City of God, Book 5

Since, then, it is established that the complete attainment of all we desire is what constitutes felicity, which is no goddess, but a gift of God, and that therefore men can worship no god except Him who is able to make them happy — and if Felicity herself were a goddess, she would rightly be the only object of worship, — since, I say, this is established, let us now go on to consider why God, who is able to give, along with all other things, those good gifts which can be possessed by men who are not good, and consequently not happy, has seen fit to grant such extended and long-continued dominion to the Roman empire; for we have already brought forward considerable proof, and shall bring forward more as occasion offers, that this was not accomplished by the multitude of false gods which they worshipped.

The cause, then, of the greatness of the Roman empire is neither fortuitous nor fatal, according to the judgment or opinion of those who call things fortuitous when they either have no causes, or have causes that do not proceed from some intelligible order, and call things fatal when they happen independently of the will of God and man, by the necessity of a certain order. In a word, human kingdoms are established by divine providence. And if anyone attributes their existence to fate, because he calls the will or the power of God itself by the name of fate, let him keep his opinion, but correct his language. For why does he not say at first what he will say afterward, when someone asks him what he means by fate? For when men hear that word, according to the ordinary use of the language, they simply understand by it the power of that particular position of the stars which may exist at the time when anyone is born or conceived, which some separate altogether from the will of God, while others affirm that this also is dependent on that will. But those who are of opinion that, apart from the will of God, the stars determine what we shall do, or what good things we shall possess, or what evils we shall suffer, must be refused a hearing by all, not only by those who hold the true religion, but by those who wish to worship any gods at all, even false gods. For what does this opinion really amount to but this, that no god whatever is to be worshipped or prayed to? Our present argument, however, is not directed against these, but against those who, in defense of those whom they think to be gods, oppose the Christian religion. Those, however, who make the position of the stars depend on the divine will, and in a way decree what character each man shall have, and what good or evil shall happen to him, if they think that these same stars have that power conferred on them by the supreme power of God, in order that they may determine these things according to their will, do a great injury to the celestial sphere, in whose most brilliant senate, and most splendid senate-house, as it were, they suppose that wicked deeds are decreed to be done — such deeds as that, if any earthly state decreed them, it would be condemned to destruction by the decree of the whole human race. What judgment, then, is left to God, who is Lord both of the stars and of men, concerning the deeds of men, when a celestial necessity is attributed to these deeds? Or, if they do not say that the stars, though they have indeed received a certain power from God, who is supreme, determine those things according to their own discretion, but simply that His commands are fulfilled by them instrumentally in the application and enforcing of such necessities, are we then to think of God even what it seemed unworthy for us to think of the will of the stars? But, if the stars are said rather to signify these things than to effect them, so that the position of the stars is, as it were, a kind of speech predicting, not causing future things — for this has been the opinion of men of no ordinary learning — certainly the mathematicians do not usually speak in this way, saying, for example, that Mars in such or such a position signifies a homicide; they say it makes a homicide. But even if we grant that they do not speak as they ought, and that we ought to accept as the proper form of speech that employed by the philosophers in predicting those things which they think they discover in the position of the stars, how is it that they have never been able to assign any cause why, in the life of twins, in their actions, in the events that happen to them, in their professions, arts, honors, and other things pertaining to human life, also in their very death, there is often so great a difference, that, as far as these things are concerned, many entire strangers are more like them than they are like each other, though separated at birth by the smallest interval of time, but at conception generated by the same act of copulation, and at the same moment?

Cicero says that the famous physician Hippocrates wrote that he had suspected that a certain pair of brothers were twins, from the fact that they both fell ill at the same time, and their disease advanced to its crisis and subsided at the same time in each of them. Posidonius the Stoic, who was much given to astrology, used to explain the fact by supposing that they had been born and conceived under the same constellation. On this question the physician's conjecture is far more worthy of acceptance, and comes much nearer to credibility, since, just as the parents were affected in body at the time of copulation, so the first elements of the fetuses might have been affected, so that all that was necessary for their growth and development up to birth having been supplied from the body of the same mother, they might be born with similar constitutions. Then, nourished in the same house, on the same kinds of food, where they would have also the same kinds of air, the same locality, the same quality of water — which, according to the testimony of medical science, have a very great influence, good or bad, on the condition of bodily health — and where they would also be accustomed to the same kinds of exercise, they would have bodily constitutions so similar that they would be similarly affected with sickness at the same time and by the same causes. But to want to cite that particular position of the stars which existed at the time when they were born or conceived as the cause of their being simultaneously affected with sickness, shows the greatest arrogance, when so many beings of most diverse kinds, in the most diverse conditions, and subject to the most diverse events, may have been conceived and born at the same time, and in the same district, lying under the same sky. But we know that twins not only act differently and travel to very different places, but that they also suffer from different kinds of sickness; for which Hippocrates would give what is in my opinion the simplest reason, namely, that, through diversity of food and exercise, which arises not from the constitution of the body, but from the inclination of the mind, they may have come to be different from each other in health. Moreover, Posidonius, or any other advocate of the fatal influence of the stars, will be hard pressed to find anything to say to this, if he is unwilling to impose on the minds of the uninstructed in things of which they are ignorant. But, as to what they try to prove from that very small interval of time elapsing between the births of twins, on account of that point in the heavens where the mark of the natal hour is placed, and which they call the “horoscope,” it is either disproportionately small to the diversity which is found in the dispositions, actions, habits, and fortunes of twins, or it is disproportionately great when compared with the social rank of twins, whether low or high, which is the same for both of them, though in every case they place the cause of the greatest difference in rank in the hour at which a person is born; and, for this reason, if the one is born so immediately after the other that there is no change in the horoscope, I demand a complete similarity in everything that concerns them both, which can never be found in the case of any twins. But if the slowness of the birth of the second gives time for a change in the horoscope, I demand different parents, which twins can never have.

It is to no purpose, therefore, that the famous fiction about the potter's wheel is brought forward, which tells of the answer which Nigidius is said to have given when he was perplexed with this question, and on account of which he was called Figulus. For, having spun the potter's wheel with all his strength he marked it with ink, striking it twice with the utmost rapidity, so that the strokes seemed to fall on the very same part of it. Then, when the rotation had ceased, the marks which he had made were found on the rim of the wheel at no small distance apart. So, he said, considering the great rapidity with which the celestial sphere revolves, even though twins were born with as short an interval between their births as there was between the strokes which I gave this wheel, that brief interval of time is equivalent to a very great distance in the celestial sphere. From this, he said, come whatever differences may be observed in the habits and fortunes of twins. This argument is more fragile than the vessels which are fashioned by the rotation of that wheel. For if there is so much significance in the heavens which cannot be comprehended by observation of the constellations, that, in the case of twins, an inheritance may fall to the one and not to the other, why, in the case of others who are not twins, do they dare, having examined their constellations, to declare such things as pertain to that secret which no one can comprehend, and to attribute them to the precise moment of the birth of each individual? If such predictions in connection with the natal hours of others who are not twins are to be vindicated on the ground that they are founded on the observation of more extended spaces in the heavens, while those very small moments of time which separated the births of twins, and correspond to minute portions of celestial space, are to be connected with trifling things about which the mathematicians are not usually consulted — for who would consult them as to when he is to sit, when to go out for a walk, when and on what he is to dine? — how can we be justified in speaking this way, when we can point out such great diversity both in the habits, doings, and destinies of twins?

In the time of the ancient fathers, to speak of illustrious persons, there were born two twin brothers, the one so immediately after the other, that the first took hold of the heel of the second. So great a difference existed in their lives and manners, so great a dissimilarity in their actions, so great a difference in their parents' love for each of them, that the very contrast between them even produced a mutual hostility. Do we mean, when we say that they were so unlike each other, that when the one was walking the other was sitting, when the one was sleeping the other was waking — differences of the kind attributed to those minute portions of space which cannot be measured by those who note down the position of the stars which exists at the moment of one's birth, in order that the mathematicians may be consulted concerning it? One of these twins was for a long time a hired servant; the other never served. One of them was loved by his mother; the other was not. One of them lost that honor which was so much valued among their people; the other obtained it. And what shall we say of their wives, their children, and their possessions? How different they were in all these respects! If, therefore, such things as these are connected with those minute intervals of time which elapse between the births of twins, and are not to be attributed to the constellations, why are they predicted in the case of others from the examination of their constellations? And if, on the other hand, these things are said to be predicted, because they are connected, not with minute and immeasurable moments, but with intervals of time which can be observed and noted down, what purpose does that potter's wheel serve in this matter, except to whirl around men who have hearts of clay, so that they may be prevented from detecting the emptiness of the talk of the mathematicians?

Don't those very persons whom the medical sagacity of Hippocrates led him to suspect were twins, because he observed their disease develop to its crisis and to subside again in the same time in each of them — don't these, I say, serve as a sufficient refutation of those who wish to attribute to the influence of the stars what was due to a similarity of bodily constitution? For why were they both sick with the same disease, and at the same time, and not the one after the other in the order of their birth? (for certainly they could not both be born at the same time.) Or, if the fact of their having been born at different times by no means necessarily implies that they must be sick at different times, why do they contend that the difference in the time of their births was the cause of their difference in other things? Why could they travel abroad at different times, marry at different times, father children at different times, and do many other things at different times, because they were born at different times, and yet could not, for the same reason, also be sick at different times? For if a difference in the moment of birth changed the horoscope, and caused dissimilarity in all other things, why has the simultaneousness that belonged to their conception remained in their attacks of sickness? Or, if the destinies of health are involved in the time of conception, but those of other things are said to be attached to the time of birth, they ought not to predict anything about health from an examination of the constellations of birth, when the hour of conception is not also given, so that its constellations may be inspected. But if they say that they predict attacks of sickness without examining the horoscope of conception, because these are indicated by the moments of birth, how could they inform either of these twins when he would be sick, from the horoscope of his birth, when the other also, who did not have the same horoscope of birth, must of necessity fall sick at the same time? Again, I ask, if the distance of time between the births of twins is great enough to cause a difference of their constellations on account of the difference of their horoscopes, and therefore of all the cardinal points to which so much influence is attributed, that even from such a change a difference of destiny arises, how can this be so, since they cannot have been conceived at different times? Or, if two conceived at the same moment of time could have different destinies with respect to their births, why can't two born at the same moment of time also have different destinies for life and for death? For if the one moment in which both were conceived did not prevent one from being born before the other, why, if two are born at the same moment, should anything hinder them from dying at the same moment? If a simultaneous conception allows twins to be differently affected in the womb, why should simultaneous birth not allow any two individuals to have different fortunes in the world? And so all the fictions of this art, or rather delusion, would be swept away. How strange it is that two children conceived at the same time, indeed, at the same moment, under the same position of the stars, have different fates which bring them to different hours of birth, while two children, born of two different mothers, at the same moment of time, under one and the same position of the stars, cannot have different fates which would lead them by necessity to different ways of life and of death? Are they still without destinies at conception, because they can only have them if they are born? What, then, do they mean when they say that, if the hour of the conception be found, many things can be predicted by these astrologers? From this also arose the story, repeated by some, that a certain sage chose an hour in which to lie with his wife, in order to make sure of fathering an illustrious son. From this opinion also came the answer of Posidonius, the great astrologer and also philosopher, about the twins who fell sick at the same time, namely, “That this had happened to them because they were conceived at the same time, and born at the same time.” He certainly added “conception,” so that no one could tell him that they could not both be born at the same time, knowing that at any rate they must both have been conceived at the same time; wishing thus to show that he did not attribute the fact that they were similarly and simultaneously affected by sickness to the similarity of their bodily constitutions as its proximate cause, but held that even with respect to the similarity of their health, they were bound together by a sidereal connection. If, therefore, the time of conception has so much to do with the similarity of destinies, these same destinies ought not to be changed by the circumstances of birth; or, if the destinies of twins are said to be changed because they are born at different times, why should we not rather understand that they had been already changed in order that they might be born at different times? Then doesn't the will of men living in the world change the destinies of birth, when the order of birth can change the destinies they had at conception?

But even in the very conception of twins, which certainly occurs at the same moment in the case of both, it often happens that one is conceived a male and the other a female. I know two of different sexes who are twins. Both of them are alive, and in the prime of life; and though they resemble each other in body, as far as the difference of sex permits, still they are very different in the whole scope and purpose of their lives (taking into account the differences that necessarily exist between the lives of males and females) — the one holding the office of a count, and being almost constantly away from home with the army in foreign service, the other never leaving her country's soil, or her native district. Still more — and this is more incredible, if the destinies of the stars are to be believed in, though it is not surprising if we consider the wills of men, and the free gifts of God — he is married; she is a sacred virgin: he has fathered many children; she has never even married. But isn't the power of the horoscope very great? I think I have said enough to show the absurdity of that. But, say those astrologers, whatever the power of the horoscope may be in other respects, it is certainly of significance with respect to birth. But why not also with respect to conception, which undoubtedly takes place with one act of copulation? And, indeed, so great is the force of nature, that after a woman has once conceived, she can no longer conceive. Or were they, perhaps, changed at birth, either he into a male, or she into a female, because of the difference in their horoscopes? But, while it is not altogether absurd to say that certain sidereal influences have some power to cause differences in bodies alone — as, for instance, we see that the seasons of the year come around with the approach and retreat of the sun, and that certain kinds of things are increased in size or diminished by the waxing and waning of the moon, such as sea-urchins, oysters, and the wonderful tides of the ocean — it does not follow that the wills of men are to be made subject to the position of the stars. The astrologers, however, when they wish to bind our actions also to the constellations, only prompt us to investigate whether, even in these bodies, the changes may not be due to some cause other than a sidereal one. For what concerns a body more intimately than its sex? And yet, under the same position of the stars, twins of different sexes may be conceived. Therefore, what greater absurdity can be affirmed or believed than that the position of the stars, which was the same for both of them at the time of conception, could not keep the one child from being of a different sex from her brother, with whom she had a common constellation, while the position of the stars which existed at the hour of their birth could cause her to be separated from him by the great distance between marriage and holy virginity?

Will anyone now put forward the claim that in choosing certain particular days for particular actions, men bring about certain new destinies for their actions? That man, for instance, according to this doctrine, was not born to have an illustrious son, but rather a contemptible one, and therefore, being a man of learning, he chose an hour in which to lie with his wife. He made, therefore, a destiny which he did not have before, and from that destiny of his own making something began to be fated that was not contained in the destiny of his natal hour. What extraordinary stupidity! A day is chosen on which to marry; and for this reason, I believe, that unless a day is chosen, the marriage may fall on an unlucky day, and turn out an unhappy one. What then becomes of what the stars have already decreed at the hour of birth? Can a man be said to change by an act of choice what has already been determined for him, while what he himself has determined in the choosing of a day cannot be changed by another power? Thus, if men alone, and not all things under heaven, are subject to the influence of the stars, why do they choose some days as suitable for planting vines or trees, or for sowing grain, other days as suitable for taming beasts, or for putting the males to the females, so that the cows and mares may be impregnated, and for similar things? If it is said that certain chosen days have an influence on these things, because the constellations rule over all terrestrial bodies, animate and inanimate, according to differences in moments of time, consider what countless multitudes of beings are born or arise, or take their origin at the very same instant of time, which come to such different ends that they could persuade any little boy that these observations about days are ridiculous. For who is mad enough to dare to claim that all trees, all herbs, all beasts, serpents, birds, fishes, worms, each have their own separate moments of birth or commencement? Nevertheless, to test the skill of the mathematicians, men often bring before them the constellations of dumb animals, carefully observing the constellations of their birth at home for this purpose; and they prefer above all others those mathematicians who say from the inspection of the constellations that they indicate the birth of a beast and not of a man. They also dare to tell what kind of beast it is, whether it is a wool-bearing beast, or a beast suited for carrying burdens, or one fit for the plow, or for watching a house; for the astrologers are also tested on the fates of dogs, and their answers concerning these are followed by shouts of admiration from those who consult them. They so deceive men as to make them think that during the birth of a man the births of all other beings are suspended, so that not even a fly comes to life at the same time that he is being born, under the same region of the heavens. And if this is admitted in the case of the fly, the reasoning cannot stop there, but must ascend from flies until it leads them up to camels and elephants. Nor are they willing to consider that when a day has been chosen on which to sow a field, so many grains fall into the ground simultaneously, germinate simultaneously, spring up, come to perfection, and ripen simultaneously; and yet, of all the ears that are of the same age, and, so to speak, congerminal, some are destroyed by mildew, some are devoured by the birds, and some are pulled by men. How can they say that all these had their different constellations, when they see them coming to such different ends? Will they admit that it is folly to choose days for such things, and to affirm that they do not come within the sphere of the celestial decree, while they subject men alone to the stars, on whom alone in the world God has bestowed free wills? All these things being considered, we have good reason to believe that, when the astrologers give very many wonderful answers, it is to be attributed to the hidden inspiration of spirits not of the best kind, whose concern it is to insinuate into the minds of men, and to confirm in them, those false and noxious opinions concerning the fatal influence of the stars, and not to their noting and inspecting horoscopes, according to some kind of art which in reality has no existence.

But as for those who give the name of fate not to the disposition of the stars as it may exist when any creature is conceived, or born, or begins its existence, but to the whole connection and train of causes which makes everything become what it does become, there is no need for me to labor and strive with them in a merely verbal controversy, since they attribute the so-called order and connection of causes to the will and power of God most high, who is most rightly and most truly believed to know all things before they happen, and to leave nothing unordained; from whom all powers come, although not all wills come from Him. That what they call fate is chiefly the will of God most high, whose power extends irresistibly through all things, is proved by the following verses, whose author, if I am not mistaken, is Annæus Seneca:— Father supreme, You ruler of the lofty heavens, / Lead me wherever it is Your pleasure; I will give / A prompt obedience, making no delay, / Lo! Here I am. Promptly I come to do Your sovereign will; / If your command thwarts my inclination, I will still / Follow You groaning, and will perform / The work assigned with all the suffering / Of an unwilling mind, being evil; which, had I been good, / I would have undertaken and performed, though hard, / With virtuous cheerfulness. / The Fates lead the man who follows willingly; / But the man who is unwilling they drag. Clearly, in this last verse, he calls “fate” what he had earlier called “the will of the Father supreme,” whom, he says, he is ready to obey so that he may be led as a willing man, not dragged as an unwilling one, since “the Fates lead the man who follows willingly, but the man who is unwilling they drag.” The following Homeric lines, which Cicero translates into Latin, also favor this opinion:— Such are the minds of men, as is the light / Which Father Jove himself pours / Illustrious over the fruitful earth. Not that Cicero wants a poetic sentiment to have any weight in a question like this; for when he says that the Stoics, when asserting the power of fate, were in the habit of using these verses from Homer, he is not dealing with the opinion of that poet, but with the opinion of those philosophers, since these verses, which they quote in their controversy about fate, show most distinctly what they consider fate to be, since they give the name Jupiter to the one they consider the supreme god, from whom, they say, the whole chain of fates hangs.

The way Cicero goes about refuting the Stoics shows that he did not think he could achieve anything against them in argument unless he had first demolished divination. And he attempts to do this by denying that there is any knowledge of future things, and maintains with all his might that there is no such knowledge either in God or man, and that there is no prediction of events. Thus he both denies the foreknowledge of God, and attempts by vain arguments, and by setting up against himself certain oracles that are very easy to refute, to overthrow all prophecy, even prophecy that is clearer than the light (though even these oracles are not refuted by him). But, in refuting these conjectures of the mathematicians, his argument is triumphant, because these conjectures truly destroy and refute themselves. Nevertheless, those who assert the fatal influence of the stars are far more tolerable than those who deny the foreknowledge of future events. For, to confess that God exists, and at the same time to deny that He has foreknowledge of future things, is the most manifest folly. Cicero himself saw this, and therefore attempted to assert the doctrine embodied in the words of Scripture, “The fool has said in his heart, There is no God.” However, he did not do that in his own person, for he saw how odious and offensive such an opinion would be; and therefore, in his book on the nature of the gods, he has Cotta argue this point against the Stoics, and preferred to give his own opinion in favor of Lucilius Balbus, to whom he assigned the defense of the Stoical position, rather than in favor of Cotta, who maintained that no divinity exists. However, in his book on divination, he in his own person most openly opposes the doctrine of the prescience of future things. But all this he seems to do so as not to grant the doctrine of fate, and by so doing destroy free will. For he thinks that once the knowledge of future things is conceded, fate follows as so necessary a consequence that it cannot be denied. But, let these perplexing debates and disputations of the philosophers go on as they may, we, in order to confess the most high and true God Himself, do confess His will, supreme power, and prescience. Nor should we be afraid that, after all, we do not do by will what we do by will, because He, whose foreknowledge is infallible, foreknew that we would do it. It was this that Cicero was afraid of, and therefore opposed foreknowledge. The Stoics also maintained that not all things come to pass by necessity, although they contended that all things happen according to destiny. What is it, then, that Cicero feared in the prescience of future things? Doubtless it was this — that if all future things have been foreknown, they will happen in the order in which they have been foreknown; and if they come to pass in this order, there is a certain order of things foreknown by God; and if a certain order of things, then a certain order of causes, for nothing can happen which is not preceded by some efficient cause. But if there is a certain order of causes according to which everything that happens does happen, then, he says, all things that happen happen by fate. But if this is so, then there is nothing in our own power, and there is no such thing as freedom of will; and if we grant that, he says, the whole economy of human life is subverted. Laws are enacted in vain. Reproaches, praises, rebukes, exhortations are resorted to in vain; and there is no justice whatever in the appointment of rewards for the good, and punishments for the wicked. And so that consequences so disgraceful, and absurd, and pernicious to humanity do not follow, Cicero chooses to reject the foreknowledge of future things, and confines the religious mind to this alternative, to choose between two things, either that something is in our own power, or that there is foreknowledge — which cannot both be true; but if the one is affirmed, the other is denied by that very fact. He therefore, like a truly great and wise man, and one who took very great and skillful care for the good of humanity, chose the freedom of the will out of those two, and to confirm it he denied the foreknowledge of future things; and thus, wishing to make men free he makes them sacrilegious. But the religious mind chooses both, confesses both, and maintains both by the faith of piety. But how so? Cicero says; for once the knowledge of future things is granted, a chain of consequences follows that ends in this, that there can be nothing depending on our own free wills. And further, if there is anything depending on our wills, we must go backwards by the same steps of reasoning until we arrive at the conclusion that there is no foreknowledge of future things. For we go backwards through all the steps in the following order:— If there is free will, all things do not happen according to fate; if all things do not happen according to fate, there is not a certain order of causes; and if there is not a certain order of causes, neither is there a certain order of things foreknown by God — for things cannot come to pass unless they are preceded by efficient causes, — but, if there is no fixed and certain order of causes foreknown by God, it cannot be said that all things happen as He foreknew that they would happen. And further, if it is not true that all things happen just as they have been foreknown by Him, there is, he says, no foreknowledge of future events in God. Against the sacrilegious and impious daring of reason, we assert both that God knows all things before they come to pass, and that we do by our free will whatever we know and feel to be done by us only because we will it. But we do not say that all things come to pass by fate; indeed we affirm that nothing comes to pass by fate; for we demonstrate that the name of fate, as it is usually used by those who speak of fate, meaning by it the position of the stars at the time of each one's conception or birth, is an unmeaning word, for astrology itself is a delusion. But we neither deny an order of causes in which the highest efficiency is attributed to the will of God, nor designate it by the name of fate, unless, perhaps, we may understand fate to mean what is spoken, deriving it from fari, to speak; for we cannot deny that it is written in the sacred Scriptures, “God has spoken once; these two things I have heard, that power belongs to God. Also to You, O God, belongs mercy: for You will render to every man according to his works.” Now the expression, “Once has He spoken,” is to be understood as meaning “immovably,” that is, He has spoken unchangeably, since He knows unchangeably all things that will be, and all things which He will do. We might, then, use the word fate in the sense it bears when derived from fari, to speak, if it had not already come to be understood in another sense, into which I do not want the hearts of men to slide unconsciously. But it does not follow that, though there is for God a certain order of all causes, there must therefore be nothing depending on the free exercise of our own wills, for our wills themselves are included in that order of causes which is certain to God, and is embraced by His foreknowledge, for human wills are also causes of human actions; and He who foreknew all the causes of things would certainly not have been ignorant of our wills among those causes. For even that very concession which Cicero himself makes is enough to refute him in this argument. For what does it help him to say that nothing takes place without a cause, but that not every cause is fatal, there being a fortuitous cause, a natural cause, and a voluntary cause? It is sufficient that he admits that whatever happens must be preceded by a cause. For we say that those causes which are called fortuitous are not a mere name for the absence of causes, but are only latent, and we attribute them either to the will of the true God, or to that of spirits of some kind or other. And as to natural causes, we by no means separate them from the will of Him who is the author and framer of all nature. Now for voluntary causes. They can be traced either to God, or to angels, or to men, or to animals of whatever kind, if indeed those instinctive movements of animals devoid of reason, by which, in accordance with their own nature, they seek or shun various things, are to be called wills. And when I speak of the wills of angels, I mean either the wills of good angels, whom we call the angels of God, or of the wicked angels, whom we call the angels of the devil, or demons. Also by the wills of men I mean the wills either of the good or of the wicked. And from this we conclude that there are no efficient causes of all things which come to pass except voluntary causes, that is, those that belong to that nature which is the spirit of life. For the air or wind is called spirit, but, since it is a body, it is not the spirit of life. The spirit of life, therefore, which gives life to all things, and is the creator of every body, and of every created spirit, is God Himself, the uncreated spirit. In His supreme will resides the power which acts on the wills of all created spirits, helping the good, judging the evil, controlling all, granting power to some, not granting it to others. For, as He is the creator of all natures, so also He is the giver of all powers, not of all wills; for wicked wills are not from Him, being contrary to nature, which is from Him. As to bodies, they are more subject to wills: some to our wills, by which I mean the wills of all living mortal creatures, but more to the wills of men than of beasts. But all of them are most of all subject to the will of God, to whom all wills also are subject, since they have no power except what He has given them. The cause of things, therefore, which makes but is made, is God; but all other causes both make and are made. Such are all created spirits, and especially the rational. Material causes, therefore, which may rather be said to be made than to make, are not to be reckoned among efficient causes, because they can only do what the wills of spirits do by them. How, then, does an order of causes which is certain to the foreknowledge of God make it necessary that nothing should depend on our wills, when our wills themselves have a very important place in the order of causes? Cicero, then, contends with those who call this order of causes fatal, or rather designate this order itself by the name of fate; which we abhor, especially on account of the word, which men have become accustomed to understand as meaning what is not true. But since he denies that the order of all causes is most certain, and perfectly clear to the prescience of God, we detest his opinion more than the Stoics do. For he either denies that God exists, — which, indeed, through an assumed character, he has labored to do, in his book De Natura Deorum, — or if he admits that He exists, but denies that He foreknows future things, what is that but just “the fool saying in his heart there is no God?” For one who does not foreknow all future things is not God. Therefore our wills also have just so much power as God willed and foreknew that they would have; and therefore whatever power they have, they have it within most certain limits; and whatever they are to do, they are most assuredly to do, for He whose foreknowledge is infallible foreknew that they would have the power to do it, and would do it. Therefore, if I chose to apply the name of fate to anything at all, I would rather say that fate belongs to the weaker of two parties, will to the stronger, who has the other in his power, than that the freedom of our will is excluded by that order of causes, which, by an unusual application of the word peculiar to themselves, the Stoics call Fate.

Therefore, we need not fear that necessity which the Stoics so dreaded that they labored to make distinctions among the causes of things that would enable them to rescue certain things from the dominion of necessity, and to subject others to it. Among the things they did not want to be subject to necessity, they placed our wills, knowing that they would not be free if subjected to necessity. For if that is to be called our necessity which is not in our power, but which does what it can do even though we are unwilling — as, for instance, the necessity of death — it is clear that our wills by which we live uprightly or wickedly are not under such a necessity; for we do many things which, if we were not willing, we would certainly not do. This is primarily true of the act of willing itself — for if we will, it is; if we do not will, it is not — for we would not will if we were unwilling. But if we define necessity as that by which we say that it is necessary for something to be of this or that nature, or to be done in this or that way, I do not know why we should have any dread of that necessity taking away the freedom of our will. For we do not put the life of God or the foreknowledge of God under necessity if we say that it is necessary for God to live forever and to foreknow all things; just as His power is not diminished when we say that He cannot die or fall into error — for this is impossible to Him in such a way that if it were possible for Him, He would be of less power. But He is certainly rightly called omnipotent, even though He can neither die nor fall into error. For He is called omnipotent because He does what He wills, not because He undergoes what He does not will; for if that happened to Him, He would by no means be omnipotent. Therefore, He cannot do some things for the very reason that He is omnipotent. So also, when we say that it is necessary that, when we will, we will by free choice, in saying so we both affirm what is true beyond doubt and still do not in this way subject our wills to a necessity which destroys liberty. Our wills, therefore, exist as wills, and themselves do whatever we do by willing, which would not be done if we were unwilling. But when anyone suffers anything against his will, by the will of another, even in that case the will retains its essential validity — we do not mean the will of the one who inflicts the suffering, for we trace it back to the power of God. For if a will simply existed but were not able to do what it wills, it would be overpowered by a more powerful will. Nor would this be the case unless there had been a will, and not the will of the other party, but the will of him who willed, but was not able to accomplish what he willed. Therefore, whatever a man suffers against his own will, he ought not to attribute to the will of men, or of angels, or of any created spirit, but rather to the will of Him who gives power to wills. It is not the case, therefore, that because God foreknew what would be in the power of our wills, there is for that reason nothing in the power of our wills. For he who foreknew this did not foreknow nothing. Moreover, if He who foreknew what would be in the power of our wills did not foreknow nothing, but something, certainly, even though He foreknew, there is something in the power of our wills. Therefore we are by no means compelled either to retain the prescience of God and take away the freedom of the will, or to retain the freedom of the will and deny that He is prescient of future things, which is impious. But we embrace both. We faithfully and sincerely confess both. The former so that we may believe well; the latter so that we may live well. For whoever does not believe well about God lives badly. Therefore, far be it from us, in order to maintain our freedom, to deny the prescience of Him by whose help we are or shall be free. Consequently, it is not in vain that laws are enacted, and that reproaches, exhortations, praises, and vituperations are resorted to; for these also He foreknew, and they are very effective, as effective as He foreknew that they would be. Prayers, too, are effective in obtaining the things which He foreknew that He would grant to those who offered them; and rewards have justly been appointed for good deeds, and punishments for sins. For a man does not sin because God foreknew that he would sin. Indeed, it cannot be doubted that it is the man himself who sins when he does sin, because He, whose foreknowledge is infallible, did not foreknow that fate, or fortune, or something else would sin, but that the man himself would sin, who, if he does not will, does not sin. But if he does not will to sin, God foreknew even this.

Therefore God supreme and true, with His Word and Holy Spirit (which three are one), one God omnipotent, creator and maker of every soul and of every body; by whose gift all who are happy through truth and not through vanity are happy; who made man a rational animal consisting of soul and body, who, when he sinned, neither permitted him to go unpunished, nor left him without mercy; who has given to the good and to the evil, being in common with stones, vegetable life in common with trees, sentient life in common with beasts, intellectual life in common with angels alone; from whom is every mode, every species, every order; from whom are measure, number, weight;⁠a from whom is everything that exists in nature, of whatever kind and of whatever value; from whom are the seeds of forms and the forms of seeds, and the motion of seeds and of forms; who gave also to flesh its origin, beauty, health, reproductive fecundity, disposition of members, and the salutary concord of its parts; who has also given the irrational soul memory, sense, appetite, but to the rational soul, in addition to these, has given intelligence and will; who — to say nothing of heaven and earth, angels and men — has not left even the entrails of the smallest and most contemptible animal, or the feather of a bird, or the little flower of a plant, or the leaf of a tree, without a harmony, and, as it were, a mutual peace among all its parts — that God can never be believed to have left the kingdoms of men, their dominations and servitudes, outside of the laws of His providence.

Therefore let us go on to consider which virtues of the Romans the true God, in whose power the kingdoms of the earth also lie, condescended to help in order to raise the empire, and also for what reason He did so. And, in order to discuss this question on clearer ground, we have written the former books, to show that the power of those gods, who, they thought, were to be worshiped with such trifling and silly rites, had nothing to do in this matter; and also the part of the present volume we have already completed, to refute the doctrine of fate, so that no one who might already have been persuaded that the Roman empire was not extended and preserved by the worship of these gods, would still attribute its extension and preservation to some kind of fate, rather than to the most powerful will of the most high God. The ancient and primitive Romans, therefore, though their history shows us that, like all the other nations, with the sole exception of the Hebrews, they worshipped false gods, and sacrificed victims, not to God, but to demons, nevertheless receive this praise from their historian: that they were “greedy of praise, prodigal of wealth, desirous of great glory, and content with a moderate fortune.” They loved glory most ardently: for it they wished to live, for it they did not hesitate to die. Every other desire was repressed by the strength of their passion for that one thing. At length, because it seemed inglorious to serve but glorious to rule and to command, they earnestly desired first that their country itself should be free, and then that it should be mistress. That is why, unable to endure the domination of kings, they put the government into the hands of two chiefs, holding office for a year, who were called consuls, not kings or lords. But royal pomp seemed inconsistent with the administration of a ruler (regentis), or the benevolence of one who consults (that is, for the public good) (consulentis), but rather with the haughtiness of a lord (dominantis). So, once King Tarquin had been banished and the consular government instituted, it followed, as the same author already mentioned says in his praises of the Romans, that “the state grew with amazing rapidity after it had obtained liberty, so great a desire of glory had taken possession of it.” It was that eagerness for praise and desire for glory, then, that accomplished those many wonderful things, praiseworthy, no doubt, and glorious according to human judgment. The same Sallust praises the great men of his own time, Marcus Cato, and Caius Cæsar, saying that for a long time the republic had no one great in virtue, but that within his memory there had been these two men of eminent virtue, and very different pursuits. Among the praises he gives Cæsar he includes this: that he wished for a great empire, an army, and a new war, so that he might have a sphere where his genius and virtue might shine forth. Thus it was always the prayer of men of heroic character that Bellona would excite miserable nations to war, and lash them into agitation with her bloody scourge, so that there might be occasion for the display of their valor. This, of course, is what that desire of praise and thirst for glory did. Therefore, first by the love of liberty, and afterward also by the love of domination and through the desire of praise and glory, they achieved many great things; and their most eminent poet testifies to their having been prompted by all these motives: Porsenna there, with pride elate, / Bids Rome to Tarquin open her gate; / With arms he hems the city in, / Æneas' sons stand firm to win. At that time it was their greatest ambition either to die bravely or to live free; but when liberty was obtained, so great a desire of glory took possession of them, that liberty alone was not enough unless they also sought domination, and their great ambition was what the same poet puts into the mouth of Jupiter: No, Juno herself, whose wild alarms / Set ocean, earth, and heaven in arms, / Shall change for smiles her moody frown, / And vie with me in zeal to crown / Rome's sons, the nation of the gown. / So stands my will. There comes a day, / While Rome's great ages hold their way, / When old Assaracus's sons / Shall be avenged on the myrmidons, / Over Phthia and Mycenæ reign, / And humble Argos to their chain. Virgil, indeed, makes Jupiter predict these things as future, while, in reality, he himself was only reviewing in his own mind things which were already done, and which he saw as present realities. But I have mentioned them with the intention of showing that, next to liberty, the Romans so highly esteemed domination, that it received a place among those things on which they bestowed the greatest praise. That is also why the poet, preferring to the arts of other nations the arts that belong especially to the Romans, namely, the arts of ruling and commanding, and of subjugating and vanquishing nations, says, Others, perhaps, with happier grace, / From bronze or stone shall call the face, / Plead doubtful causes, map the skies, / And tell when planets set or rise; / But, Roman, you must control / The nations far and wide; / Let this be your genius, to impose / The rule of peace on vanquished foes, / Show pity to the humble soul, / And crush the sons of pride. They exercised these arts with more skill the less they gave themselves up to pleasures, and to enervation of body and mind in coveting and amassing riches, and through these corrupting morals, by extorting them from the miserable citizens and lavishing them on base stage-players. Hence these men of base character, who abounded when Sallust wrote and Virgil sang these things, did not seek after honors and glory by these arts, but by treachery and deceit. So the same author says, “But at first it was ambition rather than avarice that stirred the minds of men, a vice which, however, is nearer to virtue. For glory, honor, and power are desired alike by the good man and by the ignoble; but the former,” he says, “strives onward to them by the true way, while the other, knowing nothing of the good arts, seeks them by fraud and deceit.” And what is meant by seeking the attainment of glory, honor, and power by good arts, is to seek them by virtue, and not by deceitful intrigue; for the good and the ignoble man alike desire these things, but the good man strives to overtake them by the true way. The way is virtue, along which he presses as to the goal of possession — namely, to glory, honor, and power. That this sentiment was ingrained in the Roman mind is indicated even by the temples of their gods; for they built in very close proximity the temples of Virtue and Honor, worshipping as gods the gifts of God. Hence we can understand what those who were good thought to be the end of virtue, and to what they ultimately referred it, namely, to honor; as for the bad, they had no virtue though they desired honor, and strove to possess it by fraud and deceit. Praise of a higher kind is given to Cato, for he says of him “The less he sought glory, the more it followed him.” We say praise of a higher kind; for the glory with the desire of which the Romans burned is the judgment of men thinking well of men. And therefore virtue is better, which is content with no human judgment except that of one's own conscience. Hence the apostle says, “For this is our glory, the testimony of our conscience.” 2 Corinthians 1:12 And in another place he says, “But let everyone test his own work, and then he shall have glory in himself, and not in another.” Galatians 6:4 That glory, honor, and power, therefore, which they desired for themselves, and to which the good sought to attain by good arts, should not be sought after by virtue, but virtue by them. For there is no true virtue except that which is directed toward that end in which the highest and ultimate good of man lies. Therefore Cato ought not to have sought even the honors he sought, but the state ought to have conferred them on him unsolicited, on account of his virtues. But, of the two great Romans of that time, Cato was the one whose virtue was by far the nearest to the true idea of virtue. Therefore, let us refer to the opinion of Cato himself, to discover what judgment he had formed concerning the condition of the state both then and in former times. “I do not think,” he says, “that it was by arms that our ancestors made the republic great from being small. Had that been the case, the republic of our day would have been far more flourishing than that of their times, for the number of our allies and citizens is far greater; and, besides, we possess a far greater abundance of armor and of horses than they did. But it was things other than these that made them great, and we have none of them: industry at home, just government abroad, a mind free in deliberation, addicted neither to crime nor to lust. Instead of these, we have luxury and avarice, poverty in the state, opulence among citizens; we praise riches, we follow laziness; there is no difference made between the good and the bad; all the rewards of virtue are seized by intrigue. And no wonder, when every individual consults only for his own good, when you are the slaves of pleasure at home, and, in public affairs, of money and favor, no wonder that an attack is made on the unprotected republic.” He who hears these words of Cato or of Sallust probably thinks that such praise bestowed on the ancient Romans was applicable to all of them, or, at least, to very many of them. It is not so; otherwise the things which Cato himself writes, and which I have quoted in the second book of this work, would not be true. In that passage he says, that even from the very beginning of the state wrongs were committed by the more powerful, which led to the separation of the people from the fathers, besides which there were other internal dissensions; and the only time at which there existed a just and moderate administration was after the banishment of the kings, and that only as long as they had cause to be afraid of Tarquin, and were carrying on the grievous war which had been undertaken on his account against Etruria; but afterward the fathers oppressed the people as slaves, flogged them as the kings had done, drove them from their land, and, to the exclusion of all others, held the government in their own hands alone. And while the fathers wished to rule and the people were unwilling to serve, the second Punic war put an end to these discords; for again great fear began to press on their disquieted minds, holding them back from those distractions by another and greater anxiety, and bringing them back to civil concord. But the great things which were then achieved were accomplished through the administration of a few men, who were good in their own way. And by the wisdom and forethought of these few good men, which first enabled the republic to endure these evils and mitigated them, it grew greater and greater. And this the same historian affirms, when he says that, reading and hearing of the many illustrious achievements of the Roman people in peace and in war, by land and by sea, he wished to understand what had especially sustained these great things. For he knew that very often the Romans had contended with a small company against great legions of the enemy; and he knew also that with small resources they had carried on wars with opulent kings. And he says that, after having given the matter much consideration, it seemed evident to him that the pre-eminent virtue of a few citizens had achieved the whole, and that this explained how poverty overcame wealth, and small numbers great multitudes. But, he adds, after the state had been corrupted by luxury and indolence, again the republic, by its own greatness, was able to bear the vices of its magistrates and generals. Therefore even the praises of Cato are only applicable to a few; for only a few possessed that virtue which leads men to pursue glory, honor, and power by the true way — that is, by virtue itself. This industry at home, of which Cato speaks, was the consequence of a desire to enrich the public treasury, even if the result was poverty at home; and therefore, when he speaks of the evil arising out of the corruption of morals, he reverses the expression, and says, “Poverty in the state, riches at home.”

Therefore, when the kingdoms of the East had been illustrious for a long time, it pleased God that a Western empire should also arise, which, though later in time, would be more illustrious in extent and greatness. And, in order that it might overcome the grievous evils which existed among other nations, He purposely granted it to men who, for the sake of honor, and praise, and glory, served their country well, in whose glory they sought their own, and whose safety they did not hesitate to prefer to their own, suppressing the desire for wealth and many other vices for this one vice, namely, the love of praise. For whoever recognizes that even the love of praise is a vice has the soundest perception; nor has this escaped the perception of the poet Horace, who says, You're bloated by ambition? Take advice: / That book will ease you if you read it three times. / And the same poet, in a lyric song, has spoken this way, wishing to repress the passion for domination: / Rule an ambitious spirit, and you have / A wider kingdom than if you were to join / Lybia to distant Gades, and so / Were to hold either Carthaginian in service. Nevertheless, those who restrain baser lusts, not by the power of the Holy Spirit obtained by the faith of piety, or by the love of intelligible beauty, but by desire for human praise, or, at all events, restrain them better by the love of such praise, are indeed not yet holy, but only less base. Even Tully was not able to conceal this fact; for, in the same books which he wrote, De Republica, when speaking about the education of a chief of the state, who ought, he says, to be nourished on glory, he goes on to say that their ancestors did many wonderful and illustrious things through desire for glory. So far, therefore, from resisting this vice, they even thought that it ought to be aroused and kindled, supposing that this would be beneficial to the republic. But not even in his books on philosophy does Tully disguise this poisonous opinion, for there he declares it more plainly than daylight. For when he is speaking of those studies which are to be pursued with a view to the true good, and not with the vainglorious desire for human praise, he introduces the following universal and general statement: “Honor nourishes the arts, and all are stimulated to pursue studies by glory; and those pursuits are always neglected which are generally discredited.”

It is, therefore, doubtless far better to resist this desire than to yield to it, for the purer one is from this defilement, the more like God he is; and, though this vice is not thoroughly eradicated from his heart — for it does not cease to tempt even the minds of those who are making good progress in virtue — at any rate, let the desire for glory be surpassed by the love of righteousness, so that, if there are seen anywhere “lying neglected things which are generally discredited,” if they are good, if they are right, even the love of human praise may blush and yield to the love of truth. For this vice is so hostile to pious faith, if the love of glory is greater in the heart than the fear or love of God, that the Lord said, “How can you believe, who look for glory from one another, and do not seek the glory which is from God alone?” John 5:44 Also, concerning some who had believed in Him, but were afraid to confess Him openly, the evangelist says, “They loved the praise of men more than the praise of God;” John 12:43 which the holy apostles did not do, who, when they proclaimed the name of Christ in those places where it was not only discredited, and therefore neglected — as Cicero says, “Those things are always neglected which are generally discredited,” — but was even held in the utmost detestation, holding to what they had heard from the Good Master, who was also the physician of minds, “If anyone denies me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven, and before the angels of God,” Matthew 10:33 amid curses and reproaches, and most grievous persecutions and cruel punishments, were not deterred from the preaching of human salvation by the noise of human indignation. And when, as they did and spoke divine things, and lived divine lives, conquering, as it were, hard hearts, and introducing into them the peace of righteousness, great glory followed them in the church of Christ, they did not rest in that as in the end of their virtue, but, referring that glory itself to the glory of God, by whose grace they were what they were, they sought also to kindle with that same flame, in the minds of those whose good they served, the love of Him, by whom they could be made to be what they themselves were. For their Master had taught them not to seek to be good for the sake of human glory, saying, “Take care that you do not do your righteousness before men to be seen by them, otherwise you shall not have a reward from your Father who is in heaven.” Matthew 6:1 But again, so that they would not, understanding this wrongly, be less useful through concealing their goodness for fear of pleasing men, showing for what purpose they ought to make it known, He says, “Let your works shine before men, so that they may see your good deeds, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” Matthew 5:16 Not, observe, “that you may be seen by them, that is, in order that their eyes may be directed at you,”— for of yourselves you are nothing — but “that they may glorify your Father who is in heaven,” so that by fixing their gaze on Him they may become what you are. The martyrs followed these words, who surpassed the Scævolas, and the Curtiuses, and the Deciuses, both in true virtue, because they excelled in true piety, and also in the greatness of their number. But since those Romans were in an earthly city, and had before them, as the end of all the offices undertaken on its behalf, its safety, and a kingdom, not in heaven, but on earth — not in the sphere of eternal life, but in the sphere of demise and succession, where the dead are succeeded by the dying — what else but glory would they love, by which they wished even after death to live in the mouths of their admirers?

Now, therefore, with regard to those to whom God did not intend to give eternal life with His holy angels in His own celestial city, into whose society they are led by that true piety which offers the service of religion, which the Greeks call λατρεία, to no one but the true God, if He had also withheld from them the terrestrial glory of that most excellent empire, a reward would not have been given to their good arts — that is, their virtues — by which they sought to attain such great glory. For as to those who seem to do some good so that they may receive glory from men, the Lord also says, “Truly I say to you, they have received their reward.” Matthew 6:2 So also these despised their own private affairs for the sake of the republic, and for its treasury resisted avarice, looked after the good of their country with a free spirit, given over neither to what their laws pronounced a crime nor to lust. By all these acts, as by the true way, they pressed forward to honors, power, and glory; they were honored among almost all nations; they imposed the laws of their empire on many nations; and to this day, both in literature and history, they are glorious among almost all nations. There is no reason why they should complain against the justice of the supreme and true God —“they have received their reward.”

But the reward of the saints, who even here endured reproaches for that city of God which is hateful to the lovers of this world, is far different. That city is eternal. There none are born, for none die. There is true and full felicity — not a goddess, but a gift of God. From there we receive the pledge of faith while on our pilgrimage we sigh for its beauty. There the sun does not rise on the good and the evil, but the Sun of Righteousness protects the good alone. There no great effort will be spent to enrich the public treasury by suffering privations at home, for there is the common treasury of truth. And, therefore, it was not only for the sake of rewarding the citizens of Rome that her empire and glory had been so remarkably extended, but also that the citizens of that eternal city, during their pilgrimage here, might diligently and soberly contemplate these examples, and see what a love they owe to the heavenly country on account of eternal life, if the terrestrial country was so much loved by its citizens on account of human glory.

For, as far as this life of mortals is concerned, which is spent and ended in a few days, what does it matter under whose government a dying man lives, if those who govern do not force him to impiety and iniquity? Did the Romans harm those nations at all, on whom, when subjugated, they imposed their laws, except insofar as that was accomplished with great slaughter in war? If it had been done with the consent of the nations, it would have been done with greater success, but there would have been no glory of conquest, for the Romans themselves did not live exempt from those laws which they imposed on others. If this had been done without Mars and Bellona, so that there would have been no place for victory, no one conquering where no one had fought, would not the condition of the Romans and of the other nations have been one and the same, especially if that had been done at once which was done afterward most humanely and most acceptably, namely, the admission of all to the rights of Roman citizens who belonged to the Roman empire, and if that had been made the privilege of all which was formerly the privilege of a few, with this one condition, that the humbler class who had no lands of their own should live at the public expense — a levy for food, which they would have paid much more gracefully into the hands of good administrators of the republic, of which they were members, by their own hearty consent, than if it had to be extorted from them as conquered men? For I do not see what difference it makes to the safety and good morals of men, and certainly not to their dignity, that some have conquered and others have been conquered, except that it yields them that most insane pomp of human glory, in which those who burned with excessive desire for it, and waged the most eager wars, “have received their reward.” For do not their lands pay tribute? Have they any privilege of learning what the others are not privileged to learn? Are there not many senators in the other countries who do not even know Rome by sight? Take away outward show, and what are all men after all but men? But even if the perversity of the age were to permit all the better men to be more highly honored than others, even so human honor should not be held at a great price, for it is smoke which has no weight. But let us avail ourselves even in these things of the kindness of God. Let us consider what great things they despised, what great things they endured, what lusts they subdued for the sake of human glory, who merited that glory, as it were, in reward for such virtues; and let this be useful to us even in suppressing pride, so that, as that city in which we have been promised to reign as far surpasses this one as heaven is distant from the earth, as eternal life surpasses temporal joy, solid glory empty praise, or the society of angels the society of mortals, or the glory of Him who made the sun and moon the light of the sun and moon, the citizens of so great a country may not seem to themselves to have done anything very great, if, in order to obtain it, they have done some good works or endured some evils, when those men did such great things and suffered such great things for this terrestrial country, which they had already obtained. And all these things are especially to be considered, because the remission of sins which collects citizens to the celestial country has something in it to which a shadowy resemblance is found in that asylum of Romulus, where escape from the punishment of all kinds of crimes gathered together that multitude with which the state was to be founded.

Is it, then, any great thing for that eternal and celestial city to despise all the charms of this world, however pleasant, if for the sake of this terrestrial city Brutus could even put his son to death — a sacrifice which the heavenly city compels no one to make? But it is certainly more difficult to put one's sons to death than to do what must be done for the heavenly country, even to distribute to the poor those things which were regarded as things to be amassed and stored up for one's children, or to let them go, if any temptation arises that compels us to do so, for the sake of faith and righteousness. For it is not earthly riches which make us or our sons happy; for they must either be lost by us in our lifetime, or be possessed when we are dead, by people we do not know, or perhaps by people we would not choose. But it is God, the true riches of minds, who makes us happy. But as for Brutus, even the poet who sings his praises testifies that killing his son was a source of unhappiness to him, for he says, And call his own rebellious seed / For menaced liberty to bleed. / Unhappy father! howsoe'er / The deed be judged by after days. / But in the following verse he consoles him in his unhappiness, saying, / “His country's love shall all o'erbear.” There are those two things, namely, liberty and the desire of human praise, which compelled the Romans to admirable deeds. If, therefore, for the liberty of dying men, and for the desire of human praise which is sought after by mortals, sons could be put to death by a father, is it any great thing if, for the true liberty which has made us free from the dominion of sin, and death, and the devil — not through the desire of human praise, but through the earnest desire to free men, not from King Tarquin, but from demons and the prince of the demons — we were, I do not say to put our sons to death, but to count Christ's poor ones among our sons? If, also, another Roman chief, surnamed Torquatus, killed his son, not because he fought against his country, but because, when challenged by an enemy, he fought with youthful impetuosity, for his country indeed, but against orders which he, his father, had given as general; and this he did, even though his son was victorious, so that there would not be more evil in the example of authority despised, than good in the glory of killing an enemy — if, I say, Torquatus acted this way, why should those boast who, for the laws of a celestial country, despise all earthly good things, which are loved far less than sons? If Furius Camillus, who was condemned by those who envied him, even though he had thrown off from the necks of his countrymen the yoke of their most bitter enemies, the Veientes, again delivered his ungrateful country from the Gauls, because he had no other country in which he could have better opportunities for living a life of glory — if Camillus did this, why should anyone be praised as having done some great thing if, having perhaps suffered the most grievous and dishonoring injury in the church at the hands of carnal enemies, he has not gone over to heretical enemies or raised some heresy against her himself, but has instead defended her, as far as he was able, from the most pernicious perversity of heretics, since there is no other church, I do not say in which one can live a life of glory, but in which eternal life can be obtained? If Mucius, so that peace might be made with King Porsenna, who was pressing the Romans with a most grievous war, when he failed to kill Porsenna and killed another man in his place by mistake, stretched out his right hand and laid it on a red-hot altar, saying that many men like the one he saw before him had conspired to destroy him, so that Porsenna, terrified at his daring, and at the thought of a conspiracy of men like him, at once abandoned all his warlike plans, and made peace — if, I say, Mucius did this, who will speak of a man's meritorious claims to the kingdom of heaven if for it he has given to the flames not one hand, but even his whole body, and that not of his own accord, but because he was persecuted by another? If Curtius, spurring on his horse, threw himself in full armor into a precipitous gulf, obeying the oracles of their gods, which had commanded that the Romans should throw into that gulf the best thing they possessed, and they could take this only to mean that, since they excelled in men and arms, the gods had commanded that an armed man should be cast headlong into that destruction — if he did this, shall we say that a man has done a great thing for the eternal city if he has died a similar death, not, however, throwing himself into a gulf of his own accord, but having suffered this death at the hands of some enemy of his faith, especially when he has received from his Lord, who is also King of his country, a more certain oracle, “Do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul?” Matthew 10:28 If the Decii dedicated themselves to death, consecrating themselves, as it were, in a set form of words, so that by falling and appeasing the anger of the gods with their blood they might be the means of delivering the Roman army — if they did this, let the holy martyrs not carry themselves proudly, as though they had done some meritorious thing for a share in that country where eternal life and happiness are, if even to the shedding of their blood, loving not only the brothers for whom it was shed, but, as they had been commanded, even their enemies by whom it was being shed, they have vied with one another in faith of love and love of faith. If Marcus Pulvillus, when engaged in dedicating a temple to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, received with such indifference the false news brought to him of his son's death, which was meant to agitate him so much that he would go away and the glory of dedicating the temple would fall to his colleague;— if he received that news with such indifference that he even ordered that his son should be cast out unburied, the love of glory having overcome in his heart the grief of bereavement, how can anyone claim that he has done a great thing for the preaching of the gospel, by which the citizens of the heavenly city are delivered from various errors and gathered together from various wanderings, a man to whom his Lord has said, when he was anxious about burying his father, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead?” Matthew 8:22 Regulus, in order not to break his oath, even with his most cruel enemies, returned to them from Rome itself, because (as he is said to have replied to the Romans when they wanted to keep him) he could not have the dignity of an honorable citizen at Rome after having been a slave to the Africans, and the Carthaginians put him to death with the most extreme tortures, because he had spoken against them in the senate. If Regulus acted this way, what tortures should we not despise for the sake of good faith toward that country to whose blessedness faith itself leads? Or what will a man have repaid the Lord for all He has bestowed on him if, for the faithfulness he owes to Him, he has suffered the kind of things Regulus suffered at the hands of his most ruthless enemies for the good faith which he owed to them? And how will a Christian dare to boast of his voluntary poverty, which he has chosen in order that during the pilgrimage of this life he may walk more unencumbered on the way which leads to the country where the true riches are, even God Himself — how, I say, will he boast of this, when he hears or reads that Lucius Valerius, who died when he was holding the office of consul, was so poor that his funeral expenses were paid with money collected by the people?— or when he hears that Quintius Cincinnatus, possessing only four acres of land, and cultivating them with his own hands, was taken from the plow to be made dictator, — an office more honorable even than that of consul — and that, after having won great glory by conquering the enemy, he still preferred to continue in his poverty? Or how can someone boast of having done a great thing because he has not been persuaded by the offer of any reward of this world to renounce his connection with that heavenly and eternal country, when he hears that Fabricius could not be persuaded to forsake the Roman city by the great gifts offered to him by Pyrrhus, king of the Epirots, who promised him the fourth part of his kingdom, but preferred to remain there in his poverty as a private individual? For if, when their republic — that is, the interest of the people, the interest of the country, the common interest, — was most prosperous and wealthy, they themselves were so poor in their own houses, that one of them, who had already been twice a consul, was expelled from that senate of poor men by the censor, because he was found to own ten pounds of silver plate — since, I say, those very men by whose triumphs the public treasury was enriched were so poor, ought not all Christians, who make common property of their riches with a far nobler purpose, namely that (according to what is written in the Acts of the Apostles) they may distribute to each one according to his need, and that no one may say that anything is his own, but that all things may be their common possession, Acts 2:45 — ought they not to understand that they should not boast, because they do that to obtain the society of angels, when those men did nearly the same thing to preserve the glory of the Romans? How could these, and whatever like things are found in the Roman history, have become so widely known, and have been proclaimed with such great renown, if the Roman empire, extending far and wide, had not been raised to its greatness by magnificent successes? Therefore, through that empire, so extensive and so long-lasting, so illustrious and glorious also through the virtues of such great men, the reward they sought was given to their earnest aspirations, and examples are also set before us, containing necessary admonition, in order that we may be stung with shame if we see that we have not held fast, for the sake of the most glorious city of God, those virtues which are in some way resembled by the virtues they held fast for the sake of the glory of a terrestrial city, and also so that, if we are conscious of having held them fast, we may not be lifted up with pride, because, as the apostle says, “The sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory which shall be revealed in us.” Romans 8:18 But so far as regards human and temporal glory, the lives of these ancient Romans were considered worthy enough. Therefore, also, we see, in the light of that truth which, veiled in the Old Testament, is revealed in the New, namely, that it is not in view of terrestrial and temporal benefits, which divine providence grants indiscriminately to good and evil, that God is to be worshiped, but in view of eternal life, everlasting gifts, and of the society of the heavenly city itself — in the light of this truth we see that the Jews were most righteously given as a trophy to the glory of the Romans; for we see that these Romans, who rested on earthly glory, and sought to obtain it by virtues, such as they were, conquered those who, in their great depravity, killed and rejected the giver of true glory, and of the eternal city.

There is certainly a difference between the desire for human glory and the desire for domination; for, though anyone who takes an overweening delight in human glory will also be very prone to aspire earnestly to domination, nevertheless those who desire the true glory even of human praise strive not to displease those who judge well of them. For there are many good moral qualities, of which many are competent judges, although they are not possessed by many; and it is by those good moral qualities that men press on to glory, honor and domination — the men of whom Sallust says, “But they press on by the true way.” But whoever, without possessing that desire for glory which makes one fear to displease those who judge his conduct, desires domination and power, very often seeks to obtain what he loves by the most open crimes. Therefore he who desires glory presses on to obtain it either by the true way, or certainly by deceit and artifice, wishing to appear good when he is not. Therefore, for anyone who possesses virtues, it is a great virtue to despise glory; for contempt of it is seen by God, but is not manifest to human judgment. For whatever anyone does before the eyes of men in order to show himself to be a despiser of glory, if they suspect that he is doing it in order to get greater praise — that is, greater glory — he has no means of proving to the perceptions of those who suspect him that the case is really different from what they suspect. But whoever despises the judgment of those who praise him also despises the rashness of those who suspect him. He does not, however, despise their salvation, if he is truly good; for the righteousness of the man who receives his virtues from the Spirit of God is so great that he loves his very enemies, and so loves them that he desires that his haters and detractors may be turned to righteousness, and become his associates, and this not in an earthly country but in a heavenly one. But as for those who praise him, though he sets little value on their praise, he does not set little value on their love; nor does he evade their praise, for fear of forfeiting their love. And so he strives earnestly to have their praises directed to Him from whom everyone receives whatever is truly praiseworthy in him. But one who despises glory yet is greedy for domination, exceeds the beasts in the vices of cruelty and luxuriousness. Some of the Romans were indeed like this: lacking the love of esteem, they did not lack the thirst for domination; and history testifies that there were many such men. But it was Nero Cæsar who was the first to reach the summit, and, as it were, the citadel, of this vice; for his luxuriousness was so great that one would have thought there was nothing manly to be feared in him, and his cruelty so great that, if the contrary had not been known, no one would have thought there was anything effeminate in his character. Nevertheless power and domination are not given even to such men except by the providence of the most high God, when He judges that the state of human affairs is worthy of such lords. The divine utterance is clear on this matter; for the Wisdom of God says: “By me kings reign, and tyrants possess the land.” Proverbs 8:15 But so that no one may think that “tyrants” means brave men rather than wicked and impious kings, in accordance with the ancient use of the word, as when Virgil says, For know that treaty may not stand / Where king greets king and joins not hand, in another place it is most unambiguously said of God, that He “makes the man who is a hypocrite to reign on account of the perversity of the people.” Job 34:30 Therefore, though I have, according to my ability, shown for what reason God, who alone is true and just, advanced the Romans, who were good according to a certain standard of an earthly state, to the attainment of the glory of so great an empire, there may be, nevertheless, a more hidden cause, known better to God than to us, depending on the diversity of the merits of the human race. Among all who are truly pious, it is in any case agreed that no one without true piety — that is, true worship of the true God — can have true virtue; and that a virtue which is the slave of human praise is not true virtue. Even so, those who are not citizens of the eternal city, which is called the city of God in the sacred Scriptures, are more useful to the earthly city when they possess even that virtue than if they did not have even that. But there could be nothing more fortunate for human affairs than that, by the mercy of God, those who are endowed with true piety of life, if they have the skill for ruling people, should also have the power. But such men, however great the virtues they may possess in this life, attribute it solely to the grace of God that He has bestowed it on them — willing, believing, seeking. And, at the same time, they understand how far they fall short of that perfection of righteousness which exists in the society of those holy angels for which they are striving to fit themselves. But however much that virtue which without true piety is the slave of human glory may be praised and extolled, it cannot be compared at all even to the feeble beginnings of the virtue of the saints, whose hope is placed in the grace and mercy of the true God.

Philosophers — who place the end of human good in virtue itself, in order to put to shame certain other philosophers, who indeed approve of the virtues, but measure them all with reference to the end of bodily pleasure, and think that this pleasure is to be sought for its own sake, but the virtues on account of pleasure — are accustomed to paint a kind of word-picture, in which Pleasure sits like a luxurious queen on a royal seat, and all the virtues are subjected to her as slaves, watching for her nod, so that they may do whatever she commands. She commands Prudence to be always on the watch to discover how Pleasure may rule, and be safe. She orders Justice to grant what benefits she can, in order to secure those friendships which are necessary for bodily pleasure; to do wrong to no one, for fear that, on account of the breaking of the laws, Pleasure may not be able to live in security. She orders Fortitude to keep her mistress, that is, Pleasure, bravely in her mind, if any affliction that does not cause death happens to her body, so that by remembering former delights she may mitigate the poignancy of present pain. She commands Temperance to take only a certain quantity even of her favorite food, for fear that, through immoderate use, anything might prove harmful by disturbing the health of the body, and thus Pleasure, which the Epicureans make to consist chiefly in the health of the body, might be grievously offended. Thus the virtues, with the whole dignity of their glory, will be the slaves of Pleasure, as of some imperious and disreputable woman. There is nothing, say our philosophers, more disgraceful and monstrous than this picture, nothing the eyes of good men can endure less. And they are right. But I do not think that the picture would be sufficiently becoming, even if it were made so that the virtues were represented as the slaves of human glory; for, though that glory is not a luxurious woman, it is nevertheless puffed up, and has much vanity in it. Therefore it is unworthy of the solidity and firmness of the virtues to represent them as serving this glory, so that Prudence provides nothing, Justice distributes nothing, Temperance moderates nothing, except so that men may be pleased and vain glory served. Nor will they be able to defend themselves from the charge of such baseness, while they, by way of despising glory, disregard the judgment of other men, seem to themselves wise, and please themselves. For their virtue — if, indeed, it is virtue at all — is only in another way subjected to human praise; for he who seeks to please himself is still seeking to please man. But he who, with true piety toward God, whom he loves, believes, and hopes in, fixes his attention more on those things in which he displeases himself, than on those things, if there are any such, which please him, or rather, not him, but the truth, attributes that by which he can now please the truth to nothing but the mercy of Him whom he has feared to displease, giving thanks for what in him is healed, and pouring out prayers for the healing of what is still unhealed.

These things being so, we do not attribute the power of giving kingdoms and empires to anyone except the true God, who gives happiness in the kingdom of heaven to the pious alone, but gives kingly power on earth both to the pious and the impious, as it pleases Him, whose good pleasure is always just. For though we have said something about the principles which guide His administration, insofar as He has seen fit to explain it, nevertheless it is too much for us, and far surpasses our strength, to discuss the hidden things of men's hearts, and to determine by a clear examination the merits of various kingdoms. He, therefore, who is the one true God, who never leaves the human race without just judgment and help, gave a kingdom to the Romans when He willed, and as great as He willed, as He did also to the Assyrians, and even the Persians, by whom, as their own books testify, only two gods are worshipped, the one good and the other evil — to say nothing of the Hebrew people, of whom I have already spoken as much as seemed necessary, who, as long as they were a kingdom, worshipped none but the true God. The same God, therefore, who gave the Persians harvests, though they did not worship the goddess Segetia, who gave the other blessings of the earth, though they did not worship the many gods which the Romans supposed to preside, each one over some particular thing, or even many of them over each single thing — He, I say, gave the Persians dominion, though they worshipped none of those gods to whom the Romans believed themselves indebted for the empire. And the same is true with respect to men as well as nations. He who gave power to Marius gave it also to Caius Cæsar; He who gave it to Augustus gave it also to Nero; He also who gave it to the most benevolent emperors, the Vespasians, father and son, gave it also to the cruel Domitian; and, finally, to avoid the necessity of going over them all, He who gave it to the Christian Constantine gave it also to the apostate Julian, whose gifted mind was deceived by a sacrilegious and detestable curiosity, stimulated by the love of power. And it was because he was addicted through curiosity to vain oracles that, confident of victory, he burned the ships which were laden with the provisions necessary for his army, and therefore, engaging with hot zeal in rashly audacious enterprises, he was soon killed, as the just consequence of his recklessness, and left his army unprovisioned in an enemy's country, and in such a predicament that it never could have escaped, except by altering the boundaries of the Roman empire, in violation of that omen of the god Terminus of which I spoke in the preceding book; for the god Terminus yielded to necessity, though he had not yielded to Jupiter. Manifestly these things are ruled and governed by the one God as He pleases; and if His motives are hidden, are they therefore unjust?

Thus also the durations of wars are determined by Him as He sees fit, according to His righteous will, and pleasure, and mercy, to afflict or to console the human race, so that they are sometimes of longer, sometimes of shorter duration. The war of the Pirates and the third Punic war were ended with incredible speed. Also the war of the fugitive gladiators, though in it many Roman generals and the consuls were defeated, and Italy was terribly wasted and ravaged, was nevertheless ended in the third year, having itself been, while it lasted, the end of much. The Picentes, the Marsi, and the Peligni, nations not distant but Italian, after a long and most loyal servitude under the Roman yoke, attempted to raise their heads into liberty, though many nations had now been subjected to the Roman power, and Carthage had been overthrown. In this Italian war the Romans were very often defeated, and two consuls perished, besides other noble senators; nevertheless this calamity was not drawn out over a long time, for the fifth year put an end to it. But the second Punic war, lasting eighteen years, and causing the greatest disasters and calamities to the republic, wore out and nearly consumed the strength of the Romans; for in two battles about seventy thousand Romans fell. The first Punic war ended after being waged for twenty-three years. The Mithridatic war was waged for forty years. And that no one may think that in the early and much praised times of the Romans they were far braver and more able to bring wars to a speedy end, the Samnite war dragged on for nearly fifty years; and in this war the Romans were so beaten that they were even put under the yoke. But because they did not love glory for the sake of justice, but seemed rather to have loved justice for the sake of glory, they broke the peace and the treaty which had been concluded. These things I mention, because many, ignorant of the past, and some also concealing what they know, if in Christian times they see any war protracted a little longer than they expected, at once make a fierce and insolent attack on our religion, exclaiming that, if not for it, the deities would still have been entreated, according to ancient rites; and then, by that bravery of the Romans, which, with the help of Mars and Bellona, quickly brought to an end such great wars, this war also would be quickly ended. Let those, therefore, who have read history recall what long-continued wars, having various issues and bringing terrible slaughter, were waged by the ancient Romans, in accordance with the general truth that the earth, like the stormy sea, is subject to agitations from tempests — tempests of such evils, in various degrees — and let them sometimes confess what they do not like to admit, and not, by madly speaking against God, destroy themselves and deceive the ignorant.

Nevertheless they do not mention with thanksgiving what God has very recently, and within our own memory, wonderfully and mercifully done, but as far as they can they attempt, if possible, to bury it in universal oblivion. But if we were silent about these things, we would be just as ungrateful. When Radagaisus, king of the Goths, having taken up his position very near to the city, with a vast and savage army, was already close upon the Romans, he was in one day so speedily and so thoroughly beaten, that, while not even one Roman was wounded, much less killed, far more than a hundred thousand of his army were struck down, and he himself and his sons, having been captured, were immediately put to death, suffering the punishment they deserved. For if so impious a man, with so great and so impious a host, had entered the city, whom would he have spared? What tombs of the martyrs would he have respected? Toward what person would he have shown the fear of God? Whose blood would he have refrained from shedding? Whose chastity would he have wished to preserve inviolate? But how loudly they would have praised their gods! How insultingly they would have boasted, saying that Radagaisus had conquered, that he had been able to achieve such great things, because he propitiated and won over the gods by daily sacrifices — a thing which the Christian religion did not allow the Romans to do! For as he was approaching the places where he was overwhelmed at the nod of the Supreme Majesty, as reports of him spread everywhere, we were being told at Carthage that the pagans were believing, publishing, and boasting, that he, on account of the help and protection of the gods friendly to him, because of the sacrifices which he was said to be daily offering to them, would certainly not be conquered by those who were not performing such sacrifices to the Roman gods, and did not even permit anyone to offer them. And now these wretched men do not give thanks to God for his great mercy, who, having determined to chastise the corruption of men, which was worthy of far heavier chastisement than the corruption of the barbarians, tempered His indignation with such mildness that He first caused the king of the Goths to be conquered in a wonderful manner, so that no glory would accrue to the demons he was known to be supplicating, and the minds of the weak would not be overthrown in this way; and then afterward, when Rome was to be taken, He caused it to be taken by those barbarians who, contrary to the custom of all former wars, protected, through reverence for the Christian religion, those who fled for refuge to the sacred places, and who so opposed the demons themselves, and the rites of impious sacrifices, that they seemed to be carrying on a far more terrible war with them than with men. Thus the true Lord and Governor of things both scourged the Romans mercifully and, by the marvelous defeat of the worshippers of demons, showed that those sacrifices were not necessary even for the safety of present things; so that, those who do not obstinately hold out, but prudently consider the matter, may not desert true religion on account of the urgencies of the present time, but may cling to it all the more in the most confident expectation of eternal life.

For we do not say that certain Christian emperors were happy because they ruled a long time, or, dying a peaceful death, left their sons to succeed them in the empire, or subdued the enemies of the republic, or were able both to guard against and to suppress the attempt of hostile citizens rising against them. Even certain worshippers of demons, who do not belong to the kingdom of God to which these emperors belong, have merited to receive these and other gifts or comforts of this sorrowful life; and this is to be traced to the mercy of God, who does not want those who believe in Him to desire such things as the highest good. But we say that they are happy if they rule justly; if they are not made proud by the praises of those who pay them sublime honors, and the obsequiousness of those who salute them with an excessive humility, but remember that they are men; if they make their power the servant of His majesty by using it for the greatest possible extension of His worship; if they fear, love, worship God; if they love that kingdom more than their own in which they are not afraid to have partners; if they are slow to punish, ready to pardon; if they apply punishment as necessary to the government and defense of the republic, and not in order to gratify their own enmity; if they grant pardon, not that iniquity may go unpunished, but with the hope that the transgressor may amend his ways; if they compensate with the gentleness of mercy and the liberality of benevolence for whatever severity they may be compelled to decree; if their luxury is as much restrained as it might have been unrestrained; if they prefer to govern depraved desires rather than any nation whatever; and if they do all these things, not through ardent desire of empty glory, but through love of eternal happiness, not neglecting to offer to the true God, who is their God, for their sins, the sacrifices of humility, contrition, and prayer. Such Christian emperors, we say, are happy in the present time by hope, and are destined to be so in the enjoyment of the reality itself, when what we wait for has arrived.

For the good God, so that men who believe that He is to be worshipped for the sake of eternal life would not think that no one could attain all this high estate and this earthly dominion unless he were a worshipper of the demons — supposing that these spirits have great power with respect to such things — for this reason He gave to the Emperor Constantine, who was not a worshipper of demons, but of the true God Himself, such fullness of earthly gifts as no one would even dare wish for. To him also He granted the honor of founding a city, a companion to the Roman empire, the daughter, as it were, of Rome itself, but without any temple or image of the demons. He reigned for a long time as sole emperor, and unaided held and defended the whole Roman world. In conducting and carrying on wars he was most victorious; in overthrowing tyrants he was most successful. He died at a great age, of sickness and old age, and left his sons to succeed him in the empire. But again, so that no emperor would become a Christian in order to merit the happiness of Constantine, when everyone ought to be a Christian for the sake of eternal life, God took away Jovian far sooner than Julian, and permitted Gratian to be killed by the sword of a tyrant. But in his case there was far more mitigation of the calamity than in the case of the great Pompey, for he could not be avenged by Cato, whom he had left, as it were, heir to the civil war. But Gratian, though pious minds do not require such consolations, was avenged by Theodosius, whom he had associated with himself in the empire, though he had a little brother of his own, since he desired a faithful alliance more than extensive power.

And on this account, Theodosius not only kept the loyalty due to Gratian during his lifetime, but also, after his death, like a true Christian, took his little brother Valentinian under his protection, as joint emperor, after he had been expelled by Maximus, the murderer of his father. He guarded him with paternal affection, though he could easily have gotten rid of him, since the boy had no resources at all, had he been driven by the desire for a vast empire rather than by the ambition to be a benefactor. So, having adopted the boy and preserved his imperial dignity for him, he took far greater pleasure in consoling him with his very humanity and kindness. Afterward, when that success was making Maximus formidable, Theodosius, in the midst of his perplexing anxieties, was not drawn away to follow the suggestions of a sacrilegious and unlawful curiosity, but sent to John, who lived in the desert of Egypt — for he had learned that this servant of God (whose reputation was spreading far and wide) was endowed with the gift of prophecy — and from him he received assurance of victory. As soon as he had killed the tyrant Maximus, Theodosius, with the deepest feelings of compassion and respect, restored the boy Valentinianus to his share in the empire from which he had been driven. When Valentinianus was killed soon after by secret assassination, or by some other plot or accident, Theodosius, having again received a response from the prophet, and placing entire confidence in it, marched against the tyrant Eugenius, who had been unlawfully elected to succeed that emperor, and defeated his very powerful army, more by prayer than by the sword. Some soldiers who were at the battle reported to me that all the missiles they were throwing were snatched from their hands by a vehement wind, which blew from the direction of Theodosius' army onto the enemy; it not only drove the darts hurled against them with greater speed, but also turned back onto their own bodies the darts they themselves were throwing. And therefore the poet Claudian, although a stranger to the name of Christ, nevertheless says in his praises of him, “Prince, too dearly loved by God, for you Æolus pours armed tempests from their caves; for you the air fights, and the winds with one accord obey your bugles.” But the victor, as he had believed and predicted, overthrew the statues of Jupiter, which had been, as it were, consecrated against him by rites of some kind, I do not know what, and set up in the Alps. And he cheerfully and graciously presented the thunderbolts of these statues, which were made of gold, to his couriers, who (as the joy of the occasion permitted) were jokingly saying that they would be most happy to be struck by such thunderbolts. When the sons of his own enemies, whose fathers had been killed not so much by his orders as by the violence of war, fled for refuge to a church, though they were not yet Christians, he was eager to take advantage of the occasion to bring them over to Christianity, and treated them with Christian love. Nor did he deprive them of their property, but, besides letting them keep it, gave them further honors. He did not permit private animosities to affect the treatment of any man after the war. He was not like Cinna, and Marius, and Sylla, and other such men, who did not want to end civil wars even when they were over; rather, he grieved that they had arisen at all more than he wished them to harm anyone once they were over. Amid all these events, from the very beginning of his reign, he did not stop helping the troubled church, which the heretical Valens, favoring the Arians, had severely afflicted, against the impious by the most just and merciful laws. Indeed, he rejoiced more to be a member of this church than to be a king on earth. He ordered the idols of the Gentiles to be overthrown everywhere, understanding well that not even earthly gifts are placed in the power of demons, but in the power of the true God. And what could be more admirable than his religious humility, when, pressed by the urging of some of his close associates, he avenged the grievous crime of the Thessalonians, which at the prayer of the bishops he had promised to pardon, and, being brought under the discipline of the church, did penance in such a way that the sight of his imperial majesty lying prostrate made the people who were interceding for him weep more than their awareness of their offense had made them fear that majesty when it was enraged? These and other similar good works, which would take too long to tell, he carried with him from this world of time, where the greatest human nobility and loftiness are only vapor. The reward of these works is eternal happiness, of which God is the giver, though only to those who are sincerely pious. But all other blessings and privileges of this life, such as the world itself, light, air, earth, water, fruits, and the soul of man himself, his body, senses, mind, life — these He lavishes on good and bad alike. Among these blessings must also be counted the possession of an empire, whose extent He regulates according to the requirements of His providential government at various times. So, I see, we must now answer those who, refuted and convicted by the clearest proofs, which show that that multitude of false gods is of no use for obtaining these earthly things, which are all the foolish desire to have, attempt to assert that the gods are to be worshipped for the sake not of the present life but of the life to come after death. As for those who, for the sake of the friendship of this world, are willing to worship vanities, and do not grieve that they are left to their childish understanding, I think they have been sufficiently answered in these five books. When I had published the first three of them, and they had begun to come into the hands of many, I heard that certain persons were preparing some kind of written answer to them. Then I was told that they had already written their answer, but were waiting for a time when they could publish it without danger. I would advise such persons not to desire what cannot be of any advantage to them; for it is very easy for a man to seem to himself to have answered arguments, when he has only been unwilling to be silent. For what is more loquacious than vanity? And though it can, if it likes, shout more loudly than the truth, it is not, for all that, more powerful than the truth. But let people carefully consider all the things that we have said, and if, perhaps, judging without partisanship, they clearly see that these are things that can at most be shaken, not torn up, by their most impudent garrulity, and, as it were, satirical and mimic levity, let them restrain their absurdities, and let them choose to be corrected by the wise rather than praised by the foolish. For if they are waiting for an opportunity, not for liberty to speak the truth, but for license to revile, may what Tully says about someone not happen to them, “Oh, wretched man! Who was at liberty to sin?” Therefore, whoever considers himself happy because he has license to revile, he would be far happier if that were not allowed him at all; for all the while he could, laying aside empty boasting, be contradicting those to whose views he is opposed by way of free consultation with them, and be listening, as is fitting for him, honorably, gravely, candidly, to all that can be adduced by those whom he consults by friendly disputation.