City of God 4.20–4.29

Chapter 20. On Virtue and Faith, which the pagans honored with temples and rites while passing over other goods which should likewise have been worshipped, if divinity was rightly attributed to the former.

They made Virtue a goddess too; and if she were a goddess, she would have been preferable to many. And now, because she is not a goddess but a gift of God, let her be sought from him by whom alone she can be given, and the whole crowd of false gods will vanish. But why was Faith too believed to be a goddess and given a temple and altar of her own? Whoever recognizes her wisely makes himself a dwelling for her. But how do they know what faith is, whose first and greatest duty is that the true God be believed in? But why was Virtue not enough? Is not Faith there too? Since they saw that virtue is to be divided into four kinds, prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance; and since each of these kinds has its own subdivisions, faith is among the parts of justice, and holds the greatest place among us, all who know what it means that “the just lives by faith.” But I wonder at these seekers of a multitude of gods: if faith is a goddess, why did they wrong so many other goddesses by passing them over, to whom they could likewise have dedicated temples and altars? Why did temperance not deserve to be a goddess, when some Roman leaders won no small glory in her name? Why, finally, is fortitude not a goddess, who stood by Mucius when he held out his right hand in the flames; who stood by Curtius when he threw himself headlong for his country into the chasm in the earth; who stood by Decius the father and Decius the son when they devoted themselves for the army? If indeed there was true fortitude in all these, which is not the question now. Why did prudence, why did wisdom, deserve no places among the deities? Or is it because they are all worshipped under the general name of virtue itself? Then in this way the one God too could be worshipped, of whom the other gods are thought to be parts. But in that one virtue there are also faith and chastity, which nevertheless earned altars outside it, in temples of their own.

Chapter 21. That, not understanding the one God, they ought at least to have been content with Virtue and Felicity.

Not truth but vanity makes these goddesses; for these are gifts of the true God, not goddesses themselves. Yet where there are virtue and felicity, what else is sought? What suffices for someone for whom virtue and felicity do not suffice? For virtue embraces all that is to be done, felicity all that is to be wished for. If Jupiter was worshipped so that he might give these things (because, if breadth and duration of rule are something good, they belong to that same felicity), why was it not understood that they are gifts of God, not goddesses? But if they were thought goddesses, at least that other great crowd of gods would not have been sought. For, considering the functions of all the gods and goddesses which they invented as they wished according to their opinion, let them find, if they can, anything that could be given by any god to a man who has virtue and has felicity. What learning would have to be sought from Mercury or from Minerva, when virtue would have everything with it? For virtue was defined by the ancients as the very art of living well and rightly. Hence they thought that the Latins derived the word ars (art) from the Greek word for virtue, aretē. But if virtue could come only to someone talented, what need was there of the god Father Catius, to make men catus, that is, sharp, when felicity could confer this? For to be born talented belongs to felicity; so, even if the goddess Felicity could not be worshipped by someone not yet born, so that, won over, she might give him this, she could give it to his parents, her worshippers, so that talented sons might be born to them. What need was there for women in labor to invoke Lucina, when, if Felicity were present, they would not only give birth well but also give birth to good children? What need was there to commend the newborn to the goddess Ops, the wailing to the god Vaticanus, the lying to the goddess Cunina, the sucking to the goddess Rumina, the standing to the god Statilinus, the coming to the goddess Adeona, the going away to Abeona; to the goddess Mens, that they might have a good mind; to the god Volumnus and the goddess Volumna, that they might will good things; to the nuptial gods, that they might marry well; to the rural gods, that they might reap very abundant crops, and above all to the goddess Fructesea herself; to Mars and Bellona, that they might wage war well; to the goddess Victory, that they might conquer; to the god Honor, that they might be honored; to the goddess Pecunia, that they might be moneyed; to the god Aesculanus and his son Argentinus, that they might have bronze and silver money? For they made Aesculanus the father of Argentinus because bronze money came into use first, and silver later. I wonder that Argentinus did not beget Aurinus, since gold money followed too. If they had this god, just as they put Jupiter above Saturn, so they would put Aurinus above his father Argentinus and grandfather Aesculanus. What need was there, then, for the sake of these goods, whether of mind or body or external, to worship and invoke so great a crowd of gods (and I have not mentioned them all, nor could they themselves provide petty and single gods for all human goods divided up minutely and one by one), when the one goddess Felicity could confer everything by a great and easy short cut, and no one else would be sought, not only for obtaining goods but also for driving away evils? For why would the goddess Fessona have to be invoked for the weary (fessi), the goddess Pellonia for driving away (pellere) enemies, for the sick a physician, either Apollo or Aesculapius, or both together when there was great danger? Nor would the god Spiniensis be asked to root out thorns (spinae) from the fields, nor the goddess Rubigo not to come; with Felicity alone present and protecting, either no evils would arise or they would be very easily driven off. Finally, since we are dealing with these two goddesses, Virtue and Felicity: if felicity is the reward of virtue, it is not a goddess but a gift of God; but if it is a goddess, why should it not be said to confer virtue too, since to attain virtue is also a great felicity?

Chapter 22. On the knowledge of how to worship the gods, which Varro boasts that he conferred on the Romans.

What, then, is it that Varro boasts as a great benefit that he confers on his fellow citizens, because he not only lists the gods whom the Romans ought to worship but also says what belongs to each? “Just as it is no use,” he says, “to know the name and appearance of some man who is a doctor, and not to know that he is a doctor,” so he says it is no use to know that Aesculapius is a god if you do not know that he helps health, and so do not know why you ought to supplicate him. He confirms this with another comparison, saying that no one can live well, or even live at all, if he does not know who is a smith, who a baker, who a plasterer, from whom he can ask for any useful thing, whom he can take as helper, whom as leader, whom as teacher; asserting that in the same way no one can doubt that knowledge of the gods is useful if it is known what force, faculty, and power each god has over each thing. “For from this,” he says, “we shall be able to know which god we ought to call on and invoke for each purpose, so that we may not do as mimes do and ask Liber for water and the Lymphs for wine.” A great benefit indeed! Who would not thank him if he showed true things, and if he taught men to worship the one true God, from whom are all good things?

Chapter 23. On Felicity, whom the Romans, worshippers of many gods, did not for a long time worship with divine honor, although she alone would have sufficed instead of all.

But (which is the present question) if their books and rites are true and Felicity is a goddess, why was she not established as the one to be worshipped, who could confer everything and make a man happy by a short cut? For who wishes for anything for any reason other than to become happy? Why, finally, did Lucullus build a temple to this great goddess so late, after so many Roman leaders? Why did Romulus himself, wishing to found a happy city, not build a temple to her above all, and not supplicate the other gods for anything, since nothing would be lacking if she were present? For he himself would not have become first king, or, as they think, later a god, if he had not had this goddess propitious. Why, then, did he establish for the Romans the gods Janus, Jupiter, Mars, Picus, Faunus, Tiberinus, Hercules, and any others? Why did Titus Tatius add Saturn, Ops, Sol, Luna, Vulcan, Lux, and whatever others he added, among them even the goddess Cloacina, neglecting Felicity? Why did Numa establish so many gods and so many goddesses without her? Or perhaps he could not see her in so great a crowd? King Hostilius certainly would not have introduced new gods to be propitiated, Fear and Pallor, if he had known or worshipped this goddess. For with Felicity present, all fear and pallor would have gone away, not propitiated but driven off in flight. Then what is this, that the Roman empire was already growing far and wide and still no one worshipped Felicity? Or was the empire for that reason greater rather than happier? For how could there be true felicity where there was not true godliness? For godliness is the true worship of the true God, not the worship of as many false gods as there are demons. But even afterwards, when Felicity had been received into the number of the gods, the great unhappiness of the civil wars followed. Or perhaps Felicity was justly indignant that she was invited both so late and not to honor but rather to insult, since along with her were worshipped Priapus and Cloacina and Fear and Pallor and Fever and the rest, not deities to be worshipped but crimes of the worshippers? Lastly, if so great a goddess was thought fit to be worshipped with a most unworthy crowd, why was she not at least worshipped more splendidly than the rest? For who can bear that Felicity was placed neither among the Consentes, the gods whom they say are called into Jupiter's council, nor among the gods they call select? Some temple should have been made for her, pre-eminent both in the height of its site and the dignity of its work. For why not something better than for Jupiter himself? For who gave even Jupiter his kingdom but Felicity, if indeed he was happy when he reigned? And felicity is better than a kingdom. For no one doubts that a man is easily found who fears to be made king; but no one is found who does not want to be happy. So if they think the gods themselves can be consulted by auguries or in any way, let them be consulted about this: whether they would be willing to give up their place to Felicity, if perhaps the site where a greater and loftier temple would be built for Felicity was already occupied by others' temples or altars; even Jupiter himself would give way, so that Felicity might have the very summit of the Capitoline hill. For no one would resist Felicity, except, what cannot happen, someone who wanted to be unhappy. Jupiter, if consulted, would in no way do what three gods, Mars, Terminus, and Juventas, did to him, who would in no way give up their place to their superior and king. For, as their writings record, when King Tarquin wanted to build the Capitol, and saw that the place which seemed to him more worthy and suitable was already occupied by other gods, not daring to do anything against their will, and believing that they would willingly give way to so great a deity and their chief, because there were many there where the Capitol was built, he asked by augury whether they were willing to give up the place to Jupiter; and all were willing to move from there except those I have mentioned, Mars, Terminus, Juventas; and so the Capitol was built in such a way that these three were also inside, with such obscure images that even the most learned men hardly knew it. In no way, then, would Jupiter himself despise Felicity, as he was despised by Terminus, Mars, and Juventas. But even these, who had not given way to Jupiter, would surely give way to Felicity, who had made Jupiter their king. Or if they did not give way, they would not do it from contempt of her, but because they would rather be obscure in the house of Felicity than prominent without her in their own places. So, with the goddess Felicity established in a most spacious and lofty place, the citizens would learn from where the help for every good wish should be sought; and so, at the prompting of nature itself, the superfluous multitude of other gods being abandoned, Felicity alone would be worshipped, she alone supplicated, her temple alone thronged by citizens who wanted to be happy, and there would be none who did not; and so she herself would be asked of herself, she who was asked for by all. For who wants to receive anything from any god except felicity, or what he thinks belongs to felicity? So if felicity has it in her power with which man she will be (and she has it, if she is a goddess), what folly it is, pray, to ask for her from some god when you could obtain her from herself! So they ought to have honored this goddess above the other gods even by the dignity of her site. For, as is read in their own writings, the ancient Romans worshipped a certain Summanus, to whom they attributed lightning by night, more than Jupiter, to whom lightning by day belonged. But after a notable and lofty temple was built for Jupiter, because of the dignity of the building the multitude flocked to him so much that there is scarcely anyone to be found who remembers having even read the name of Summanus, which can no longer be heard. But if felicity is not a goddess, because, as is true, she is a gift of God, let that God be sought who can give her, and let the harmful multitude of false gods be abandoned, which the vain multitude of foolish men follows, making gods for themselves of the gifts of God and offending him whose gifts they are by the obstinacy of a proud will. For he cannot be free of unhappiness who worships felicity as a goddess and abandons God, the giver of felicity, just as he cannot be free of hunger who licks painted bread and does not ask it of the man who has real bread.

Chapter 24. By what reasoning the pagans defend their worshipping the divine gifts themselves among the gods.

But let us consider their reasonings. “Must we believe,” they say, “that our ancestors were so foolish as not to know that these things are divine gifts, not gods? But since they knew that such things are granted to no one except by the gift of some god, and did not find the names of those gods, they called the gods by the names of the things which they perceived were given by them, bending some words from them; as they named Bellona from war (bellum), not Bellum; Cunina from cradles (cunae), not Cuna; Segetia from crops (segetes), not Seges; Pomona from fruits (poma), not Pomum; Bubona from oxen (boves), not Bos; or else with no change of the word, as the things themselves are named: as the goddess who gives money (pecunia) was called Pecunia, not that money itself was thought a goddess at all; so Virtue, who gives virtue; Honor, who gives honor; Concord, who gives concord; Victory, who gives victory. So,” they say, “when Felicity is called a goddess, what is meant is not the felicity that is given, but that deity by whom felicity is given.”

Chapter 25. On the one God only to be worshipped, who, though his name is not known, is nevertheless perceived to be the giver of felicity.

With this reasoning given to us, we shall perhaps persuade much more easily those whose heart is not too hardened of what we want. For if human weakness has already perceived that felicity can be given only by some god, and this was perceived by men who worshipped so many gods, among them their king Jupiter himself, then, because they did not know the name of him by whom felicity was given, and therefore chose to call him by the name of the very thing they believed he gave, they showed clearly enough that felicity could not be given even by Jupiter himself, whom they were already worshipping, but certainly by him whom they judged should be worshipped under the name of felicity itself. I fully confirm that they believed felicity is given by some god whom they did not know: let him, then, be sought, let him be worshipped, and it is enough. Let the din of countless demons be rejected; let this God not be enough for someone for whom his gift is not enough. Let him, I say, for whom felicity itself is not enough to receive, find that God the giver of felicity is not enough to worship. But let him for whom it is enough (for man has nothing more that he ought to wish for) serve the one God, the giver of felicity. It is not he whom they call Jupiter. For if they recognized him as the giver of felicity, they would certainly not seek another god or goddess, by whom felicity might be given, under the name of felicity itself, nor would they think Jupiter himself should be worshipped with such great insults. He is said to be the adulterer of other men's wives, the shameless lover and ravisher of a beautiful boy.

Chapter 26. On the stage plays which the gods demanded to be celebrated for them by their worshippers.

But “Homer invented these things,” says Tullius, “and transferred human things to the gods; I would rather he had transferred divine things to us.” The poet who invented divine crimes rightly displeased a serious man. Why, then, are the stage plays, in which these things are said, sung, and acted, exhibited in honor of the gods and written down among divine things by the most learned? Here let Cicero cry out, not against the fictions of the poets, but against the institutions of the ancestors. Or would they not cry out too: What have we done? The gods themselves demanded that these things be exhibited in their honor, commanded it harshly, foretold disaster if it were not done, avenged most severely when something was neglected, and showed that they were appeased when what had been neglected was done. Among their powers and wonderful deeds is recorded what I shall tell. To Titus Latinius, a Roman peasant and head of a household, it was said in his sleep that he should announce to the senate that the Roman games should be held again, because on their first day the deities, of course seeking merriment from the games, had been displeased by the gloomy spectacle of a certain criminal who was ordered to be led to execution while the people watched. When the man who had been warned in the dream did not dare to do as he was told the next day, the same thing was commanded again, more severely, on the second night: he lost his son because he did not do it. On the third night the man was told that a greater penalty threatened him if he did not do it. When even so he did not dare, he fell into a sharp and horrible illness. Then indeed, on his friends' advice, he reported the matter to the magistrates and was carried in a litter into the senate; and when he had told the dream, his health was at once restored and he left sound, on his own feet. The senate, astonished at so great a miracle, decreed that the games should be held again with four times the money. Who in his right mind does not see that men subject to malign demons, from whose domination nothing frees them but the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord, were compelled by force to exhibit to such gods things which by sound judgment could be judged foul? Certainly in those games the poetic crimes of the deities are frequently presented, games which were held again by order of the senate under compulsion from the deities. In those games the foulest actors sang, acted, and pleased Jupiter as the corrupter of chastity. If that was invented, he should have been angry; but if he was delighted by his crimes, even invented ones, when he was worshipped, what was being served but the devil? Would such a one found, enlarge, and preserve the Roman empire, more abject than any Roman who disliked such things? Would he give felicity, who was worshipped so unhappily, and who, unless he was worshipped so, was more unhappily angry?

Chapter 27. On the three kinds of gods which the pontiff Scaevola discussed.

It is recorded that the most learned pontiff Scaevola argued that three kinds of gods have been handed down: one by the poets, another by the philosophers, the third by the leaders of the state. The first kind, he says, is trifling, because many unworthy things are invented about the gods; the second does not suit states, because it contains some things that are superfluous and some that it would harm the peoples to know. About the superfluous there is no great matter; for it is a saying even among lawyers: “Superfluous things do no harm.” But what are the things that do harm when brought out before the multitude? “These,” he says: “that Hercules, Aesculapius, Castor, and Pollux are not gods; for it is taught by the learned that they were men and died in the human condition.” What else? “That states do not have true images of those who are gods, because the true God has neither sex nor age nor defined bodily members.” The pontiff does not want the peoples to know these things; for he does not think they are false. So he thinks it expedient for states to be deceived in religion. Varro himself does not hesitate to say this too in his books on divine things. A splendid religion, for the weak man seeking to be freed to flee to, when, as he seeks the truth by which he may be freed, it is believed to be expedient for him to be deceived! Why Scaevola rejects the poetic kind of gods is not kept silent in the same writings: because, of course, they so disfigure the gods that they are not even comparable with good men, making one steal, another commit adultery, and likewise say and do other things foully and absurdly; that three goddesses competed with one another for the prize of beauty, and the two defeated by Venus overthrew Troy; that Jupiter himself was turned into a bull or a swan to lie with some woman; that a goddess married a man; that Saturn devoured his children; that, in short, nothing marvelous or vicious can be invented which is not found there and is far from the nature of the gods. O Scaevola, pontifex maximus, abolish the games if you can; instruct the peoples not to offer the immortal gods such honors, in which it pleases them to admire the crimes of the gods and imitate what can be done. But if the people answer you: You pontiffs brought these things in on us, ask the gods themselves, at whose instigation you ordered them, not to order such things to be exhibited to them. If these things are evil, and therefore by no means to be believed of the majesty of the gods, the greater is the insult to the gods about whom they are invented with impunity. But they do not hear you; they are demons; they teach depraved things, they rejoice in foul things; not only do they not count it an insult if these things are invented about them, but rather they cannot bear the insult if they are not acted at their solemn festivals. Now if you appeal to Jupiter against them, especially because more of his crimes are acted in the stage plays, even if you call Jupiter the God by whom this whole world is ruled and administered, is not the greatest insult done him by you in this, that you think he should be worshipped with these and declare him their king?

Chapter 28. Whether the worship of the gods helped the Romans to obtain and extend their empire.

In no way, then, could such gods, who are appeased (or rather accused) by such honors, that it is a greater crime for them to delight in false things than if true things were said of them, have increased and preserved the Roman empire. For if they could do this, they would rather have bestowed so great a gift on the Greeks, who worshipped them more honorably and worthily in divine things of this kind, that is, in stage plays; for they did not withdraw themselves from the bites of the poets, by whom they saw the gods torn to pieces, but gave them license to ill-treat any men they pleased, and they did not judge the stage players themselves disgraceful, but even held them worthy of distinguished honors. But just as the Romans could have gold money though they did not worship a god Aurinus, so they could also have silver and bronze, even if they worshipped neither Argentinus nor his father Aesculanus, and so with all the rest, which it is tedious to go over again. So also they could by no means have had their dominion against the will of the true God; but if these many false gods had been unknown or despised, and that one God known and worshipped with sincere faith and upright conduct, they would both have had a better kingdom here, however large it was, and after this they would receive an everlasting one, whether they had one here or not.

Chapter 29. On the falsity of the augury by which the strength and stability of the Roman empire was thought to be foretold.

For what of that which they have called a most beautiful augury, which I mentioned a little earlier, that Mars and Terminus and Juventas would not give up their place even to Jupiter, the king of the gods? For thus, they say, it was signified that the nation of Mars, that is, the Roman, would yield to no one the place it held; that because of the god Terminus no one would move the Roman boundaries; and that because of the goddess Juventas the Roman youth would give way to no one. Let them see, then, how they regard this king of their gods and giver of their kingdom, when these auguries set him up as an adversary to whom it would be glorious not to yield. Yet if these things are true, they have nothing at all to fear. For they will not admit that the gods who would not yield to Jupiter have yielded to Christ; for with the boundaries of the empire unharmed they could yield to Christ, both from their seats in various places and above all from the hearts of believers. But before Christ came in the flesh, and indeed before the things we cite from their books were written, yet after that augury had been taken under King Tarquin, the Roman army was more than once routed, that is, turned to flight, and so showed the augury false by which Juventas had not yielded to Jupiter; and the nation of Mars was crushed in the City itself when the Gauls overcame it and broke in; and the boundaries of the empire had been pressed into a narrow space when many cities went over to Hannibal. So the beauty of the auguries was emptied, and what remained was an obstinacy against Jupiter, not of gods but of demons. For it is one thing not to have yielded, another to have returned to the place from which you had yielded. And afterwards, too, in the eastern regions, the boundaries of the Roman empire were changed by the will of Hadrian. For he ceded three noble provinces, Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria, to the empire of the Persians; so that the god Terminus, who according to these men guarded the Roman boundaries and by that most beautiful augury had not yielded his place to Jupiter, seems to have feared Hadrian, a king of men, more than the king of the gods. And when the said provinces had been recovered at another time, almost within our own memory Terminus fell back again, when Julian, devoted to the oracles of those gods, with reckless daring ordered the ships that carried the provisions to be burned. The army, left without supplies, and soon afterwards deprived of Julian himself, who was killed by an enemy wound, was reduced to such want, while the enemy attacked on every side the soldiers dismayed by the emperor's death, that no one would have escaped from there had not the boundaries of the empire been fixed by a treaty of peace where they remain to this day; not indeed with as great a loss as Hadrian had conceded, but still settled by a compromise. It was a vain augury, then, that the god Terminus did not yield to Jupiter, for he yielded to the will of Hadrian, yielded also to the rashness of Julian and to the necessity of Jovian. The more intelligent and serious Romans saw these things; but they had little power against the custom of the state, which had been bound to demonic rites, because even they, though they perceived that these things were vain, still thought that the religious worship owed to God should be paid to the nature of things, which is set under the rule and government of the one true God, “serving,” as the apostle says, “the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever.” The help of this true God was needed, by whom holy and truly pious men might be sent to die for the true religion, so that the false might be taken away from among the living.