City of God 5.18–5.25

Chapter 18. How far Christians ought to be from boasting if they have done anything for love of the eternal country, when the Romans did such great things for human glory and an earthly city.

What great thing is it, then, to despise all the allurements of this world, however pleasant, for that eternal and heavenly country, if for this temporal and earthly one Brutus could even kill his sons, which that country compels no one to do? But certainly it is harder to put one's sons to death than to do what must be done for the heavenly country: either to give to the poor the things that seemed to be gathered and kept for one's sons, or, if a temptation arises that compels it for the sake of faith and righteousness, to lose them. For it is not earthly riches that make us or our sons happy, riches that must either be lost while we live or possessed after our death by we know not whom, or perhaps by those we would not wish; but God makes us happy, who is the true wealth of minds. To Brutus, however, because he killed his sons, even the poet who praises him bears witness of unhappiness. For he says:

“And the father will call to punishment, for fair liberty, his sons who stir up new wars, unhappy man, however later ages will judge those deeds.”

But in the next verse he consoled the unhappy man:

“Love of country conquers, and immense desire for praise.”

These are those two things, liberty and the desire of human praise, that drove the Romans to wonderful deeds. If, then, for the liberty of men who were going to die and for the desire of praise sought from mortals, sons could be killed by their father, what great thing is it if, for the true liberty that makes us free from the dominion of iniquity and death and the devil, and not from desire of human praise but from love of setting men free, not from King Tarquin but from demons and the prince of demons, sons are not killed, but the poor of Christ are counted among one's sons? If another Roman leader too, surnamed Torquatus, killed his son, not because he had fought against his country, but indeed for his country, yet because, challenged by an enemy, he had fought with youthful ardor against his command, that is, against what his father the general had commanded, even though he had won, lest there be more harm in the example of despised command than good in the glory of an enemy slain: why should those boast who, for the laws of an immortal country, despise all earthly goods, which are loved much less than sons? If Furius Camillus, after he had driven the yoke of the fiercest enemies, the Veientes, from the neck of his country, and had been condemned by his rivals, freed that ungrateful country again from the Gauls, because he had no better place where he could live more gloriously: why should anyone be extolled as if he had done something great who, having perhaps suffered in the church the gravest injury of dishonor from carnal enemies, has not gone over to her enemies the heretics or himself founded some heresy against her, but has rather defended her as far as he could from the most ruinous perversity of the heretics, since there is no other church, not where one may live in human glory, but where eternal life may be gained? If Mucius, to make peace with King Porsenna, who was pressing the Romans with a most grievous war, because he could not kill Porsenna himself and killed another in his place by mistake, stretched out his right hand onto a burning altar before his eyes, saying that many such as he saw him to be had sworn together for his destruction, so that Porsenna, dreading his courage and the conspiracy of such men, without any hesitation made peace and withdrew from that war: who will reckon his merits to the kingdom of heaven if for it he has given up to the flames, not one hand, and not by doing it to himself of his own accord, but suffering it at the hands of some persecutor, his whole body? If Curtius, armed, spurred his horse and threw himself headlong into a steep chasm of the earth, obeying the oracles of his gods, since they had commanded that the best thing the Romans had should be thrown in there, and they could understand nothing else than that they excelled in men and arms, so that, of course, by the command of the gods an armed man had to be hurled headlong into that destruction: what great thing will he say he has done for the eternal country who, having encountered some enemy of his faith, has died, not throwing himself into such a death of his own accord but sent to it by that enemy, since he has received from his Lord, who is also the King of his country, a more certain oracle: “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul”? If the Decii devoted themselves to be slain, in a way consecrating themselves with fixed words, so that as they fell and appeased the anger of the gods with their blood, the Roman army might be delivered: the holy martyrs will in no way be proud, as if they had done something worthy for a share in that country where happiness is eternal and true, if, even to the shedding of their blood, loving, as they were commanded, not only their brothers, for whom it was shed, but also their very enemies, by whom it was shed, they contended in the faith of love and the love of faith. If Marcus Pulvillus, when he was dedicating the temple of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, and envious men had falsely announced to him his son's death, so that he might go away disturbed by the news and his colleague might win the glory of the dedication, so despised it that he even ordered the body to be thrown out unburied (so completely had the desire for glory conquered the grief of bereavement in his heart): what great thing will he say he has done for the preaching of the holy gospel, by which the citizens of the heavenly country are freed from various errors and gathered together, to whom, when he was anxious about his father's burial, the Lord said: “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead”? If Marcus Regulus, so as not to deceive the cruelest enemies after swearing to them, returned to them from Rome itself, because, as he is said to have answered the Romans who wished to keep him, after he had been a slave to the Africans he could not have the dignity of an honorable citizen there; and the Carthaginians, because he had acted against them in the Roman senate, killed him with the most grievous tortures: what tortures are not to be despised for faithfulness to that country to whose blessedness faith itself leads? Or what “shall be rendered to the Lord for all that he has rendered,” if for the faithfulness owed to him a man suffers such things as Regulus suffered for the faithfulness he owed to his most dangerous enemies? How will a Christian dare to extol himself for voluntary poverty, embraced in order to walk more readily, in the pilgrimage of this life, the way that leads to the country where God himself is the true riches, when he hears or reads that Lucius Valerius, who died in his consulship, was so poor that his burial was provided for with money collected from the people? Let him hear or read that Quinctius Cincinnatus, when he owned four acres and farmed them with his own hands, was brought from the plow to be made dictator, an honor certainly greater than consul, and after conquering the enemy and winning immense glory remained in the same poverty. Or what great thing will he proclaim he has done who has not been lured away from the fellowship of that eternal country by any reward of this world, when he has learned that Fabricius could not be torn away from the Roman city by the great gifts of Pyrrhus, king of the Epirotes, even with the promise of a fourth part of his kingdom, and preferred to remain there a private man in his poverty? For when they had a republic, that is, the property of the people, the property of the country, the common property, most opulent and wealthy, they themselves were so poor in their own houses that one of them, who had already been consul twice, was expelled from that senate of poor men by the censor's mark, because he was found to have ten pounds of silver in vessels; so poor were those same men by whose triumphs the public treasury was enriched. Do not all Christians, then, who with a more excellent purpose make their riches common, according to what is written in the Acts of the Apostles, that it be distributed to each as each has need, and no one call anything his own, but they have all things in common, understand that they ought not to puff themselves up with any boasting for doing this to obtain the fellowship of angels, when those men did almost the same thing to preserve the glory of the Romans? When would these and other such things, if any are found in their writings, have become known, when would they have been proclaimed with such fame, unless the Roman empire, extended far and wide, had grown by magnificent successes? So through that empire, so broad and so lasting, famous and glorious for the virtues of such great men, both the reward they sought was given to their intention, and examples of necessary admonition were set before us, so that if we do not hold, for the most glorious city of God, the virtues which these men held for the glory of the earthly city, and to which theirs are in some way similar, we may be stung with shame; and if we do hold them, we may not be lifted up with pride; since, as the apostle says, “the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come, which will be revealed in us.” But for human glory and that of the present time their life was thought worthy enough. So also the Jews who killed Christ, now that the New Testament reveals what was veiled in the Old, that the one true God is to be worshipped not for earthly and temporal benefits, which divine providence grants indiscriminately to good and bad, but for eternal life and everlasting gifts and the fellowship of the heavenly city itself, were most rightly given over to the glory of these Romans, so that those who sought and acquired earthly glory by virtues of whatever kind might conquer those who with great vices killed and rejected the giver of true glory and of the eternal city.

Chapter 19. How the desire for glory and the desire for domination differ.

There is certainly a difference between the desire for human glory and the desire for domination. For though it is an easy slope for one who delights too much in human glory to aim ardently at domination as well, yet those who desire true glory, even of human praise, take care not to displease those who judge well. For there are many good things in character of which many judge well, though many do not have them; by these good qualities of character they strive for glory and command or domination, those of whom Sallust says, “But the former strives by the true way.” But whoever desires to lord it and command without the desire for glory, by which a man fears to displease those who judge well, generally seeks to obtain what he loves even by the most open crimes. So one who desires glory either strives by the true way, or at least contends by tricks and deceits, wishing to seem good when he is not. And therefore for one who has virtues it is a great virtue to despise glory, because the contempt of it is in the sight of God, but is not disclosed to human judgment. For whatever he does before the eyes of men to appear a despiser of glory, if he is believed to do it for greater praise, that is, for greater glory, he has no means of showing the senses of those who suspect him that he is otherwise than they suspect. But one who despises the judgments of those who praise him despises also the rashness of those who suspect him; yet, if he is truly good, he does not despise their salvation. For one who has virtues from the Spirit of God is of such great righteousness that he loves even his enemies, and loves them so that he wishes his haters and detractors to be corrected and to share with him, not in an earthly country but in the heavenly one. As for those who praise him, though he makes little of their praising him, he does not make little of their loving him; and he does not wish to deceive them when they praise him, lest he mislead those who love him; and so he presses ardently that rather he should be praised from whom a man has whatever is rightly praised in him. But one who despises glory and is greedy for domination surpasses the beasts in the vices either of cruelty or of luxury. Some Romans were such. For they lost their concern for reputation but did not lose the desire for domination. History reveals that there were many such; but the summit and, as it were, the citadel of this vice was first held by Nero Caesar, whose luxury was so great that nothing manly was thought to be feared from him, and whose cruelty was so great that he would have been believed to have nothing soft in him, had this not been known. Yet even to such men the power to rule is not given except by the providence of the supreme God, when he judges human affairs worthy of such masters. The divine voice on this matter is plain, where the Wisdom of God speaks: “By me kings reign, and by me tyrants hold the land.” But lest tyrants should be thought to mean not the worst and wicked kings but, in the old usage, strong men (hence Virgil says, “It will be a pledge of peace to me to have touched the tyrant's right hand”), it is said most plainly of God in another place: “Who makes a hypocrite reign because of the perversity of the people.” Therefore, although I have explained as well as I could for what reason the one true and just God helped the Romans, who were good according to a certain pattern of the earthly city, to attain the glory of so great an empire, there may also be another, more hidden reason, better known to God than to us, because of the different deserts of the human race; provided that this is agreed among all the truly pious, that no one can have true virtue without true piety, that is, without the true worship of the true God, and that virtue is not true when it serves human glory; yet that those who are not citizens of the eternal city, which in our sacred writings is called the city of God, are more useful to the earthly city when they have even that virtue than if they had not even that. But if those endowed with true piety, who live well, have the skill of ruling peoples, nothing is happier for human affairs than that, by the mercy of God, they should have power. Such men attribute their virtues, however great they can have them in this life, only to the grace of God, because he has given them to them as they willed, believed, and asked; and at the same time they understand how far they fall short of the perfection of righteousness such as exists in the fellowship of the holy angels, to which they strive to fit themselves. But however much the virtue that serves human glory without true piety is praised and proclaimed, it is in no way to be compared with the small beginnings of the saints, whose hope is placed in the grace and mercy of the true God.

Chapter 20. That it is as shameful for the virtues to serve human glory as bodily pleasure.

Philosophers who place the end of human good in virtue itself are accustomed, in order to put to shame certain philosophers who approve of the virtues but measure them by the end of bodily pleasure, and think that pleasure is to be sought for itself and the virtues for its sake, to paint a kind of picture in words, in which Pleasure sits on a royal throne like some dainty queen, and the virtues are placed under her as her maidservants, watching her nod to do what she commands. She orders Prudence to inquire vigilantly how Pleasure may reign and be safe; she orders Justice to do what favors she can to win the friendships necessary for bodily comforts, and to do no one injury, lest, if the laws are offended, Pleasure cannot live securely; she orders Fortitude, if pain comes upon the body that does not drive it to death, to keep her mistress, that is, Pleasure, bravely in the thought of the mind, so as to soften the stings of present pain by recalling her former delights; she orders Temperance to take only so much food, even of what delights, lest something harmful through excess disturb health, and Pleasure, which the Epicureans place chiefly in the health of the body, be seriously offended. So the virtues, with all the glory of their dignity, will serve Pleasure as though she were some imperious and dishonorable little woman. Nothing, they say, is more ignominious and ugly than this picture, nothing the sight of good men could less bear; and they speak the truth. But I do not think the picture would have the beauty it ought, even if another were imagined in which the virtues serve human glory. For though Glory herself is not a dainty woman, she is puffed up and has much emptiness. So it is unworthy that a certain solidity and firmness of the virtues should serve her, so that Prudence foresees nothing, Justice distributes nothing, Fortitude endures nothing, Temperance moderates nothing, except what may please men and serve windy glory. Nor can those defend themselves from this foulness who, despising the judgments of others as if they were despisers of glory, seem wise to themselves and please themselves. For their virtue, if it is any virtue at all, is subject to human praise in another way; for the one who pleases himself is still a man. But one who with true piety believes and hopes in God, whom he loves, attends more to the things in which he displeases himself than to those things, if there are any in him, which please not so much himself as the truth; and he attributes what makes him now able to please only to the mercy of him whom he fears to displease, giving thanks for the things that have been healed and pouring out prayers for those still to be healed.

Chapter 21. That the Roman kingdom was ordered by the true God, from whom is all power and by whose providence all things are ruled.

This being so, let us attribute the power of giving kingdom and empire only to the true God, who gives happiness in the kingdom of heaven to the pious alone, but an earthly kingdom both to the pious and to the impious, as it pleases him, whom nothing unjust pleases. For though we have said something of what he willed to be plain to us, it is still too much for us, and far beyond our powers, to examine the hidden things of men and to judge by a clear examination the deserts of kingdoms. That one true God, then, who does not abandon the human race either in judgment or in help, gave the kingdom to the Romans when he willed and as much as he willed; he who gave it to the Assyrians, or even to the Persians, by whom, as their writings contain, only two gods were worshipped, one good and the other evil; to say nothing of the Hebrew people, of whom I have already said as much as seemed enough, who worshipped none but the one God, even when they had a kingdom. He, then, who gave the Persians crops without the worship of the goddess Segetia, who gave the other gifts of the earth without the worship of so many gods, whom these people set over single things one each, or even several over single things, himself also gave them a kingdom without the worship of those by whose worship these people believed they had reigned. So too with men: he who gave it to Marius gave it to Gaius Caesar; he who gave it to Augustus gave it also to Nero; he who gave it to the Vespasians, father or son, most gentle emperors, gave it also to the most cruel Domitian; and, not to have to go through them one by one, he who gave it to Constantine the Christian gave it also to Julian the apostate, whose excellent nature was deceived, through love of domination, by a sacrilegious and detestable curiosity; he was devoted to its empty oracles when, relying on the certainty of victory, he burned the ships that carried the necessary provisions; then, pressing on hotly with reckless daring, and soon killed as his rashness deserved, he left his army destitute in enemy country, so that it could not escape from there except by moving the boundaries of the Roman empire, against that augury of the god Terminus of which we spoke in the previous book. For the god Terminus, who had not yielded to Jupiter, yielded to necessity. Plainly the one true God rules and governs these things as he pleases; and if for hidden causes, are they therefore unjust?

Chapter 22. That the durations and outcomes of wars depend on the judgment of God.

So too the very durations of wars depend on his will, as it lies in his choice and just judgment and mercy either to wear down or to console the human race, so that some are ended sooner and others later. The war with the pirates by Pompey, and the Third Punic War by Scipio, were finished with incredible speed and in a short time. The war of the fugitive gladiators too, though many Roman generals and two consuls were defeated and Italy was horribly crushed and laid waste, was nevertheless finished in its third year, after it had consumed much. The Picentes, Marsi, and Paeligni, nations not foreign but Italian, after long and most devoted servitude under the Roman yoke, tried to lift their heads to liberty, when many nations had already been subjugated to the Roman empire and Carthage destroyed; in this Italian war, in which the Romans were very often defeated and two consuls and other most noble senators perished, this evil was nevertheless not drawn out a long time, for the fifth year put an end to it. But the Second Punic War, with the greatest losses and calamity to the republic, wore down the Roman forces for eighteen years and almost consumed them; in two battles about seventy thousand Romans fell. The First Punic War was carried on for twenty-three years; the Mithridatic War for forty. And lest anyone think that the early Romans were stronger at finishing wars quickly, in the earlier times, much praised for every virtue, the Samnite War was drawn out for about fifty years; and in that war the Romans were so defeated that they were even sent under the yoke. But because they did not love glory for the sake of justice, but seemed to love justice for the sake of glory, they broke the peace and treaty they had made. I mention these things because many who are ignorant of past events, and some who even conceal their knowledge, if they see some war in Christian times drawn out a little longer, at once leap most impudently upon our religion, crying out that if it did not exist and the deities were worshipped in the old rite, this war too would be ended very quickly by that Roman valor which, with the help of Mars and Bellona, finished such great wars so quickly. Let those who have read, then, recall how long the wars were, with what varied outcomes, with what mournful disasters they were waged by the ancient Romans, as the world is accustomed to be tossed like a most stormy sea by the varied tempest of such evils; and let them at last admit what they do not want to, and not destroy themselves with mad tongues against God and deceive the unskilled.

Chapter 23. On the war in which Radagaisus, king of the Goths, a worshipper of demons, was defeated in one day with his huge forces.

What God did wonderfully and mercifully in our own memory, very recently, they do not mention with thanksgiving, but, as far as in them lies, try to bury in the forgetfulness of all men, if that can be done; and if we are silent about it, we shall be equally ungrateful. When Radagaisus, king of the Goths, stationed with a huge and savage host already in the neighborhood of the City, hung over the necks of the Romans, he was defeated in one day with such speed that, while not one Roman was killed, I will not say even wounded, his army of far more than a hundred thousand was laid low, and he himself was soon captured and put to death with the punishment he deserved. For if that man, so impious, with such great and such impious forces, had entered Rome, whom would he have spared? To what places of the martyrs would he have shown honor? In whose person would he have feared God? Whose blood would he have wished unshed, whose chastity untouched? And what cries would these people have raised for their gods, with what insults would they have boasted that he had won, that he had been able to do such great things, because he appeased and invited the gods with daily sacrifices, which the Christian religion did not allow the Romans to do! For when he was already approaching these places where he was crushed at the nod of the supreme Majesty, and his fame was growing everywhere, it was said to us at Carthage that the pagans believed, spread about, and boasted that, with the gods his friends protecting and helping him, to whom he was reported to sacrifice every day, he could not possibly be defeated by those who did not offer such rites to the Roman gods and did not allow them to be offered by anyone. And the wretches do not give thanks to so great a mercy of God, who, having determined to chastise the morals of men, which deserved to suffer heavier things, by a barbarian invasion, tempered his indignation with such gentleness that he first caused that man to be wonderfully defeated, lest glory be given to the demons, to whom it was known that he prayed, to overturn the minds of the weak; and then allowed Rome to be taken by those barbarians who, contrary to every custom of wars waged before, protected those who fled to the holy places out of reverence for the Christian religion, and who, in the Christian name, so opposed the demons themselves and the rites of impious sacrifices in which that other had trusted that they seemed to be waging a much fiercer war with them than with men. So the true Lord and Governor of things both scourged the Romans with mercy and, by the incredible defeat of those who prayed to demons, showed that those sacrifices are not necessary even for the safety of present things; so that by those who do not contend obstinately but consider wisely, the true religion may not be deserted because of present necessities, but rather held in most faithful expectation of eternal life.

Chapter 24. What the happiness of Christian emperors is, and how far it is true happiness.

For we do not call certain Christian emperors happy because they reigned longer, or died a peaceful death leaving their sons as emperors, or subdued the enemies of the republic, or were able both to guard against and to crush hostile citizens rising up against them. These and other gifts or consolations of this troubled life some worshippers of demons, too, deserved to receive, who do not belong to the kingdom of God, to which these belong; and this was done by his mercy, so that those who believed in him should not desire these things from him as the highest goods. But we call them happy if they rule justly; if amid the tongues of those who honor them loftily and the servility of those who greet them too humbly they are not lifted up, but remember that they are men; if they make their power the handmaid of his majesty, to spread the worship of God as widely as possible; if they fear, love, and worship God; if they love more that kingdom where they are not afraid to have partners; if they are slow to punish and ready to pardon; if they apply punishment for the necessity of ruling and defending the republic, not to satisfy the hatred of enmity; if they grant pardon not to let iniquity go unpunished but in hope of correction; if what they are often compelled to decree harshly they make up for by the gentleness of mercy and the generosity of benefits; if their luxury is the more restrained the freer it could be; if they prefer to rule over evil desires rather than over any nations; and if they do all this not from ardor for empty glory but from love of eternal happiness; if they do not neglect to offer to their true God, for their sins, the sacrifice of humility, compassion, and prayer. Such Christian emperors we call happy, meanwhile in hope, and hereafter in reality, when what we await has come.

Chapter 25. On the prosperity that God conferred on the Christian emperor Constantine.

For the good God, lest men who believed that he should be worshipped for the sake of eternal life should think that no one could attain these heights and earthly kingdoms unless he prayed to demons, because these spirits had great power in such matters, filled the emperor Constantine, who did not pray to demons but worshipped the true God himself, with such great earthly gifts as no one would dare to wish for. He granted him even to found a city allied to the Roman empire, like a daughter of Rome itself, but without any temple or image of the demons. He reigned long; as sole Augustus he held and defended the whole Roman world; he was most victorious in directing and waging wars; in crushing tyrants he prospered in everything; he died in great age of sickness and old age, and left sons as emperors. But again, lest any emperor should be a Christian in order to earn the happiness of Constantine, since each one ought to be a Christian for the sake of eternal life, he took away Jovian much sooner than Julian; he allowed Gratian to be slain by a tyrant's sword, though far more gently than the great Pompey, who worshipped the so-called Roman gods. For Pompey could not be avenged by Cato, whom he had left, as it were, heir of the civil war; but Gratian, though pious souls do not seek such consolations, was avenged by Theodosius, whom he had made a partner in the kingdom though he had a little brother, being more eager for a faithful partnership than for excessive power.