even as the same historian says that, to him reading and hearing of many illustrious deeds which the Roman people had wrought at home and in war, on sea and on land, it pleased him to consider what especially had sustained such great undertakings; since he knew that very often with a small band the Romans had contended against great legions of the enemy, and had learned that with scanty forces wars had been waged against opulent kings; and he said that, after much pondering, it was established to him that the surpassing virtue of a few citizens had accomplished everything, and that thereby it came to pass that poverty overcame riches, and fewness overcame multitude.
'But after the state was corrupted by luxury and sloth,' he says, 'in turn the republic by its own greatness sustained the vices of its commanders and magistrates.' The virtue, then, of the few who strove for glory, honor, and command by the true way—that is, by virtue itself—was praised even by Cato. Hence there was at home that industry which Cato mentioned, so that the treasury might be opulent and private resources slender. Whence, when morals were corrupted, he set down the contrary vice—public want, private opulence. CHAPTER XIII. On the love of praise, which, though it be a vice, is for this reason thought a virtue, because through it greater vices are restrained.
Wherefore, so long as the kingdoms of the East had been illustrious, God willed that a Western one also should come to be, which, though later in time, should be more illustrious in the breadth and greatness of empire; and He granted it especially to such men, for the subduing of the grievous evils of many nations, who for the sake of honor, praise, and glory took counsel for their fatherland, in which they sought that very glory, and did not hesitate to set its safety before their own—suppressing, for that one vice, namely the love of praise, the greed of money and many other vices. For he sees more soundly who recognizes that even the love of praise is a vice—which did not escape the poet Horace, who says: 'Thou swellest with the love of praise: there are sure expiations which, with the booklet thrice read through purely, will be able to restore thee.'
And the same poet, in a lyric song, to repress the lust of domination, thus sang: 'More widely shalt thou reign by taming a greedy spirit, than if thou shouldst join Libya to far-off Gades, and both Carthaginians should serve one master.' Nevertheless, those who do not bridle the baser lusts by the faith of piety, with the Holy Spirit obtained, and by the love of intelligible beauty, are at least better—indeed by the desire of human praise and glory not yet holy, but less base. Even Tully could not dissemble this in those same books which he wrote On the Republic, where he speaks of the establishing of a prince of the state, whom he says ought to be nourished by glory; and consequently he recalls that his ancestors did many wondrous and illustrious things out of desire for glory.
To this vice, therefore, they not only did not resist, but even judged that it ought to be stirred up and kindled, thinking this to be useful to the republic. And yet not even in his books of philosophy does Tully dissemble concerning this plague, where he confesses it more clearly than the light. For when he was speaking of such pursuits as ought assuredly to be followed for the end of the true good, not for the vanity of human praise, he interposed this universal and general sentence: 'Honor nourishes the arts, and all are kindled to studies by glory; and those things always lie neglected which are disapproved by each man.' CHAPTER XIV. On cutting away the love of human praise, since all the glory of the righteous is in God. To this desire, therefore, it is without doubt better to resist than to yield.
For each person is more like God in proportion as he is more cleansed from this impurity. And although in this life this impurity is not utterly rooted out of the heart, since it does not cease to tempt even souls who are making good progress, let the desire for glory at least be overcome by the love of righteousness; so that, if anywhere there lie unnoticed things that are disapproved by some people, provided they are good and upright, even the love of human praise itself may blush and yield to the love of truth. For so hostile is this vice to godly faith, if the desire for glory be greater in the heart than the fear or love of God, that the Lord said: 'How can you believe, you who expect glory from one another, and do not seek the glory that is from God alone?'
Likewise, concerning certain men who had believed in Him but were afraid to confess Him openly, the evangelist says: 'They loved the glory of men more than the glory of God.' This the holy apostles did not do; for when they preached the name of Christ in those places where it was not only disapproved (as he said: 'and those things always lie unregarded which are disapproved by some'), but was even held in the deepest detestation, holding fast to what they had heard from the good Master who was also the physician of minds: 'Whoever shall deny me before men, I will deny him before my Father who is in heaven,' or 'before the angels of God,' amid curses and reproaches, amid the gravest persecutions and cruel punishments, they were not deterred from preaching human salvation by so great a roar of human offence.
And because, while they did and spoke and lived in a divine manner, in a sense subduing hard hearts and bringing in the peace of righteousness, an immense glory followed them in the Church of Christ, they did not rest in that glory as in the end of their own virtue, but referring even this glory itself to the glory of God, by whose grace they were such men, with this very fuel they kindled those whom they counselled to the love of Him by whom they too were made such. For lest they should be good for the sake of human glory, their Master had taught them, saying: 'Take heed not to do your righteousness before men, to be seen by them; otherwise you shall have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.'
But again, lest by misunderstanding this they should be afraid to please men, and so do less good by concealing the fact that they are good, He showed for what end they ought to become known: 'Let your works,' He says, 'shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father who is in heaven.' Therefore not 'to be seen by them,' that is, with this intention, that you should wish them to be turned toward yourselves—since you yourselves are nothing of yourselves—but 'that they may glorify your Father who is in heaven,' toward whom being turned they may become what you are. These the martyrs followed, who surpassed the Scaevolas and Curtiuses and Decii, not by inflicting punishments on themselves, but by enduring those inflicted on them, and by true virtue, since by true godliness, and by an innumerable multitude.
But since those men were in the earthly city, to whom the end of all their services on her behalf was set as her safety and a kingdom not in heaven but on earth; not in eternal life, but in the passing away of those who die and the succession of those about to die: what else should they love but glory, by which they wished even after death to live, as it were, in the mouths of those who praise them? CHAPTER XV. On the temporal reward which God repaid to the good morals of the Romans.
To those, then, to whom God was not going to give eternal life with His holy angels in His heavenly city—to whose fellowship true godliness leads, which renders the service of religion (which the Greeks call latreia) to none but the one true God—if He had not also granted them this earthly glory of a most excellent empire, the reward would not have been repaid for their good arts, that is, for the virtues by which they strove to attain to so great a glory. For concerning such persons, who seem to do something good for this end, that they may be glorified by men, the Lord also says: 'Amen I say to you, they have received their reward.'
Thus these men too despised their private affairs for the common cause, that is, for the republic, and for its treasury; they resisted avarice; they took counsel for their country with free judgment, being subject neither to crime by their own laws nor to lust; by all these arts, as by a true path, they strove toward honors, power, and glory. They were honored among almost all nations; they imposed the laws of their empire upon many nations; and to this day they are glorious in literature and history among nearly all peoples. There is no reason for them to complain of the justice of the supreme and true God; they have received their reward. CHAPTER XVI. On the reward of the holy citizens of the eternal city, to whom the examples of the virtues of the Romans are useful.
But the reward of the saints is far different—of those who even here endure reproaches for the truth of God, which is hateful to the lovers of this world. That city is everlasting; there no one is born, because no one dies; there is true and full felicity—not a goddess, but a gift of God; thence we have received the pledge of faith, so long as on our pilgrimage we sigh for its beauty; there the sun does not rise upon the good and the evil, but the Sun of righteousness protects only the good; there it will be no great labor to enrich a public treasury out of private hardships, where the treasure held in common is truth. Accordingly, the Roman empire was extended to human glory not only that such a reward might be repaid to such men;
but also that the citizens of that eternal city, so long as they here sojourn as pilgrims, may diligently and soberly contemplate those examples, and see how great a love is owed to the heavenly country for the sake of eternal life, if so great a love was bestowed on the earthly country by its own citizens for the sake of human glory. CHAPTER XVII. With what fruit the Romans waged wars, and how much they conferred on those whom they conquered. For as far as concerns this mortal life, which is led and finished in a few days, what does it matter under whose rule a man who is going to die lives, provided that those who rule do not compel him to impious and unjust deeds? Or did the Romans in fact do any harm to the nations whom, when subjugated, they bound by their own laws, except that this was accomplished by an immense slaughter of wars?
But if it had been done with mutual concord, it would have been done with better success; yet there would have been no glory for those who triumph. For neither did the Romans not live under their own laws, which they imposed on the rest. If this had been done without Mars and Bellona, so that Victory too should have no place, no one conquering where no one had fought: would not the condition of the Romans and of the other nations be one and the same? Especially if at once that had been done which afterward was most graciously and most humanely done—that all who belonged to the Roman empire should receive the fellowship of citizenship and be Roman citizens, and thus there should be the property of all what was before the property of a few; only that the common people who had no fields of their own should live from the public funds;
and this their sustenance would have been supplied more graciously by men of one mind through good administrators of the republic than extorted from the conquered. For what difference it makes to safety and good morals, or indeed to the very dignities of men, that some have conquered and others have been conquered, I do not see at all, except that most empty pomp of human glory, in which they have received their reward who burned with an immense desire for it and waged burning wars. Do not their fields pay tribute? Is it permitted to them to learn what is not permitted to others? Are there not many senators in other lands who do not even know Rome by sight? Take away boasting, and what are all men but men?
But if the perversity of the age would allow it, that the better men should also be the more honored: not even thus ought human honor to be reckoned a great thing, for smoke is of no weight. But let us make use, even in these matters, of the kindness of the Lord our God;
let us consider how much those men despised, what things they endured, what desires they subdued for the sake of human glory—men who deserved to receive that glory as it were the reward of such virtues; and let this too avail us to suppress pride, so that, since that city in which it is promised that we shall reign is as far distant from this one as heaven is from earth, eternal life from temporal joy, solid glory from empty praises, the fellowship of angels from the fellowship of mortals, the light of Him who made the sun and moon from the light of the sun and moon, the citizens of so great a country may seem to themselves to have done nothing great, if for the attaining of that country they have done any good work or have endured any evils—
endured some things, when those men did so much, suffered so much, for this earthly country already attained; especially because the remission of sins, which gathers the citizens to the eternal country, has something to which, by a certain shadow, that asylum of Romulus was similar, in which the impunity of crimes of every kind gathered together the multitude by which that city was to be founded. CHAPTER XVIII. How far Christians ought to be from boasting, if they have done anything for love of the eternal country, since the Romans accomplished so great things for human glory and the earthly city.
What great thing, then, is it for the sake of that eternal and heavenly country to despise all the allurements of this world, however pleasant, if for the sake of this temporal and earthly one Brutus was able even to kill his sons—which that country compels no one to do? But surely it is harder to put one's sons to death than what must be done for that country: namely, either to give to the poor those things which seemed must be amassed and preserved for one's sons, or, if a temptation arise which compels this to be done 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, when we are dead, be possessed by those we know not of, or perhaps by those we would not wish; but God makes happy, who is the true wealth of minds.
But concerning Brutus, because he killed his sons, even the poet who praises him bears witness to his unhappiness. For he says: 'And the father shall summon to punishment his sons who stir up new wars, for the sake of fair liberty—unhappy man, however posterity shall report those deeds.' But in the following verse he consoled the unhappy man: 'The love of country conquers, and the boundless desire for praise.' These are those two things, liberty and the desire for human praise, which impelled the Romans to wondrous deeds. If, then, for the sake of the liberty of mortals and for the desire of praises which are sought from mortal men, sons could be slain by a father: what great thing is it, if for the sake of true liberty, which makes us—
—which makes us free from the dominion of iniquity, death, and the devil; and not from desire for human praises, but out of love for the men to be set free; and not from king Tarquin, but from demons and the prince of demons—not the sons are slain, but the poor of Christ are counted among the sons, what great thing is it? If another Roman leader too, surnamed Torquatus, killed his son—not because he had fought against his country, but even for his country, yet because against his own command, that is, against what his father the commander had ordered, having been provoked by the enemy he had fought in youthful ardor, and though he had conquered—lest there should be more evil in the example of a despised command than good in the glory of an enemy slain: to what purpose—
—should those boast, who for the sake of the laws of the immortal country despise all earthly goods, which are loved much less than sons? If Furius Camillus freed from the Gauls even an ungrateful country—from whose neck he had thrust off the yoke of the most fierce enemies, the Veientines, and yet had been condemned by his rivals—a second time, because he had no better place where he might live more gloriously:
why should he exalt himself, as though he had done some great thing, who perhaps in the Church, having suffered from carnal enemies the gravest wrong of dishonor, did not go over to her enemies the heretics, nor himself found any heresy against her, but rather, as far as he was able, defended her from the most pernicious depravity of the heretics—since there is no other, not where one may live in the glory of men, but where life passes to things eternal?
If Mucius, in order that peace might be made with king Porsenna, who was pressing the Romans with a most grievous war—because he could not kill Porsenna himself and, being deceived, killed another in his place—stretched out his right hand into the burning altar before his eyes, saying that many such men as he saw him to be had conspired for his destruction; and Porsenna, shuddering at his fortitude and at the conspiracy of such men, without any hesitation, peace having been made, restrained himself from that war: who shall reckon his own merits to the kingdom of heaven, if for its sake he spends not one hand, nor doing this to himself of his own accord, but suffering it while another persecutes, he gives up his whole body to the flames?
If Curtius, armed, on a spurred horse, cast himself headlong into the gaping chasm of the earth, serving the oracles of his gods—since they had commanded that there should be sent into it whatever the Romans had best, and they could understand nothing else than that they excelled in men and arms; whence evidently it behooved that, by the command of the gods, an armed man should be cast into that destruction: what great thing for the eternal country will he say he has done, who, suffering some enemy of his faith, not casting himself of his own accord into such a death, but sent by that enemy, has died—seeing that from his Lord, who is also the King of his country, he has received a more certain oracle: 'Do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul'?
If the Decii, in a certain manner consecrating themselves to be slain with set words, devoted themselves, so that by their falling and by appeasing the wrath of the gods with their own blood the Roman army might be set free: in no way will the holy martyrs be proud, as though they had done anything worthy on behalf of their participation in that country where felicity is eternal and true, if, even to the shedding of their own blood, loving not only their brethren, for whom it was being shed, but also their very enemies, by whom it was being shed, as they were commanded, they have contended with the faith of love and the love of faith?
If Marcus Pulvillus, while dedicating the temple of Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, when the death of his son was falsely announced to him by enviers—so that, disturbed by that news, he might withdraw, and thus his colleague might obtain the glory of the dedication—so despised it that he even ordered the son to be cast out unburied (so 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 country above are set free from various errors and gathered together, to whom the Lord said, when he was anxious about the burial of his father: 'Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead'?
If Marcus Regulus, lest he should deceive his most cruel enemies by his oath, returned to them from Rome itself—since, as he is reported to have replied to the Romans who wished to keep him, after he had been a slave to the Africans he could no longer hold the dignity of an honorable citizen there—and the Carthaginians, because he had pleaded against them in the Roman senate, put him to death with the gravest tortures: are those torments not to be despised for the faith of that country, to whose blessedness faith itself leads? Or what shall be repaid to the Lord for all things which He has repaid, if for the faith that is owed to Him a man shall have suffered such things as Regulus suffered for the faith which he owed to his most pernicious enemies?
How will a Christian dare to exalt himself over his voluntary poverty, that in the pilgrimage of this life he may walk more unencumbered along the way that leads to the country where the true riches is God Himself, when he hears or reads that Lucius Valerius, who died in his consulship, was so poor that his burial was provided for by money collected from the people? Let him hear or read that Quintius Cincinnatus, when he possessed four iugera and tilled them with his own hands, was led from the plough to be made dictator—an honor surely greater than that of consul—and, the enemy having been conquered and immense glory obtained, remained in the same poverty?
Or what great thing will he proclaim himself to have done, who has been lured away by no reward of this world from the fellowship of that eternal country, when he has learned that Fabricius could not be torn away from the Roman state by so great gifts of Pyrrhus, king of the Epirotes, even with a fourth part of the kingdom promised, but chose rather to remain there a private man in his poverty? For as to the fact that the republic—that is, the affairs of the people, the affairs of the country, the common affairs—though they possessed it most opulent and most rich, they themselves were so poor in their own homes that one of them, who had already been twice consul, 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 were they themselves poor, by whose triumphs the public treasury was enriched: do not all Christians, who with a more excellent purpose make their riches common, according to what is written in the Acts of the Apostles, that 'distribution was made to each one as anyone had need, and no one said that anything was his own, but all things were common to them'—do they not understand that they ought to be puffed up with no boasting on this account, doing this for the obtaining of the fellowship of angels, when those men did almost some such thing for the preserving of the glory of the Romans?
These things and others, if any such are found in their literature, when would they have become so known, when would they be celebrated by so great fame, had not the Roman empire, extended far and wide, been increased by magnificent successes? Accordingly, through that empire so broad and so long-lasting, and rendered illustrious and glorious by the virtues of such great men, both the reward which they sought has been repaid to their intention, and to us have been set forth examples of necessary admonition: so that, if we have not held, for the most glorious city of God, those virtues to which these of theirs are in some way similar—which they held for the glory of the earthly city—we may be pricked with shame; and if we have held them, we may not be lifted up with pride;
since, as the apostle says, 'the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the future glory which shall be revealed in us.' But for human glory and that of the present time, the life of those men was judged worthy enough.
Whence even the Jews, who slew Christ—since by the New Testament was revealed what in the Old had been veiled, namely, that the one true God is to be worshipped not for earthly and temporal benefits, which divine providence grants indiscriminately to good and evil alike, but for eternal life and perpetual gifts and the fellowship of that city above—were most justly given over to the glory of those men; so that these, who by virtues of whatever kind sought and acquired earthly glory, should conquer those who by great vices slew and spurned the giver of true glory and of the eternal city. CHAPTER XIX. In what respect the desire for glory and the desire for domination differ from one another.
There is indeed a difference between the desire for human glory and the desire for domination. For although it is easy that he who too much delights in human glory should also ardently affect to dominate, nevertheless those who, although it be human, covet the glory of true praises, take pains not to displease those who judge well. For there are many good things in conduct concerning which many judge well, although many do not possess them; through these good things of conduct they strive toward glory and power or domination, of which Sallust says: 'But that man strives by the true path.' But whoever, without the desire for glory—by which a man fears to displease those who judge well—desires to dominate and to command, very often seeks to obtain what he loves even through the most open crimes.
Accordingly, he who covets glory either strives by the true path, or certainly contends by deceits and falsehoods, wishing to seem to be good which he is not. And therefore, for one who has the virtues, it is a great virtue to despise glory, because the contempt of it is in the sight of God, but is not laid open to human judgment. For whatever he shall do before the eyes of men, that he may appear a despiser of glory, if it be believed that he does it for greater praise—that is, for greater glory—there is no means by which he may show to the perceptions of those who suspect that the matter is otherwise than they suspect.
But he who despises the judgments of those who praise, despises also the rashness of those who suspect; whose salvation, nevertheless, if he is truly good, he does not despise, since he who has the virtues from the Spirit of God is of such great righteousness that he loves even his very enemies, and so loves them that he wishes his haters or detractors to be corrected and to have them as companions, not in the earthly country, but in the heavenly; while in those who praise him, although he sets little store by their praising him, yet he does not set little store by their loving him, nor does he wish to deceive them as they praise, lest he beguile them as they love him; and therefore he urges ardently that rather He should be praised from whom a man has whatever in him is rightly praised.
But he who, being a despiser of glory, is greedy for domination, surpasses the beasts either in the vices of cruelty or of luxury. Certain Romans were such. For, the care for their reputation being lost, they did not lack the desire for domination. History reveals that many were such; but the very summit and, as it were, a certain citadel of this vice, Nero Caesar first attained, whose luxury was so great that nothing virile was thought to be feared from him; whose cruelty was so great that, were it not known, he would be believed to have nothing soft about him. Yet even to such men the power of ruling is not given except by the providence of the supreme God, when He judges human affairs worthy of such lords. There is an open divine utterance on this matter, the wisdom of God speaking: 'By me kings reign, and tyrants hold the earth through me.'
But lest tyrants should be thought to mean not the worst and wicked kings, but, by the old name, men called brave (whence Virgil says: 'Part of my peace shall be to have touched the right hand of the tyrant'): it is said most openly in another place concerning God: 'Because He makes a hypocrite to reign, on account of the perversity of the people.' Wherefore, although I have set forth as well as I could the cause for which the one true and just God aided 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 yet be also another, more hidden cause, on account of the diverse merits of the human race, better known to God than to us; provided this stand fast among all who are truly godly, that no one can have true virtue without true godliness, that is, without the true worship of the true God; and that it 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 virtue, even such virtue, than if they had not even that. But those who, endowed with true godliness, live well, if they have the knowledge of ruling peoples, nothing is more fortunate for human affairs than that, by God's mercy, they should have power.