ignorant of the sacrament, did not know in what sense they were spoken, they supposed that all those things had already been fulfilled in ancient ages, which could by no means have been done and fulfilled under the reign of a man. But when impious religions have been destroyed, and wickedness suppressed, and the earth has been subjected to God, what the poet spoke following the songs of the Cumaean Sibyl. But the Erythraean Sibyl speaks thus: Wolves shall contend with lambs in the mountains; wolves shall graze together with kids; bears with calves and with all mortals; the flesh-eating lion shall eat chaff at the manger, and serpents shall sleep with harmless infants.

And in another place concerning the abundance of things: Then God will give great joy to men; for the earth and trees and the boundless flocks of the earth will give to humankind their true fruit: wine, sweet honey, white milk, and grain, which is best of all for mortals.

And another in the same manner: For the pious alone the holy earth will bear all these things: a stream of honey from rock and from spring, and milk of ambrosia shall flow for all the righteous.

Men will therefore live a most tranquil and most abundant life, and will reign together with God; and the kings of the nations will come from the ends of the earth with gifts and offerings, to adore and honor the great King, whose name will be illustrious and venerable to all nations that are under heaven, and to the kings who will hold dominion on earth.

These are the things which are said by the prophets to be future: whose testimonies and words I judged it unnecessary to set down; because it would be endless, and the measure of a book could not contain so great a multitude of matters, with so many speaking similar things in one spirit, and likewise lest weariness should come upon readers if I were to heap up things collected and translated from all of them; moreover so that the very things I was saying might be confirmed not by our own writings but chiefly by those of others, and I might show that truth is held attested not only among us, but also among those very ones who assail us, which they refuse to acknowledge. But if anyone wishes to know these things more diligently, let him drink from the very source, and he will find more wonderful things than we have encompassed in these books. Perhaps someone may now ask when the things we have spoken of are to come to pass.

I showed above that when six thousand years are completed this change must take place, and that the supreme day of the final conclusion is now drawing near. Concerning the signs which have been foretold by the prophets, it is permitted to know them; for they foretold signs by which the consummation of the ages is both to be expected by us day by day and to be feared. When however this sum is completed, those who have written on chronology teach, gathering it from the holy scriptures and from various histories, what is the number of years from the beginning of the world: who, although they vary, and the sum of their numbers disagrees somewhat, yet the whole expectation seems to be of not more than two hundred years. The very state of affairs also declares that the decline and ruin of things will shortly come: except that so long as the city of Rome remains unharmed, nothing of this kind seems to be feared.

But when that head of the world shall have fallen, and Rome shall have begun to be a street, which the Sibyls say will come to pass, who can doubt that the end has now come for human affairs and for the whole world? That, that is the city which still sustains all things: and we must pray and beseech the God of heaven, if indeed his decrees and purposes can be deferred, lest that abominable tyrant come sooner than we think, who will undertake so great a crime, and dig out that light, at whose extinction the world itself is to collapse. Now let us return to setting forth the remaining things which are to follow in order.

We said a little before that at the beginning of the kingdom of the saints, the prince of demons would be bound by God. But the same one, when the thousand years of the kingdom—that is, the seven thousand—shall have begun to draw to a close, will be loosed again, and sent forth from his prison he will go out; and he will stir up all the nations that shall then be under the dominion of the just, to make war upon the holy city; and an innumerable multitude of nations will be gathered from the whole circle of the earth, and will besiege and surround the city.

Then the last wrath of God will come upon the nations, and he will destroy them to the last man: and first he will shake the earth most violently, and by its movement the mountains of Syria will be split apart; and the hills will sink down into the abyss; and the walls of all cities will fall; and God will cause the sun not to set for three days; and he will set it ablaze; and an excessive heat and a great burning will descend upon the enemies and the impious peoples, and showers of sulphur, and hailstones, and drops of fire; and their spirits will melt in the heat, and their bodies will be crushed by the hail, and they themselves will strike one another with the sword; and the mountains will be filled with corpses, and the fields will be covered with bones. But the people of God will be hidden for those three days in the hollows of the earth; until the wrath of God against the nations, and the final judgment, shall be ended.

Then the just will come forth from their hiding places, and will find everything covered with corpses and bones. Moreover, every race of the impious will perish root and branch; nor will there be any nation any longer in this world, save only the people of God. Then for seven full years the forests will be untouched; nor will any wood be cut from the mountains. But the weapons of the nations will be burned; and there will be no more war, but peace and everlasting rest. But when the thousand years shall have been completed, the world will be renewed by God, and the heaven will be folded up, and the earth will be changed; and God will transform men into the likeness of angels; and they will be white as snow; and they will dwell forever in the sight of the Almighty, and will offer sacrifice to their Lord, and will serve him for eternity.

At the same time that second and public resurrection of all will take place, in which the unjust will be raised up to everlasting torments. These are they who worshipped things made by hand; who either did not know the Lord of the world and Father, or denied him. But their lord also, together with his ministers, will be seized and condemned to punishment; with whom likewise the whole multitude of the impious, for their crimes, in the sight of the angels and the just, will be burned in perpetual fire for eternity.

This is the teaching of the holy prophets, which we Christians follow: this is our wisdom; which those who either worship fragile things, or uphold empty philosophy, deride as foolishness and vanity, because we are not accustomed to defend and assert it publicly, God commanding us to keep his secret quietly and silently in a hidden place and within our own conscience; and not to contend with stubborn disputation against those truly profane persons, who attack God and his religion harshly, not for the sake of learning, but of refuting and mocking. For it is necessary that the mystery be concealed and covered as faithfully as possible, especially by us, who bear the name of faith. But they charge this silence of ours as though it were a guilty conscience: whence also they invent certain execrable opinions about the chaste and innocent; and they gladly believe the things they have invented.

"But all fabrications have now been lulled to rest, most holy emperor, since the most high God raised you up to restore the dwelling-place of justice and to protect the human race: under whose governance of the Roman state, we who are worshippers of God are no longer counted among the criminal and the wicked. Now that truth is emerging and being made clear, we who strive to do works of justice are not accused as unjust. No one any longer reproaches us with the name of God. No one is henceforth called irreligious who alone of all men is truly religious; since, having despised the images of the dead, we worship the living and true God.

The providence of the highest divinity raised you to the chief height of power; so that you might rescind by true piety the ill-counselled acts of others, correct their sins, provide for the welfare of men with fatherly clemency, and finally remove the wicked themselves from the commonwealth—those whom God, having cast them down from the height of piety, delivered into your hands, so that it might be clear to all what true majesty is. "For those who, in order to defend impious religions, wished to abolish the worship of the heavenly and singular God, lie overthrown. But you, who defend and love his name, excelling in virtue and felicity, enjoy your immortal glories most blessedly. They both pay and have paid the penalties of their crime. The mighty right hand of God protects you from all dangers; it grants you a calm and tranquil rule with the highest rejoicing of all.

Nor without reason did the Lord and ruler of all things choose you above all others, through whom he might restore his holy religion, since you alone of all have stood forth to furnish outstanding examples of virtue and holiness; by which you not only equal, but also—which is the greatest thing—surpass the glory of the ancient princes, whom fame nevertheless numbers among the good. They indeed were perhaps by nature only similar to the just. For he who does not know God as the ruler of the universe can attain the likeness of justice: but justice itself he cannot attain. You, however, both by the innate holiness of your character and by the knowledge of truth and of God, bring to completion in every act the works of justice. It was therefore fitting that in shaping the condition of the human race, the divinity should make use of you as its author and minister.

To him we daily supplicate in prayer, that he may guard above all you, whom he willed to be the guardian of all things; and then inspire in you the will by which you may always persevere in love of the divine name. Which is salutary for all, and for you unto felicity, and for the rest unto peace."

Since, having run through the seven stages of the proposed work, we have been brought to the goal, it remains for us to exhort all men to take up wisdom together with true religion, whose force and function consists in this: that, despising earthly things and casting off the errors by which we were formerly held, serving fragile things and coveting fragile things, we may be directed toward the eternal rewards of the heavenly treasure. That we may be able to receive these, the alluring pleasures of this present life must be abandoned as soon as possible—pleasures which beguile the souls of men with a pernicious sweetness.

How great a felicity is it to be reckoned, to be withdrawn from these stains of earth and to depart to that most just judge and most indulgent father; who in return for labours gives rest, for death life, for darkness brightness, for earthly and brief goods eternal and heavenly ones: with which reward the bitternesses and miseries which we endure in this world while doing works of justice can in no way be compared or made equal. Therefore if we wish to be wise, if we wish to be blessed, we must think upon and set before ourselves not only those words of Terence—that one must grind away in the mill, be beaten, wear fetters—but things far more dreadful than these: prison, chains, torments must be endured; pains must be borne; death itself must both be taken up and suffered: since our conscience makes it clear that neither will this fragile pleasure be without punishment, nor virtue without divine reward.

It is therefore fitting that all men take care to direct themselves as soon as possible to the right way; so that, having taken up and practised the virtues, and having patiently completed the labours of this life, they may deserve to have God as their comforter. For our Father and Lord, who founded and established the heaven, who brought in the sun together with the other stars, who enclosed the earth balanced by its own magnitude with mountains, surrounded it with the sea, adorned it with all things, and whatever exists in this work of the world he forged and perfected from nothing—having observed the errors of men, sent a Guide who might open to us the way of justice: let us all follow him; let us hear him; let us obey him most devotedly: since he alone, as Lucretius says, not only showed the way but also went before, lest anyone should shrink from the path of virtue on account of its difficulty.

Let the way of perdition and deceit be forsaken (if it can be done)—the way in which death lies hidden, covered by the enticements of pleasure.

And as each person perceives himself drawing nearer with advancing years to that day on which he must depart from this life, let him consider how pure he may depart; how innocent he may come before the judge: not as those do whose blind minds are denied the light, who, when the strength of the body is now failing, are admonished of the approaching final necessity only to apply themselves more eagerly, more ardently, to drinking in lusts. From which abyss let each man free himself while it is permitted, while the opportunity is at hand, and let him turn himself to God with his whole mind; so that he may await that day without fear, on which God, the ruler and lord of the world, will judge the deeds and thoughts of each individual.

Whatever things are sought after here, let him not merely disregard but also flee; and let him judge his soul to be of greater worth than those deceitful goods, whose possession is uncertain and fleeting; for they depart daily: they go out far more swiftly than they had entered; and yet, even if we were permitted to enjoy them to the very last, they must certainly be left to others. We can carry nothing with us, except a life well and innocently lived. He will come to God rich, he will come opulent, at whose side will stand continence, mercy, patience, charity, faith. This is our inheritance, which can neither be taken from anyone, nor transferred to another. And who is there who would wish to obtain and acquire these goods for himself?

Let those come who hunger: that, satisfied with heavenly food, they may lay aside everlasting hunger; let those come who thirst: that they may draw the saving water from the perennial spring with fullest throat. By this food and drink of God, the blind will see, and the deaf will hear, and the mute will speak, and the lame will walk, and the foolish will be wise, and the sick will be well, and the dead will live again. For whosoever shall have trampled down the corruptions of earth by virtue, him that supreme and truthful judge will raise up to light and everlasting life. Let no one trust in riches, no one in the fasces, no one even in royal power: these things do not make one immortal. For whosoever shall have cast aside the reason of man, and, following present things, shall have prostrated himself upon the ground, will be punished as a deserter of his lord, and commander, and father.

Let us therefore attend to justice, which as our inseparable companion will alone lead us to God; and, while the spirit governs these limbs, let us serve God in unfatigable service: let us keep our watches and vigils; let us engage boldly with the enemy whom we know, so that as victors, and triumphing over the defeated adversary, we may obtain from the Lord the reward of virtue which he himself has promised.