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 says: 'And those things always lie neglected which are disapproved by each and every one'), but even held in the utmost detestation, holding fast to what they had heard from the good Master and Physician of minds—'If anyone 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 the preaching of human salvation by so great a clamour of human offence.
And when, by doing and saying divine things and living divinely, they had in a manner subdued hard hearts and brought in the peace of righteousness, a mighty glory attended them in the Church of Christ: yet they did not rest in it as in the end of their own virtue, but, referring even that very glory to the glory of God, by whose grace they were such, they used it also as a kindling to inflame those for whom they took thought towards 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: 'Beware of doing 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, understanding this perversely, they should fear to please men and, by hiding that they are good, should profit them less, 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.' Not therefore 'to be seen by them,' that is, with this intention, that you should wish them to be turned towards you, because through yourselves you are nothing; but 'that they may glorify your Father who is in heaven,' being turned towards whom they may become what you are. These the martyrs followed, who surpassed the Scaevolas and Curtii and Decii, not by inflicting punishments upon themselves, but by enduring those inflicted upon them, and that by true virtue, since by true piety, and by their innumerable multitude.
But since those men were in the earthly city, before whom the end of all their offices on its behalf was set as its safety and its kingdom, not in heaven but on earth; not in eternal life, but in the departure of the dying 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 praised them? [XV] To those, therefore, to whom God was not going to give eternal life with His holy angels in His heavenly city—to whose fellowship true piety leads, which renders the service of religion, which the Greeks call latreia, to none but the one true God—if He were to grant them not even this earthly glory of a most excellent empire:
then no reward would be rendered for their good arts, that is, for the virtues by which they strove to attain to so great a glory. For concerning such men, who seem to do some good for this end, that they may be glorified by men, the Lord Himself says: 'Amen I say to you, they have received their reward.' So these men too despised their private possessions for the sake of the common thing, that is, the commonwealth, and for the sake of its treasury; they resisted greed, they took counsel for their fatherland with free counsel, being subject neither to wrongdoing according to their own laws nor to lust; by all these arts, as by a true way, they strove towards honours, dominion, and glory;
they have been honoured among almost all nations, they have imposed the laws of their empire upon many nations, and to this day they are glorious in letters and history among almost all peoples: there is no reason for them to complain of the justice of the most high and true God; they have received their reward. [XVI] But the reward of the saints is far other, 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 a pledge of faith, so long as, on pilgrimage, we sigh after its beauty; there the sun does not rise upon the good and the evil, but the Sun of righteousness shields the good alone;
there it will not require great industry to enrich a public treasury with slender private means, where the common treasure is truth. Accordingly, it was not only that such a reward might be rendered to such men that the Roman empire was extended for human glory; but also that the citizens of that eternal city, so long as they are here on pilgrimage, might carefully and soberly consider those examples, and see how great a love is owed to the heavenly fatherland for the sake of eternal life, if so great a love was given to the earthly one by its own citizens for the sake of the glory of men. [XVII] For as regards this mortal life, which is led and finished in a few days, what does it matter under whose rule a man who is to die may live, provided that those who rule do not compel him to impious and unjust deeds?
Or did the Romans really do any harm to the nations whom they subdued and upon whom they imposed their laws, except that this was accomplished with an enormous slaughter of wars? For if it had been done by concord, the very same thing would have been done with better success; but there would have been no glory for the triumphant. For the Romans too did not fail to 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 that had been done at once which was afterwards done most graciously and humanely, namely, that all who belonged to the Roman empire should receive the fellowship of citizenship and be Roman citizens, and thus that should be common to all which was before the possession of a few; provided only that the plebs which had no lands of its own should live at the public expense, whose sustenance would be more graciously provided by good administrators of the commonwealth through concord than extorted from the conquered. For as to safety and good morals, or even the very dignities of men, I do not at all see what difference it makes that some have conquered and others have been conquered, beyond that most empty pomp of human glory, in which those have received their reward who burned with an enormous desire for it and waged burning wars.
For 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 were to allow that the better should be more honoured: even so, human honour ought not to be reckoned a great thing, because it is smoke of no weight. But let us use, even in these matters, the benefit of the Lord our God;
let us consider how much those men despised, what they endured, what desires they subdued for the sake of human glory, who deserved to receive it as the reward of such virtues; and let this too avail for us to crush our 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 distant 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 fatherland may seem to themselves to have done nothing great, if for the attaining of it they have done some good work or endured some evils, since those men did so great things, endured so great things, for this earthly fatherland already attained; especially because the remission of sins, which gathers citizens to the eternal fatherland, has something to which, through a certain shadow, that Romulean asylum was like, in which the impunity of offences of every kind gathered together the multitude by which that city was to be founded.
[XVIII] What great thing, then, is it to despise, for the sake of that eternal and heavenly fatherland, all the allurements of this world, however pleasant, if for the sake of this temporal and earthly one Brutus could even kill his sons—a thing which that heavenly one compels no man to do? But surely it is more difficult to slay one's sons than to do what must be done for this heavenly fatherland: namely, either to give to the poor those things which seemed to be gathered and kept 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 either us or our sons happy—riches which must either be lost while we live, or, when we are dead, be possessed by those we know not, or perhaps by those we would not have possess them;
but God makes them happy, who is the true opulence of minds. As for Brutus, because he killed his sons, even the poet who praises him bears witness to his unhappiness. For he says: 'And the father shall call his sons, who stir up new wars, to punishment for the sake of fair liberty—unhappy man, however later generations shall relate those deeds.' But in the following verse he consoled the unhappy one: 'The love of fatherland prevails, and the boundless desire for praises.' These are those two things, liberty and the desire of human praise, which drove the Romans to wondrous deeds. If, then, for the liberty of men who were to die, and for the desire of praises which are sought from mortals, sons could be slain by a father:
what great thing is it, if for the sake of true liberty, which makes us free from the dominion of iniquity and of death and of the devil—and not out of desire for human praises, but out of love for the men to be set free, not from King Tarquin, but from the demons and the prince of demons—not sons are slain, but Christ's poor are numbered among sons? If another Roman leader too, surnamed Torquatus, slew his son—not because he had fought against his fatherland, but even for his fatherland, yet because against his own command, that is, against what his father the commander had commanded, having been challenged by the enemy and having fought out of youthful ardour, though he had won—lest there be more evil in the example of a command despised than good in the glory of an enemy slain:
why should those boast, who, for the laws of the immortal fatherland, despise earthly goods which are loved far less than sons? If Furius Camillus freed even an ungrateful fatherland—from whose neck he had thrust off the yoke of its most bitter enemies, the Veientes, and by whom he had been condemned by his rivals—freed it again from the Gauls, because he had none better where he might live more gloriously:
why should he be extolled, as if he had done some great thing, who perhaps, having in the Church suffered from carnal enemies the gravest injury of dishonour, did not go over to her enemies the heretics, nor himself found some heresy against her, but rather defended her, as much as he could, from the most pernicious depravity of the heretics—since there is no other Church, not where one may live in the glory of men, but where eternal life may be acquired?
If Mucius, 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 stead, stretched out his right hand over a burning altar before that king's eyes, saying that many such men as he saw before him had sworn together for his destruction—so that the king, shuddering at his fortitude and at the conspiracy of such men, without any hesitation withdrew himself from that war, peace being made: who shall reckon to the kingdom of heaven his own merits, if for its sake, not one hand, and not doing this to himself of his own accord, but suffering it while some persecutor pursues him, he shall spend his whole body in the flames?
If Curtius, armed and on a spurring horse, cast himself headlong into a yawning chasm of the earth, serving the oracles of his gods, because they had commanded that there should be sent thither whatever the Romans had best, and they could understand nothing else than that they excelled in men and arms—whence, forsooth, it followed that, at the gods' bidding, an armed man should be hurled to that destruction: what great thing shall he say he has done for the eternal fatherland, who, having suffered some enemy of his faith, not casting himself of his own accord into such a death, but sent by that enemy, shall have perished; since indeed from his Lord, who is likewise the King of his fatherland, he has received a surer oracle: 'Do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul'?
If the Decii, in a manner consecrating themselves to be slain by certain solemn words, devoted themselves, so that by their falling and appeasing the wrath of the gods with their own blood the Roman army might be freed: in no way shall the holy martyrs be proud, as though they had done anything worthy for a share in that fatherland, where felicity is eternal and true, if, even to the shedding of their own blood, they have striven—loving, not only their brethren for whom it was shed, but even those very enemies by whom it was shed, as it was commanded them—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 reported to him by the envious—so that, disturbed by that report, he might withdraw and thus his colleague might obtain the glory of the dedication—so despised it that he even ordered his son to be cast out unburied (so had the desire of glory conquered the grief of bereavement in his heart): what great thing shall he say he has done for the preaching of the holy Gospel, by which the citizens of the heavenly fatherland are freed and gathered from diverse errors, to whom the Lord, when he was anxious about the burial of his father, said: 'Follow Me, and let the dead bury their dead'? If Marcus
Regulus, that he might not deceive his most cruel enemies by his oath, returned to them from Rome itself, because—as he is reported to have answered the Romans who wished to keep him—after he had been in slavery to the Africans, he could not hold there the dignity of an honourable citizen; and the Carthaginians, because he had acted against them in the Roman senate, put him to death with the gravest tortures: are not these torments to be despised for the faith of that fatherland to whose blessedness faith itself leads? Or what shall be rendered to the Lord for all the things which He has rendered, if a man shall have suffered such things for the faith which is owed to Him, as Regulus suffered for the faith which he owed to his most pernicious enemies?
How shall a Christian dare to exalt himself over voluntary poverty, that in the pilgrimage of this life he may walk the more unencumbered on the way which leads to the fatherland, where the true riches are 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 contributed by the people? Let him hear or read that Quintius Cincinnatus, when he possessed four iugera of land and tilled them with his own hands, was brought from the plough to be made dictator—an honour surely greater than that of consul—and, having conquered the enemy and won immense glory, remained in the same poverty?
Or what great thing shall he proclaim himself to have done, who has been seduced by no reward of this world from the fellowship of that eternal fatherland, when he has learned that Fabricius could not be torn away, by the great gifts of Pyrrhus, king of the Epirotes, nor even by the promised fourth part of his kingdom, from the Roman city, and preferred to remain there in his poverty as a private man? For as to that fact, that although they possessed a commonwealth—that is, the thing of the people, the thing of the fatherland, the common thing—most opulent and most wealthy, they were themselves so poor in their own homes that one of them, who had already been consul twice, was expelled from that senate of poor men by a censorial mark, because he was found to have ten pounds of silver in vessels;
so those same men were 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 should be made to each one as each has need, and that no one should call anything his own, but that all things should be common to them—do they not understand that they ought on this account to be puffed up with no boasting, doing this for the obtaining of the fellowship of angels, when those men did something almost like it for the preserving of the glory of the Romans?
These and other such things, if any of this kind are found in their writings, when would they have become so known, when would they have been proclaimed with such great fame, unless the Roman empire, extended far and wide, had been increased by magnificent successes? Accordingly, through that empire, so wide and so long-lasting, illustrious and glorious by the virtues of such great men, both the reward which they sought was rendered to their intention, and to us are set forth examples of a necessary admonition, so that, if we have not held, for the most glorious city of God, those virtues to which these—which they held for the glory of the earthly city—are in some way similar, we may be pricked with shame;
but if we have held them, we should 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 for the present time, the life of those men was deemed sufficiently worthy.
Whence also the Jews, who slew Christ, since the New Testament reveals what was veiled in the Old—namely, that the one true God should be worshipped, not for earthly and temporal benefits, which divine providence grants indiscriminately to good and bad, but for eternal life and perpetual gifts and the fellowship of that same heavenly city—were most justly given over to the glory of these men, so that those who by whatever virtues sought and acquired earthly glory should overcome those who by great vices slew and rejected the Giver of true glory and of the eternal city. [XIX] There is indeed a difference between the desire of human glory and the desire of domination.
For although it is an easy slope, that he who is too much delighted by human glory should also ardently affect to dominate, yet those who covet even the true glory of human praises give heed not to displease those who judge well. For there are many good things in morals, of which many judge well, although many do not possess them; through those good things of morals men strive after glory and empire or domination, of which Sallust says: "But he strives by the true way." But whoever, without the desire of glory, by which a man fears to displease those who judge well, desires to dominate and to command, most often seeks to obtain what he loves even through the most open crimes.
Accordingly, he who covets glory either strives by the true way, or certainly "contends by wiles and deceits," wishing to seem to be good, which he is not. And therefore for one who possesses the virtues it is a great virtue to despise glory, because 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, whereby 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 way by which he can show to the senses of those who suspect that it 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 is of so great righteousness—he who has his virtues from the Spirit of God—that he loves even his very enemies, and so loves them that he wishes those who hate or disparage him to be corrected and to become his consorts, not in the earthly fatherland, but in the heavenly one; while as for those who praise him, although he thinks little of the fact that they praise him, yet he does not think little of the fact that they love him, nor does he wish to deceive those who praise, lest he beguile those who love; and therefore he urges ardently that rather He should be praised from whom a man has whatever in him is justly praised.
But he who, being a despiser of glory, is greedy for domination, surpasses the beasts, whether in the vices of cruelty or of luxury. Certain Romans were such. For, having lost care for their reputation, they did not lack the desire of domination. History discloses that many were such; but the summit and, as it were, a certain citadel of this vice was first attained by Nero Caesar, whose luxury was so great that nothing manly was thought to be feared from him; whose cruelty was so great that nothing soft was believed to be in him, had it not been known. Yet even to such men the power of domination is not given except by the providence of the most high God, when He judges human affairs worthy of such masters. The divine utterance concerning this matter is plain, the Wisdom of God speaking: 'Through me kings reign, and tyrants through me hold the earth.'
But lest tyrants be thought to be, not the worst and wicked kings, but rather men called brave by the ancient meaning of the word (whence Virgil says: 'It shall be part of my peace to have touched the tyrant's right hand'), it is said most plainly 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 best I could why the one true and just God helped the Romans, who were good according to a certain standard of the earthly city, to attain the glory of so great an empire:
there may nevertheless be another and more hidden cause, arising from the diverse merits of the human race, better known to God than to us. Meanwhile 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; nor is that virtue true when it is enslaved to human glory. Yet 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 possess even such virtue as this than if they lacked even this. But those who, endowed with true piety, live good lives, if they have the knowledge of ruling peoples, then nothing is more fortunate for human affairs than that they should, by God's mercy, hold power.
Such men, moreover, attribute whatever virtues they can possess in this life to nothing but the grace of God, who has given them to those who willed, believed, and asked; and at the same time they understand how far they fall short of that perfection of righteousness which exists in the fellowship of those holy angels, to which they strive to conform themselves. However much virtue may be praised and proclaimed that, without true piety, is enslaved to the glory of men, 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.
[XX] Philosophers who place the goal of human good in virtue itself are accustomed, in order to shame certain other philosophers who indeed approve of the virtues but measure them by the standard of bodily pleasure and think that pleasure is to be sought for its own sake, but the virtues for the sake of pleasure — such philosophers are accustomed to paint a certain picture in words, in which Pleasure sits like some dainty queen upon a royal throne, and the virtues are set beneath her as her handmaids, watching her nod, so as to do whatever she commands: she bids Prudence make vigilant inquiry how Pleasure may reign and be kept safe;
she bids Justice bestow whatever benefits she can toward securing the friendships necessary for bodily advantages, and do injury to none, lest, by offending the laws, pleasure be unable to live secure; she bids Fortitude, if pain befall the body which does not drive it to death, hold fast her mistress, that is, pleasure, bravely in the thought of the mind, so that by recollection of former delights she may soothe the stings of present pain; she bids Temperance take only so much food, and whatever else delights, that health be not disturbed by any harm through excess, and that pleasure — which the Epicureans place at its greatest even in bodily health — be not gravely offended.
Thus the virtues, with all the dignity of their glory, will serve Pleasure as though she were some imperious and dishonourable strumpet. They say there is nothing more ignominious and deformed than this picture, and nothing the sight of good men can less endure; and they say truly. But I do not think the picture would be of sufficient becoming dignity even if it were painted in such a way that the virtues serve human glory. For although glory herself is not a dainty woman, she is puffed up and has much emptiness. Whence it is not worthy of her that a certain solidity and firmness of the virtues should serve her, so that Prudence should foresee nothing, Justice distribute nothing, Fortitude endure nothing, Temperance moderate nothing, except with a view to pleasing men and serving windy glory.
Nor can those defend themselves from this foulness who, while despising the judgments of others as though they were despisers of glory, seem wise to themselves and please themselves. For their virtue, if indeed there is any, is in some other way subjected to human praise; for he who pleases himself is himself no less a man. But he who, with true piety toward God, whom he loves, believes and hopes in Him, fixes his attention more upon those things in which he displeases himself than upon those things — if any such are in him — which please not so much himself as the truth; nor does he attribute that whereby he can now please to anything but the mercy of Him whom he fears to displease, giving thanks for the things already healed, and pouring out prayers for those still to be healed.
[XXI] Since these things are so, let us attribute the power of granting kingdom and empire to none but the true God, who gives felicity in the kingdom of heaven only to the pious, but earthly kingdom both to the pious and the impious, as it pleases Him, to whom nothing pleases unjustly. For although we have said something which He willed to be open to us, nevertheless it is a great matter and far exceeds our human powers to sift the hidden things and by clear examination to judge the merits of kingdoms. Therefore that one true God, who neither in judgment nor in aid deserts the human race, gave a 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 own writings maintain — only two gods are worshipped, one good and one evil (to say nothing of the Hebrew people, of whom I have already said as much as seemed sufficient, who worshipped none but the one God even when they reigned). He therefore who gave to the Persians harvests without the worship of the goddess Segetia, who gave other gifts of the earth without the worship of all those gods whom these men set, one over each single thing, or even several over single things — it was He who gave them their kingdom also, without the worship of those by whose worship these men believed they had reigned. So too with individual men: He who gave to Marius gave also to Gaius Caesar; He who gave to Augustus gave also to Nero; He who gave to the Vespasians, father and son, the most gracious of emperors, gave also to the most cruel Domitian;