City of God 5.26–6.5

Chapter 26. On the faith and piety of Theodosius Augustus.

So he not only kept the faithfulness he owed to Gratian while he lived, but also after his death, when Gratian's little brother Valentinian had been driven out by his murderer Maximus, received him as a Christian into the parts of his own empire as his ward, and guarded him with a father's affection; though he could have removed him without any trouble, destitute as he was of all resources, if he had burned more with the desire of reigning more widely than with the love of doing good. Instead he received him, keeping his imperial dignity, and consoled him with kindness and favor itself. Then, when that success made Maximus formidable, he in the straits of his anxieties did not fall into sacrilegious and unlawful curiosities, but sent to John, who lived in the desert of Egypt, whom he had learned by growing report to be a servant of God endowed with the spirit of prophecy, and received from him a most certain message of victory. Soon, having destroyed the tyrant Maximus, he restored the boy Valentinian, with most merciful respect, to the parts of his empire from which he had been driven; and when Valentinian soon afterwards was killed, whether by treachery or by some other manner or chance, Theodosius, having again received a prophetic answer and being certain in faith, crushed another tyrant, Eugenius, who had been unlawfully put in that emperor's place, and fought against his very strong army more by praying than by striking. Soldiers who were present told us that whatever they were throwing was wrenched from their hands, because a violent wind blew from Theodosius' side against the enemy and not only swept away with the greatest force whatever was thrown against them, but even turned the enemy's own weapons back into their bodies. Hence even the poet Claudian, though a stranger to the name of Christ, said in his praise:

“O too much beloved of God, for whom the sky fights, and the winds come as allies at the trumpet's call!”

And when he had won, as he had believed and foretold, he threw down the images of Jupiter which had been, as it were, consecrated against him by some rites or other and set up in the Alps; and their thunderbolts, because they were of gold, he gave cheerfully and kindly to his couriers, who joked (as that joyful occasion allowed) that they would like to be struck by such thunderbolts. The sons of his enemies, whom the rush of war, not his own order, had carried off, when they fled to the church, not yet being Christians, he wished to become Christians on this occasion, and loved them with Christian charity; he did not deprive them of their property, and he increased their honors. He allowed no private enmities to have force against anyone after the victory. He was not like Cinna and Marius and Sulla and others of that kind, who were unwilling to end civil wars even when they were ended; rather he grieved that they had arisen more than he wished to harm anyone when they were over. Amid all this, from the very beginning of his reign he did not cease to help the church, laboring against the impious, by most just and merciful laws; for the heretic Valens, favoring the Arians, had afflicted it severely. He rejoiced more to be a member of this church than to reign on earth. He ordered the images of the Gentiles to be overthrown everywhere, understanding well enough that not even earthly gifts are placed in the power of demons, but in that of the true God. And what was more wonderful than his religious humility when, in the case of the most grievous crime of the Thessalonians, for which he had already promised pardon at the intercession of the bishops, he was driven by the clamor of certain of his associates to take vengeance, and then, constrained by the discipline of the church, did penance in such a way that the people, praying for him, wept more at seeing the imperial majesty laid low than they had feared it when angry at their sin? These good works, and others like them which it would take long to mention, he carried with him out of this temporal vapor of any human height and loftiness; and the reward of these works is eternal happiness, whose giver is God, only to the truly pious. But the other heights and supports of this life, such as the world itself, light, air, lands, waters, fruits, and man's own soul and body, senses, mind, and life, he bestows on good and bad alike; and among these is also any greatness of empire, which he dispenses according to the governance of the times. And so I see that I must now answer those also who, refuted and convicted by the plainest proofs showing that the multitude of false gods is of no use for these temporal things, which alone fools desire to have, try to assert that the gods are to be worshipped not for the advantage of the present life but for that which is to come after death. For to those who want to worship empty things for the sake of the friendships of this world, and complain that they are not allowed to follow childish notions, I think enough answer has been given in these five books. When I had published the first three of them and they had begun to be in many hands, I heard that certain people were preparing some answer or other against them in writing. Then it was reported to me that they had already written it, but were looking for a time when they could publish it without danger. I warn them not to wish for what is not good for them. For it is easy for anyone who will not keep silent to seem to have answered. Or what is more talkative than vanity? It cannot do what truth can simply because, if it wishes, it can shout even louder than truth. But let them consider everything carefully; and if, judging perhaps without partisanship, they perceive that these things are such as can be harassed rather than overthrown by most impudent chatter and by a satirical or farcical levity, let them restrain their trifles, and choose rather to be corrected by the wise than praised by the impudent. For if they are waiting for a time not for freedom to speak the truth but for license to speak abuse, far be it from them that what Tully said of someone who was called happy for his license to sin should befall them: “O wretched man, who was allowed to sin!” So whoever thinks himself happy in license to speak abuse will be much happier if it is not allowed him at all, since, laying aside the vanity of boasting, he can even at this time contradict whatever he wishes, as if with a desire to consult, and hear, as far as they are able, from those whom he consults, by friendly discussion, what he ought to hear, honorably, seriously, and freely.

Chapter 1. On those who say that they worship the gods not for the sake of the present life but for the sake of eternal life.

Now, since the promised order requires that next those also be refuted and taught who contend that the gods of the nations, which the Christian religion destroys, are to be worshipped not for the sake of this life but for the sake of the life that is to come after death, I am pleased to take the beginning of my discussion from the truthful oracle of the holy psalm: “Blessed is the one whose hope is the Lord God, and who has not looked to vanities and lying follies.” Yet among all vanities and lying follies the philosophers are by far the more tolerable to listen to, since these opinions and errors of the peoples displeased them — the peoples who set up images to their deities, and either invented or believed when invented many false and unworthy things about those whom they call immortal gods, and mixed what they believed into their worship and the rites of their sacred ceremonies. With these men, who testified that they disapproved of such things, if not by proclaiming it freely, at least by muttering it somehow in their debates, this question may be discussed not altogether unfittingly: whether, for the sake of the life that is to come after death, one ought to worship not the one God who made every creature, spiritual and bodily, but many gods, who, as some of these same philosophers held, were made by that one God and placed on high, more excellent and nobler than the rest. But who would bear it to be said and argued that those gods, some of whom I mentioned in the fourth book, to each of whom are assigned separate duties over very small matters, bestow eternal life on anyone? Those most expert and most acute men boast that they did a great service by teaching in their writings why each god should be entreated and what should be asked of each, so that, by a most shameful absurdity such as is done for a joke in a mime, water might not be asked of Liber nor wine of the Lymphs. Will they then advise a man who entreats the immortal gods that, when he has asked wine of the Lymphs and they have answered him, “We have water; ask Liber for that,” he may rightly say, “If you have no wine, at least give me eternal life”? What is more monstrous than this absurdity? Would not those laughing nymphs (for they are usually quick to laugh), if they did not aim to deceive as demons do, answer the suppliant: “O man, do you think we have life (vita) in our power, when you hear that we do not have even the vine (vitis)?” It is therefore the most shameless folly to ask or hope for eternal life from such gods, who are said to protect the separate little parts of this most wretched and most brief life, and whatever serves to support and prop it up, in such a way that if what is under the guardianship and power of one is asked of another, it is so unfitting and absurd that it seems most like a mime's buffoonery. When this is done by mimes who know what they are doing, they are deservedly laughed at in the theater; when it is done by fools who do not know, they are more deservedly laughed at in the world. Which god or goddess should be entreated for what purpose, as far as concerns the gods whom the cities established, has been skillfully worked out and committed to memory by the learned: what is to be asked of Liber, for example, what of the Lymphs, what of Vulcan, and so of the rest, some of whom I mentioned in the fourth book and some of whom I thought should be passed over. Further, if it is a mistake to ask wine of Ceres, bread of Liber, water of Vulcan, fire of the Lymphs, how much greater madness must it be thought if any of these is entreated for eternal life! When we were inquiring about earthly kingdoms, which gods or goddesses one should believe able to bestow them on men, it was shown after everything had been examined that it is far from the truth to think that even earthly kingdoms are established by any of these many false deities. Is it not, then, the most insane impiety to believe that eternal life, which beyond any doubt or comparison is to be preferred to all earthly kingdoms, can be given to anyone by any of these? For such gods were not seen to be unable to give even an earthly kingdom because they are great and exalted and it is something small and low, which they would not deign to care for in their great sublimity. Rather, however rightly anyone, considering human frailty, despises the fleeting pinnacles of an earthly kingdom, those gods proved to be such that they seemed most unworthy to be entrusted with giving and preserving even these. And so, if (as the matters treated in the two preceding books have taught) no god of that crowd, whether of the plebeian gods, so to speak, or of the noble ones, is fit to give mortal kingdoms to mortals, how much less can he make immortals out of mortals! Add to this that, if we are now dealing with those who think the gods are to be worshipped not for the sake of this life but for the sake of the life that is to come after death, then the gods are not to be worshipped at all even for those things which are assigned to their power as though allotted and proper to them — assigned not by the reasoning of truth but by the opinion of vanity — as those believe who contend that their worship is necessary for the benefits of this mortal life, against whom I have argued sufficiently, as far as I could, in the five preceding volumes. This being so, suppose that the youth of those who worshipped the goddess Juventas flourished more remarkably, while those who despised her either died within the years of youth or grew cold in it as though with the torpor of old age; suppose that Bearded Fortune clothed the cheeks of her worshippers more handsomely and gaily, while we saw those who spurned her beardless or poorly bearded. Even so we would say most rightly that these individual goddesses have power only so far, being limited in some way to their own duties, and that therefore eternal life should not be asked of Juventas, who would not give a beard, nor should any good after this life be hoped for from Bearded Fortune, who in this life had no power even to supply the age at which the beard grows. But in fact their worship is not necessary even for those very things which they think are subject to them. For many who worshipped the goddess Juventas were by no means vigorous at that age, and many who do not worship her rejoice in the strength of youth; likewise many suppliants of Bearded Fortune could attain no beard or an ugly one, and if any venerate her to obtain a beard, they are laughed at by bearded men who despise her. Is the human heart so foolish, then, as to believe that the worship of gods which it recognizes as empty and ridiculous with regard to these very temporal and quickly passing gifts, over each of which one of them is said to preside, is fruitful for eternal life? That the gods can give this, not even those have dared to say who, so that the gods might be worshipped by the foolish peoples, assigned them these temporal works divided into tiny pieces, because they thought the gods too many, and did not want any of them to sit idle.

Chapter 2. What we must believe Varro thought about the gods of the nations, whose kinds and rites he laid bare in such a way that he would have treated them more reverently if he had kept completely silent about them.

Who has investigated these matters more carefully than Marcus Varro? Who has discovered them more learnedly? Who has considered them more attentively? Who has distinguished them more acutely? Who has written about them more diligently and more fully? Though he is less pleasing in style, he is so full of learning and ideas that in all the learning which we call secular and they call liberal he teaches the student of things as much as Cicero delights the student of words. Indeed, Cicero himself bears him such testimony that in his Academic books he says that the discussion carried on there was held with Marcus Varro, “a man,” he says, “easily the most acute of all and without any doubt the most learned.” He does not say “most eloquent” or “most fluent,” since in truth Varro is very unequal in that faculty; but “easily the most acute of all,” he says. And in those books, the Academics, where he contends that everything is to be doubted, he added “without any doubt the most learned.” Clearly he was so certain on this point that he set aside the doubt which he usually applies to everything, as if, about to argue for the doubt of the Academics, he had on this one matter forgotten that he was an Academic. And in the first book, praising the literary works of this same Varro, he says: “When we were wandering and straying in our own city like strangers, your books brought us, as it were, home, so that we might at last recognize who and where we were. You have disclosed the age of our country, the divisions of its times, the laws of its sacred rites and of its priests, its domestic and its public discipline, the location of its regions and places, and the names, kinds, functions, and causes of all things divine and human.” This man, then, of such remarkable and excellent expertise — of whom Terentianus too says briefly, in a most elegant little verse, “Varro, a man most learned in every field” — who read so much that we wonder he had time to write anything, and wrote so much that we can hardly believe anyone could have read it all: this man, I say, so great in talent and so great in learning, if he were an assailant and destroyer of the things about which he writes as divine, and said that they belonged not to religion but to superstition, would hardly, I think, have written down so many things in them that are to be laughed at, despised, and detested. But he so worshipped these same gods, and so judged that they should be worshipped, that in that very literary work he says he fears they may perish, not by an enemy's attack but by the neglect of the citizens; he says that he is rescuing them from this as from a collapse, and that through books of this kind they are being stored away and preserved in the memory of good men, a more useful care than that for which Metellus is celebrated for rescuing the sacred objects of Vesta from the fire, and Aeneas the household gods from the destruction of Troy. And yet he hands down to be read by the ages things which are rightly judged by wise and unwise alike as fit to be thrown away and most hostile to the truth of religion. What are we to think, then, except that a most keen and most expert man, yet not set free by the Holy Spirit, was oppressed by the custom and laws of his city, and yet, under the appearance of commending religion, was unwilling to keep silent about the things that troubled him?

Chapter 3. How Varro divided the books which he composed on the antiquities of human and divine things.

He wrote forty-one books of Antiquities. He divided them into human and divine matters, assigning twenty-five books to human matters and sixteen to divine, and in this division he followed the plan of giving six books to each of four parts of human matters. For he considers who act, where they act, when they act, and what they act. So in the first six he wrote about men, in the second six about places, the third six he gave to times, and the fourth and last six to things. Four times six make twenty-four. But he placed at the head one single book, which spoke first about all of them in general. In divine matters, likewise, he kept the same form of division, as far as concerns the things that are to be offered to the gods. For sacred rites are offered by men in places and at times. These four things which I have mentioned he covered in three books each: the first three he wrote about men, the next three about places, the third three about times, the fourth three about sacred rites — here too setting forth, with a most subtle distinction, who offer, where they offer, when they offer, and what they offer. But since he had to say, and this was most of all expected, to whom they offer, he also wrote the last three about the gods themselves, so that five times three made fifteen. But there are sixteen in all, as we said, because at the beginning of these too he placed one single book, which spoke first about all of them. When this was done, he accordingly subdivided the fivefold distribution as follows. The three first books, which pertain to men: the first is about the pontiffs, the second about the augurs, the third about the Fifteen Men in charge of sacred rites. The second three, pertaining to places: in one of them he spoke about shrines, in another about sacred temples, in the third about religious places. Next, the three that follow these and pertain to times, that is, to festival days: he made one of them about holidays, another about the circus games, the third about the stage games. Of the fourth three, pertaining to sacred rites, he gave one to consecrations, another to private rites, the last to public ones. In the three that remain, the gods themselves follow last, as if after a procession of services, the gods on whom all this worship has been spent: in the first the certain gods, in the second the uncertain, in the third and last of all the principal and select gods.

Chapter 4. That from Varro's discussion it appears that among the worshippers of the gods human things are older than divine things.

In this whole series of most beautiful and most subtle distribution and distinction, it is very easily apparent, from what we have already said and what is still to be said, to any man who has not made himself his own enemy by an obstinate heart, that eternal life is sought here in vain, and hoped or wished for most shamelessly. For these are institutions either of men or of demons — not of such demons as they call good, but, to speak more plainly, of unclean and undoubtedly malignant spirits. With a strange envy these spirits secretly insert into the thoughts of the impious harmful opinions, by which the human soul may grow more and more empty and be unable to be fitted to and cleave to the unchangeable and eternal truth; sometimes they openly thrust them on their senses, and they confirm them by what deceptive testimony they can. Varro himself testifies that he wrote first about human things and afterwards about divine things, because cities came into being first and then these things were instituted by them. But the true religion was not instituted by some earthly city; rather, it plainly itself institutes the heavenly city. It is inspired and taught by the true God, the giver of eternal life, to his true worshippers. Varro, then, admitting that he wrote first about human things and afterwards about divine things because these divine things were instituted by men, gives this reason: “As the painter is prior to the painted panel, and the builder prior to the building, so cities are prior to the things instituted by cities.” But he says that he would have written first about the gods and afterwards about men if he were writing about the whole nature of the gods — as if here he were writing about some of it and not all, or as if even some nature of the gods, though not all of it, ought not to come before that of men. What of the fact that in those last three books, carefully explaining the certain, the uncertain, and the select gods, he seems to leave out no nature of the gods? What then does he mean when he says, “If we were writing about the whole nature of gods and men, we would have finished the divine before touching the human”? For either he is writing about the whole nature of the gods, or about some of it, or about none at all. If about the whole, it certainly ought to be put before human things; if about some, why should it too not precede human things? Is some part of the gods unworthy to be put even before the whole nature of men? But if it is too much to put some divine part before all human things, it is at least worthy to be put before the Roman ones. For he wrote the books on human things with regard not to the whole world but to Rome alone; and yet he said that he had rightly put them before the books on divine things in the order of writing, as the painter before the painted panel, as the builder before the building, confessing most openly that these divine things too, like a painting, like a structure, were instituted by men. It remains that he must be understood to have written about no nature of the gods at all, and not to have wished to say this openly but to have left it to those who understand. For where “not all” is said, it is usually understood as “some”; but it can also be understood as “none,” since what is none is neither all nor some. For, as he himself says, if it were the whole nature of the gods about which he was writing, it would have to be put before human things in the order of writing; and, as the truth cries out even when he is silent, it would certainly have to be put before Roman things if it were at least some, even if not all. Yet it is rightly put after; therefore it is none. So he did not wish to put human things before divine things; rather, he refused to put false things before true ones. For in what he wrote about human things he followed the history of things done; but in what he wrote about those things he calls divine, what did he follow except opinions about empty things? This, surely, is what he wished to show by a subtle indication, not only by writing about these later than about those, but also by giving the reason why he did so. Had he kept silent about the reason, others might perhaps have defended this action of his in another way. But in the very reason he gave, he left others nothing to suspect at will, and he proved sufficiently that he had put men before the institutions of men, not the nature of men before the nature of the gods. Thus he confessed that he wrote the books on divine things not about the truth that pertains to nature but about the falsehood that pertains to error. He put this more openly elsewhere, as I mentioned in the fourth book: that he would have written according to the pattern of nature if he himself were founding a new city; but since he had found an old one, he could only follow its custom.

Chapter 5. On the three kinds of theology according to Varro: one fabulous, another natural, the third civil.

Next, what of his saying that there are three kinds of theology, that is, of the account that is given of the gods, and that one of them is called mythicon, another physicon, the third civil? In Latin, if usage allowed it, we would call the kind he put first “fabular”; but let us call it “fabulous,” for mythicon is named from fables, since in Greek mythos means a fable. That the second should be called “natural,” customary speech already allows. The third he himself expressed in Latin, calling it civil. Then he says: “They call mythicon the kind which the poets chiefly use; physicon, that which the philosophers use; civil, that which the peoples use. In the first,” he says, “which I mentioned, there are many fictions contrary to the dignity and nature of the immortals. For in it one god is born from a head, another from a thigh, another from drops of blood; in it gods steal, commit adultery, serve a man as slaves; in short, in it everything is attributed to the gods that can befall not only a man but even the most contemptible of men.” Here, certainly, where he could, where he dared, where he thought he could do so with impunity, he expressed without the fog of any ambiguity how great an injury was done to the nature of the gods by most lying fables. For he was speaking not about natural theology, nor about civil, but about fabulous, which he thought he could freely find fault with. Let us see what he says about the next. “The second kind which I have pointed out,” he says, “is that about which philosophers have left many books, in which it is discussed who the gods are, where they are, of what kind and of what quality; whether the gods have existed from a certain time or from eternity; whether they are from fire, as Heraclitus believes, or from numbers, as Pythagoras, or from atoms, as Epicurus says; and other such things, which ears can bear more easily within the walls of a school than outside in the forum.” He found no fault in this kind, which they call physicon and which belongs to the philosophers, except that he mentioned their controversies among themselves, through which a multitude of dissenting sects arose. Yet he removed this kind from the forum, that is, from the peoples, and shut it up in schools and within walls. But that first kind, most lying and most shameful, he did not remove from the cities. O the religious ears of the people, and among them even of the Romans! What philosophers debate about the immortal gods they cannot bear; but what poets sing and actors perform — things fictitious and contrary to the dignity and nature of the immortals, things that can befall not only a man but even the most contemptible of men — they not only bear but even gladly hear. And not only this: they decree that these things please the gods themselves too, and that the gods are to be appeased by them. Someone may say: Let us distinguish these two kinds, mythicon and physicon, that is, the fabulous and the natural, from this civil kind now under discussion, from which he himself also distinguished them, and let us now see how he explains the civil kind itself. I see indeed why the fabulous ought to be set apart: because it is false, because it is shameful, because it is unworthy. But to wish to set apart the natural from the civil, what is it but to confess that the civil itself is faulty? For if the civil is natural, what fault is there in it, that it should be excluded? And if what is called civil is not natural, what merit has it, that it should be admitted? This, surely, is the reason why he wrote first about human things and afterwards about divine: because in divine things he followed not nature but the institutions of men. Let us look, then, at civil theology too. “The third kind,” he says, “is that which citizens in cities, especially priests, ought to know and administer. In it is which gods each person should worship publicly, and which sacred rites and sacrifices he should perform.” Let us attend also to what follows. “The first theology,” he says, “is suited chiefly to the theater, the second to the world, the third to the city.” Who does not see to which he gave the palm? Surely to the second, which he said above belonged to the philosophers. For he testifies that it pertains to the world, than which these men think there is nothing more excellent in existence. But those two theologies, the first and the third, that is, of the theater and of the city — did he separate them or join them? For we see that what belongs to the city need not at once pertain also to the world, although we see that cities are in the world; for it can happen that in a city, according to false opinions, things are worshipped and believed whose nature exists nowhere, either in the world or outside it. But where is the theater except in the city? Who instituted the theater but the city? For what purpose did it institute it except for the stage games? And where do the stage games belong except among the divine things about which these books are written with such skill?