Instructions 1–1.31

Book One. 1. Preface. 2. The wrath of God. 3. The worship of demons. 4. Saturn. 5. Jupiter. 6. Hear about the thunderbolt of Jupiter himself. 7. On the Septizonium and the stars. 8. On the sun and the moon. 9. Mercury. 10. Neptune. 11. Apollo, the false soothsayer. 12. Father Liber, Bacchus. 13. The Unconquered. 14. Silvanus. 15. Hercules. 16. On the gods and goddesses. 17. On their images. 18. On Ammudates and the great god. 19. To the vain devotees of Nemesis. 20. The Titans. 21. To the Montesians. 22. The dullness of the age. 23. To those ready for anything. 24. To those who live between the two. 25. Those who fear and do not believe. 26. To those who resist the law of Christ (the living God). 27. Foolish one, you do not die to God. 28. The righteous rise again. 29. To the wicked unbelieving rich man. 30. You rich, be humble. 31. To judges. 32. To the self-satisfied. 33. To the Gentiles. 34. Again, to the ignorant Gentiles. 35. On the tree of life and of death. 36. On the folly of the cross. 37. Fanatics who judaize. 38. To the Jews. 39. Again, to the Jews. 40. Once more to them. 41. On the time of the Antichrist.

Preface. Our preface shows the way to the one who wanders, and shows that a good reward will be eternal when the goal of this age comes — a thing ignorant hearts disbelieve. I too wandered for a long time, frequenting the temples, while my parents themselves were ignorant; at last I took myself away from there by reading in the law. I call the Lord to witness: I grieve for the crowd of my fellow citizens, because in ignorance it goes on, perishing, seeking vain gods. For this reason, now thoroughly taught, I instruct the ignorant in the truth.

The wrath of God. In the law the Lord of heaven, earth, and sea commanded: “Do not worship empty gods made by your hands out of wood or gold, lest my wrath destroy you for these things.” The nation before Moses, uncouth, living without law and not knowing God, prayed to dead kings and made vain idols after their likenesses. After the Lord had brought the Jews over from the land of Egypt, he then imposed the law and commanded this: that they serve him alone, the Almighty, and not those others. In the law also there is teaching about the resurrection and the happy hope of living again in the age to come, if vain idols are abandoned and not worshiped.

The worship of demons. When God almighty had adorned the nature of the world, he willed that this earth be visited by angels; but, once sent down, they spurned his laws. So great was the beauty of women that it turned them aside. Since, defiled, they could not return to heaven, they became rebels and sent forth words against God. The Most High then passed sentence on them. From their seed the Giants are said to have been born. By them arts were brought forth on the earth, and they taught the dyeing of wool and everything that is done; and those mortals set up images of the dead. But the Almighty, because they were of evil seed, did not decree that they be brought back from death when they died. Hence they now wander and ruin many bodies; above all these are the ones you worship today and pray to as gods.

Saturn. If old Saturn is a god, when does a god grow old? Or if he was a god, why did he devour his children? He was driven by terrors; but because he was not a god, he consumed the flesh of his children in monstrous rage. He was a king on earth, born on Mount Olympus, and he was not divine; yet he said he was a god. He came, poor in mind, and swallowed a stone in place of his son; so the god escaped, the one who is now called Jupiter.

Jupiter. This Jupiter, born to Saturn on the island of Crete, when he had grown up deprived his father of his kingdom, and then seduced the wives and sisters of nobles. Moreover, the smith Pyracmon had made him his scepter. In the beginning God made heaven, earth, and sea; but this terrible one, born in the middle of time, came out of a cave as a youth, having been nursed in secret. Consider the charges! The true God is another, not that Jupiter.

Hear about the thunderbolt of Jupiter himself. You say, you fools: “Jupiter thunders; he hurls the lightning himself.” Even if childishness thought so, why do you say it when grown in years? You were children: will you always be so? A mature age cannot keep living in infancy. Childish play has passed; so let childish hearts withdraw too; your counsels surely ought to match your conduct. Foolish one, then, do you believe that Jupiter thunders, who was born here on earth and nursed with goat's milk? So if Saturn had devoured him, who would have sent the rain in those times, with him dead? Above all, is a god to be believed born of a mortal father? Saturn grew old on earth and died there. No one prophesied beforehand that he would be born. Or, if he thunders, a law would have been given by him. Made-up (empty) stories lead the foolish astray. He reigned in Crete and died there. Your almighty became Semele's lover; if he were alive now, he would love likewise. You pray to impure beings and call them heavenly, born of mortal seed from those Giants. You hear and read that he was born on earth: how did the corrupter deserve to go up to heaven? It is said too that the Cyclopes made his thunderbolt: so the immortal had his weapons from mortals. One guilty of so many crimes, a murderer of his own kin too, you have raised on high on your own authority.

On the Septizonium and the stars. Your ignorance deceives you about the circle of the zodiac, since you think perhaps that Jupiter is to be prayed to. Saturn is said to be there, but it is a star, not he; he fled, driven out by Jupiter. Or is Jupiter to be believed to be in a star? And did he, the sole begetter, handle the stars of the pole — he who made war on the Trojans and, as a bird, loved a mortal? Or among the stars themselves is Mars, who was caught with her through a husband's jealousy, to be called a young god? You utter fools, who think that adulterers born from the stars rule, or govern the whole nature of the world! Themselves open to wounds and living under the fates, obscene, raging, warlike, ungodly in life, those mortals also begot as many sons. Every terrible one, you fools, is powerful in the Septizonium! If you worship the stars, worship the twice six signs too! You will approve the ram, the bull, the twins, and the fierce lion, and then what goes on to the fishes. A law without law, your refuge: what it wills will prevail. Lust wills to be, and seeks to live without a bridle. What you wish will be, and you pray to gods and goddesses. So I worshiped, while I wandered, what I now condemn.

On the sun and the moon. About the Sun and the Moon, though they are present to us, you are wrong, since you, as I once did, think they are to be prayed to. They are indeed among the heavenly bodies, but they do not run of their own accord: the Almighty, when he first founded all things, placed them there with the stars on the fourth of the days. … And indeed in the law he commanded that no one should worship them. You pray to so many gods, who promise nothing about life, whose law is not on earth and who were not foretold; but a few (empty) priests lead you astray, who say that divinities can do something for one who is about to die. Come to the (edicts) of the law and speak the truth.

Mercury. Let your Mercury be painted with his trousers and helmet, winged on his feet and otherwise naked. I see a wondrous thing: a god flying with a purse! Run, you poor folk, holding out your laps where he flies, so that he may pour out his purse; be ready from now on. Look at the picture, since he will throw coins down to you from on high; then dance without a care. Foolish one, are you not mad to worship gods painted on a board? If you do not know how to be a man, go and live with the beasts.

Neptune. You make Neptune a god, born of Saturn, and he wields a trident so that he can spear fish. Plainly he is a god — prepare him a porter's shoulder-pad! Did he not build walls for the Trojans with Apollo? How did the god become a needy mason? Did he not beget the monster Cyclops? Was he not an adulterer himself? He could not live on his own means, since he took on building work. So the begotten begot — one who died long ago.

Apollo, the false soothsayer. You make Apollo a harper and a diviner. First, he was born of adultery on the island of Delos; later, following the builder's trade for a wage offered, he built walls for Laomedon, king of the Trojans, and hired himself out — he whom, led astray, you think a god. Love for Cassandra burned in his bones; the virgin tricked him craftily, and the diviner was deceived: by his office with the sacred boughs he could not know her double heart; rejected, the diviner went away. The virgin burned him with her beauty, whom he ought … She at least ought to have loved a god first. Then he began to love Daphne, who was sporting, and still he pursues her, wanting to violate the girl: the fool loves in vain, and could not catch her in the race. Or, if he was a god, he would have met her through the air: she reached shelter first, and the diviner was left behind. The race of men deceives you; for these were men of great strength. He is also said at first to have fed flocks. In the games, when he threw the discus on high, he could not hold it as it fell back, and laid his friend low: that was the last day of his companion Hyacinthus. If he was a diviner, he would have forestalled his friend's death.

Father Liber, Bacchus. You yourselves surely say that Father Liber was born twice. Born first in India of Jupiter and Proserpina, he fought against the Titans, poured out his blood, and died like any one of the mortals. He was restored again by his father's breath in another womb: Semele, another mistress of Jupiter, received him again; when her womb was cut open, as she died close to childbirth, he was taken up and given to Nysus as a foster-child to be reared. From this he is called Dionysus, the twice born, whose false religion is practiced in vain; and they revel as Bacchants, as they themselves are now seen, or … conspire in wickedness and perform with feigned frenzy, to deceive the others into saying that the god is present. Hence, plainly, rude men living without law, transformed by wine, which he first pressed out, gave him honor in his game.

The Unconquered. If the Unconquered, born from a rock, is held to be a god, then I say no more; you tell me which of them came first! The rock conquered the god; the rock's creator must be sought. Besides, you even paint him as a thief, whereas if he were a god he certainly would not live by theft. He was surely earthly and of monstrous nature, and he was forever driving other people's cattle into caves, like Cacus, the son of Vulcan.

Silvanus. How did Silvanus turn out to be a god as well? Does he please, perhaps, because his pipe plays sweetly? Because he gives wood? Otherwise, perhaps, he would not exist. You bought a lord who was for sale, when you yourself are his master. Look, the wood fails! What is owed to him? Are you not ashamed, fool, to worship such boards? Seek the one God, who says that you will live after death! Withdraw from these, who have become biothanati.

Hercules. Because Hercules crushed the monster of the Aventine hill, who used to steal Evander's herds, the rustic and untaught minds of men, wishing to give thanks in his praise, vowed victims to the absent Thunderer, as though praying to a foolish god, and made altars to feast at in memory of it. From that it went on that he is worshiped by ancient custom. But he is not a god, though he was strong in arms.

On the gods and goddesses. You say they are gods who are plainly bloodthirsty, and you say that the fates assign us our birth? Tell me now, then, to which of the two sacrifices should be offered first: between the two, untimely death roams the roads. If the fates assign our birth, why do you pray to a god? You are deceived, vain one, who seek to pray to the spirits of the dead, and who call things that are manufactured your lords. Or you also pray to women, goddesses of some sort, Bellona and Nemesis, the goddesses Furina and Caelestis, the Virgins, and Venus, for whom your wives wear themselves out. There are other demons besides, (away from) the temples, which are not even counted yet and are carried around the neck, so that they cannot even give an account of themselves. They ought rather to be carried off to the ends of the earth.

On their images. A few wicked, empty seers delude you while they seek to scrape together their own living … They put others of their own up to a falsehood under the name of mysteries. Then, pretending to be shaken by some divinity, they chant of its majesty and wear themselves out in a disguise. You have often seen the priests of Bellona, with what din they enter on their excesses, while they try to feign frenzy, or when they strike their backs with a sparing double axe, since they see by their training that they heal with blood. Consider that it is not the divinities that drive them, since they first compose themselves with a sound mind; they devise such tricks to collect money. See from this that it is all made up. They cast a shadow over the suppliant people, so that those who are perishing may not believe. The thing once set out in vain from antiquity, so that false things uttered by a soothsayer are believed; but no majesty of theirs has ever spoken.

On Ammudates and the great god. We have already said much about this unspeakable superstition, and yet we go on, so that we may not be said to have passed anything over. Ammudates, whom his worshipers used to worship in their fashion, was great to them while there was gold in the temple; they bowed their heads beneath the divinity as though it were present. It came to the point that Caesar took away the gold: the divinity failed, or fled, or passed into the fire. The author of this wickedness is well known, the man who shaped the god; he led so many great men astray with false prophesying, and now he has fallen silent, who used to be a diviner. For he used to burst out in speech as though his mind were changed, as if the god of wood were speaking into his ear. Tell me now yourselves whether the divinities are not false, and how many that prophet ruined by that portent. He has forgotten how to prophesy, who used to do it before. These wonders were invented for the god by wine-guzzlers, whose damnable audacity invents divinities. Such a figurine was carried about and fed; now it too is silent, and no one prophesies about it. O, all too eagerly you want to destroy yourselves!

To the vain devotees of Nemesis. Is it not a disgrace for a sensible man to be led astray, to worship such a thing and to call a piece of wood Diana? In the morning you believe one man, drunk, raw from wine, doomed to perish, who by his art falsely says whatever he pleases; while he sternly plays the diviner, he is feeding his own belly. One detestable man makes all the citizens drunk and gathers men like himself, forming a guild, with whom he makes up a story to adorn the god. He cannot divine for himself, yet he dares to for others. He shoulders the god when he likes and puts him down when he likes; he spins round and round with the forked pole, so that you would think him inspired by the divinity of the wood. It is not gods you worship, whom these men prophesy falsely: you worship the priests themselves, fearing in vain. But if you are strong in heart, flee now the shrines of death.

The Titans. You say the Titans are your protectors; so you pray to the Silent and Quiet goddesses under your roof, to so many Lares in little shrines, images made for a Titan! Fools, you worship those who died an evil death, not reading their law; they do not speak themselves, and do you dare to call things cast in bronze gods? You would do better to melt them down into little vessels for yourselves.

To the Montesians. You say that the mountain gods are lords in gold, you who are darkened by evil and swear with an alien mind. For if your spirit were pure and your mind remained calm, you ought to reason out for yourself what they are. You are out of your senses, man, if you think that they save you, or rule, or diminish anything, unless you run to the temple. Seek the justice of the law rather than those things; it brings the help of salvation and says that you will become eternal. For whatever you pursue in vain, you enjoy for a season; you are glad for a short time and afterward you lament in the depths. Withdraw from them if you want to rise again to Christ.

The dullness of the age. Alas, I grieve, citizens, that you are so dulled by the world! One runs off to the lots, another watches birds, another wickedly inspects the blood of bleating victims poured out and cruelly longs to hear favorable answers. So many generals and kings who took counsel about their lives — where are they? Or what good did it do them to have known their omens? Learn the good, I beg you, citizens; beware of images; all of you, search into the law of the Almighty. It has so pleased the Lord of lords on high himself that demons should roam the world to test us. And yet, on the other side, he has sent ahead commandments, that those who abandon their altars should become heavenly. So I do not care to argue this in a little book: the law teaches openly; consult it on our behalf! You have set out on two roads: learn the right one.

To those ready for anything. While you serve your belly, you say you are innocent, and as though you were everyone's friend you make yourself ready for anything. Woe to you, foolish man; you are staring death in the face yourself. You seek to live without law, in the manner of a barbarian: by your own word you drive an axe into your own leg. You who feign simplicity — do you think you are living simply with him, while you long to fill your belly? You sit, petty and wicked, in a tyrant's house, ready for feasts, and you shun God's commands. Or, because you disbelieve that God judges the dead, do you make yourself ruler of heaven in his place? You look to your belly, as though you were its provider. Now you seem profane, now holy. You betray God's suppliant before the eyes of the tyrant. You will feel among the fates whose empty laws you now follow.

To those who live between the two. Thinking to be safe by living doubtfully between the two, stripped of the law, worn out by the luxury of the manger, you look ahead to so many (vain) things; what for? You seek what is wicked! And whatever you have done, see that it stays here when you are dead. Fool, you did not exist, and behold, you are seen! You do not know where you came from, nor where you are fed from. You flee God on high, who is kind to your life, and your ruler, who would rather you lived; you turn to your own face and turn your back to God; you plunge yourself into darkness while you think you are dwelling in light. Why do you run into the synagogue so often, double-minded? So that he may show mercy to you, whom you freely deny? You go out from there and again you seek out the temples. You want to live between the two, but by it you will perish. And besides you say: “Who is there who has come back from death, so that we may believe him that punishments are carried out there?” These things are not as you think they are, wicked one! For what does it profit one who lived rightly, after death? Yet you will soon die and be led to an evil place, but those who believe in Christ to a kind place, and that loveliness caresses those to whom it clings. But you will pay the penalty alive, without the body; the order of things will rouse you to cry out before the torturer's face.

Those who fear and do not believe. How long, foolish man, will you refuse to know Christ? You avoid the rich field and throw seed on barren ground. You want to stay in the forest where the robber lurks. You say: “I too belong to God,” and you wander outside. Come into the hall now, you who have been invited so often: the harvest is ripe now, and the time just as ready; see, reap now; if not, you will regret it. Now, if you have nothing, gather; the vintage has come; the time of life is at hand for believing, in the time of death. God's first law is the foundation of the later law, and it pointed to you. Believe, so that you may be in the second law; … Now that you are amazed, pray to believe in Christ; for the old testament proclaims him. Now it is needful to believe only this: that in him who died one can rise again and live for all time. So if anyone disbelieves that these things will come, until he is convicted as guilty in the second death, I will sing of what is to come in a few words in this little book; for it can be known where the hope of life should be placed. Still, I urge you to believe in Christ as quickly as you can.

To those who resist the law of Christ, the living God. Unhappy one, you spit out the good of the heavenly discipline and rush into death while you want to roam without a bridle. Luxuries and the brief joys of the world are destroying you, for which you will be tormented in hell for all time. The joys you delight in, you fool, are empty; they will not show, when you are dead, that you were a man. Can thirty years not make you wise yet? If you went astray at first in ignorance, look at your grey hair. Do you think you are now happily enjoying life here? Here there are injuries, lawsuits, and daily losses, wars and unspeakable things, frauds, thefts with bloodshed; the body is racked with sores, there is groaning and weeping; or plague invades, or you are held by a long illness, or you are bereaved of your children, or you weep for a wife you have lost; everything is destroyed, honors fall from on high; poverty burns you, doubly if you are sick; and do you call it life, where you linger in a life of glass? Consider at last that this time is worthless; but in the future you have the hope of living without grief. The (father) of a little one snatched away surely wanted him to live; but the young man deprived of life might perhaps have grown old too, because the rich man himself was getting ready to enjoy his luxuries; and yet, unwilling, we leave everything to the world. I too was a Gentile, living with a perverse mind, and I thought the life of this age was the true one, and I judged, as you do, that when death came and the soul had once gone out, the dead man had perished. But these things are not so: the founder and author of the world — for he required of the brother the brother who had been slain — said: “Ungodly one, tell me, where is your brother?” He denied it. “For your brother's blood has cried out to me on high.” You are tormented, I see, where you thought you would feel nothing; but he lives and holds the places on the right hand, enjoying the delights that you have lost, wicked one! And when the age has been renewed, he too, having gone before, will be immortal; but you will lament beneath Tartarus. God surely lives, who has made the dead live, to give fitting rewards to the harmless and good, but cruel Tartarus to the mad and the ungodly. Begin to feel God's judgments, you who have been led astray!

Foolish one, you do not die altogether to God. Foolish one, you do not die altogether, nor do you escape your deeds when you are dead, though you may reckon that you will feel nothing once dead. You are refuted, senseless one: God lives, the founder of the world, whose laws are proclaimed to hold good for the dead. But while you seek headlong to live without God, you think it idle that one extinguished by fate should be judged. The eternal God did not arrange things as you think, so that the dead forget what they did before. Now he has made receptacles of death for us, who are unskilled; but after our ashes we shall see them. Pull yourself out, fool, who think you will not exist after death. You have made your ruler and lord able to do nothing. But death is not into nothingness, if you think it over in your heart. Know that it is to be desired, for you will feel him too late. You were ruler of the flesh; the flesh certainly did not rule you; once you are taken from it, it is buried by your own people. Rightly is mortal man separated from the flesh. Therefore mortal eyes cannot measure up — such is our abyss — to the secrets of God. Give honor to God now, then, while you are frail and dying, and believe that Christ raises you alive from the dead. You ought to render praises to the Almighty in the church.

The righteous rise again. Justice and goodness, peace and true patience make one live after death and be questioned about one's conduct; but the deceitful, harmful, faithless, and depraved race takes itself off to one side and lives with a savage mind. Ungodly one, hear now, you who profit by evil deeds: look at earthly judges, who now torture cruel men with penalties in the body; either punishments by the sword are prepared for the guilty, or long weeping in prison. Do you hope in the end to mock the heavenly God, the ruler of the sky, through whom all things were made? You rage, you are mad, do you now even disparage God's name? You will not escape him, who will impose punishment after death. Now I want you to take care, so that you do not come into the heat of the fire. Give yourself to Christ now, so that good deeds may follow you.

To the wicked unbelieving rich man. You are distracted, rich man, by gazing too much at all your goods, to which you still seek insatiably to add. “After all this,” you say, “I do not hope to live once I am dead.” Ungrateful to God most high, you who declare God to be such, who brought you forth when you did not know it, then nourished you: he governs your meadows, he your vineyards, he your flocks and whatever you possess; and you pay no attention to this. Or do you perhaps govern all things? He who made this heaven and earth and the salt seas has decreed to restore us in a golden age; and now, if you believe, one lives in God's secret. Learn God, fool, who wants you to be immortal, so that you may give him thanks in the everlasting contest. His law teaches it; but because you want to roam, you disbelieve everything, and so you will go to Tartarus: soon you give back your soul, you will be led where you will regret being, and there an eternal spiritual penalty is paid; there is mourning forever, and you will not die out in it, crying out to Almighty God then, too late.

You rich, be humble. Learn, you who must die, to show goodness to all. Why do you make yourself something apart in the midst of the people? You go where you do not know, and you go back from there unknowing. You deal impiously with your very body, thirsting after riches; you lift yourself too high … and you do not look to the poor who are now subject to us, nor do you even feed your own parents. Alas, you wretches! Let people of modest means flee far from you. … Soon the Furies will drive you, when you perish yourself, you Charybdis. You rich are undisciplined like … ; you lay down the law for these, but you spare yourselves. Strip yourself, rich man, of such great evils and turn back to God, so that what you have done now may perhaps help you. Be generous to the least while you have time; as the elm loves the vine, so love the little ones. Keep the law, terrible to the wicked and kind to the good, you who are now barren! Be submissive in prosperity. Put away hearts of fraud, you rich, and take up hearts of peace. Atone for your evil with good deeds before the Most High.

To judges. Look at the sayings of Solomon, all you judges, how with a single word he disparages you: “How gifts and presents corrupt all judges!” The same: “You follow and always love the giver; when the case is examined, the unjust side carries off the victory.” I am innocent here; I, a little one, do not accuse you; let Solomon bear the reproach, who (cries it) openly. But to you God is your belly, and bribes are law. The apostle Paul suggests this, not I, a flea.