Preface. Men of great and excellent genius, when they had devoted themselves wholly to learning, despising all private and public affairs, applied whatever toil could be expended to the pursuit of investigating the truth; reckoning it far more glorious to search out and to know the principle of things human and divine than to be bound up in heaping up riches or in piling up honours. By such things—since they are frail and earthly and pertain only to the care of the body—no one can be made better, no one more righteous. Those men, indeed, were most worthy of that knowledge of the truth which they so greatly desired to know; and that to such a degree that they set it before all things.
For it is established that some cast away their family possessions and renounced all pleasures, so that, naked and unencumbered, they might follow the sole and naked truth; and so greatly did the name and authority of truth prevail among them that they proclaimed the reward of the highest good to lie in truth itself. Yet they neither attained what they sought, and at the same time wasted their labour and diligence; because truth—that is, the secret of the most high God who made all things—cannot be grasped by one's own genius and senses; otherwise there would be no difference between God and man, if human thought could attain to the counsels and dispositions of that eternal majesty.
Since, then, it could not come to pass that the divine reason should become known to man through himself, God did not suffer man, in his seeking of the light of wisdom, to wander any longer, nor to roam through inextricable darkness without any fruit of his labour; He opened his eyes at last, and made the knowledge of the truth His own gift: that He might both show that human wisdom is nothing, and reveal to the erring and wandering man the way of attaining immortality. But since few make use of this heavenly benefit and gift—because truth, wrapped in obscurity, lies hidden;
and since it is either an object of contempt to the learned, because it lacks suitable advocates, or of hatred to the unlearned, on account of the austerity inherent in it, which the nature of men, prone to vices, cannot endure (for because bitterness is mixed with virtues, but vices are seasoned with pleasure, men, offended by the one and allured by the other, are borne headlong, and, deceived by the appearance of good things, embrace evils for goods)—I have believed that aid must be brought to these errors: that the learned may be directed to true wisdom, and the unlearned to true religion. This profession is to be reckoned far better, more useful, more glorious than that rhetorical one, in which, long engaged, we were training young men not to virtue, but plainly to cunning malice.
For now we shall discourse far more rightly concerning the heavenly precepts, by which we may be able to instruct the minds of men unto the worship of the true majesty; nor does he deserve so well of human affairs who brings the knowledge of speaking well, as he who teaches men to live piously and innocently. For this reason among the Greeks the philosophers were held in greater glory than the orators; for the former were reckoned teachers of right living, which is by far the more excellent—since to speak well pertains to few, but to live well pertains to all. Yet that exercise of fictitious lawsuits has conferred much upon us, so that now with greater abundance and faculty of speech we may plead the cause of truth; which, though it can be defended without eloquence, as it has often been defended by many;
yet it must be illustrated by the clarity and brilliance of discourse, and in some manner argued out, that it may flow more powerfully into men's minds, both armed by its own force and adorned by the light of speech. Chapter One. A disputation, then, is here set on foot for us concerning religion and divine matters. For if certain of the greatest orators, like veterans of their profession, having run through the labours of their pleadings, at last gave themselves over to philosophy, and reckoned it the most just rest of their toils; if they tormented their minds in the inquiry into things that could not be discovered, so that they may seem to have sought for themselves not so much leisure as business, and indeed far more troublesome than that in which they had formerly been engaged:
how much more justly shall I betake myself to that pious, true, and divine wisdom, as to some most safe haven, in which all things are easy to utter, sweet to hear, easy to understand, and honourable to undertake? And if certain prudent men, arbiters of equity, have published compiled Institutes of civil law, by which they might lull to rest the suits and contentions of citizens at variance: how much better and more rightly shall we set forth in writing the divine Institutes, in which we shall speak not of rain-drippings, or of warding off waters, or of joining battle hand to hand, but of hope, of life, of salvation, of immortality, of God, that we may lull to rest deadly superstitions and most shameful errors?
This work we now begin under the auspices of your name, Constantine, Greatest Emperor, who, first of Roman princes, having repudiated errors, both knew and honoured the majesty of the one and true God. For when that most happy day had shone upon the world, on which the most high God raised you to the blessed summit of empire, you inaugurated a rule both salutary to all and to be desired, with a glorious beginning, when, bringing back justice that had been overthrown and removed, you expiated the most foul crime of others: for which deed God will give you felicity, virtue, and length of days: that with the same justice with which you began as a young man, you may, even as an old man, hold the helm of the commonwealth, and hand on to your children, as you yourself received from your father, the guardianship of the Roman name.
For upon the wicked, who still rage against the righteous in other parts of the earth, the same Almighty will exact the wages of their crime—the later, the more vehemently: because, as He is a most indulgent Father toward the pious, so He is a most upright Judge against the impious. Desiring, then, to defend His religion and divine worship, whom should I rather invoke, whom should I address, than Him through whom justice and wisdom have been restored to human affairs? Leaving aside, therefore, the authors of this earthly philosophy who bring nothing certain, let us enter upon the right way: whom indeed, if I thought them sufficiently fit guides for living well, I myself would follow, and would exhort others to follow them.
But since they disagree among themselves with great contention, and for the most part are at variance even with themselves, it is plain that their path is by no means straight: seeing that each one, as it pleased him, has impressed his own ways, and has left great confusion to those who seek the truth. But we, who have received the sacrament of true religion, since the truth has been divinely revealed, since we follow God as the teacher of wisdom and the leader unto truth, call together all men without any distinction either of sex or of age unto the heavenly nourishment. For no food is sweeter to the soul than the knowledge of the truth, to the asserting and illustrating of which we have appointed seven volumes, although that matter is of an almost infinite and immense labour:
so that if anyone should wish to expand and pursue these things most fully, so great an abundance of matter would overflow for him that the discourse would find neither the limit of a book nor an end. But we for this reason shall gather all things briefly: because the things we are about to bring forward are so clear and lucid that it may seem the more wonderful that the truth appears so obscure to men—and especially to those who are commonly accounted wise—or because we shall have only to instruct men, that is, to recall them from the error in which they are entangled to the more correct way. And if we shall have attained this, as I hope, we shall send them to that most rich and full fountain of doctrine itself, by the drawing and drinking of which they may quench the thirst conceived in their inward parts, and extinguish its burning.
And all things will be easy, ready, and manifest for them: provided only that they be not loath to lend the patience of reading or of hearing, in order to grasp the discipline of wisdom. For many, pertinaciously clinging to vain superstitions, harden themselves against manifest truth, deserving well not so much of their own religions, which they wrongly maintain, as deserving ill of themselves: who, though they have the right road, follow winding by-paths; they forsake the level ground, only to slip down through a precipice; they leave the light, only to lie blind and feeble in the darkness. These must be counselled not to fight against themselves, and to be willing at last to be freed from inveterate errors: which assuredly they will do, if at some time they thoroughly perceive for what end they were born. For this is the cause of depravity: ignorance of oneself;
and if anyone, having come to know the truth, has shaken off this ignorance, he will know to what things life is to be referred, and in what manner it is to be spent by him. The sum of this knowledge I briefly circumscribe thus: that neither is any religion to be taken up without wisdom, nor any wisdom to be approved without religion. Chapter Two. Having therefore undertaken the office of illustrating the truth, I did not think it so necessary to take my beginning from that question which seems to be first by nature: whether there is a providence which provides for all things; or whether all things are either made or governed by chance. The author of this opinion is Democritus, its confirmer Epicurus. But also earlier Protagoras, who called the gods into doubt; and afterward Diagoras, who excluded them; and certain others who held that there are no gods;
what else did they accomplish, except that providence was thought to be nothing? Yet these too the other philosophers, and especially the Stoics, most sharply refuted, teaching that the world could neither have come into being without divine reason, nor could subsist, unless it were governed by supreme reason. But also Marcus Tullius, although he was a defender of the Academic school, discoursed both much and often concerning the providence that governs things, confirming the arguments of the Stoics, and himself bringing forward very many new ones: which he does both in all the books of his philosophy, and most especially in those which are 'On the Nature of the Gods.' Nor indeed was it hard to refute the falsehoods of a few men who held wrong opinions, by the testimony of peoples and nations not at variance in this one matter.
For no one is so uncouth, of such savage manners, who, lifting up his eyes to heaven—even though he know not by the providence of what God this whole that is beheld is governed—does not nevertheless understand, from the very greatness, motion, arrangement, constancy, usefulness, beauty, and tempering of things, that there is some providence, and that it cannot come to pass that what stands together by a marvellous reason should not be furnished with some greater design. And for us indeed it is most easy to pursue this part as copiously as we please. But because the matter has been much agitated among the philosophers, and a sufficient answer seems to have been given to those who take away providence by men keen and eloquent, and because it is necessary throughout this whole work which we have undertaken to speak scatteredly of the skill of divine providence;
let us for the present pass over this question, which so coheres with the rest that nothing seems able to be discussed by us without providence being discussed at the same time. Chapter Three. Let the beginning of our work, then, be that consequent and second question: whether the world is governed by the power of one God, or of many. There is no one who is wise and reckons reason within himself, who does not understand that He is one who both founded all things, and by the same power with which He founded them moderates them. For what need is there of many to sustain the governance of the world? unless perhaps we should suppose that, if there be several, each one singly has fewer sinews and powers. Which indeed those do who wish there to be many; because it is necessary that they be feeble:
for indeed, single ones, without the help of the rest, could not sustain the helm of so great a mass. But God, who is eternal Mind, is on every side of perfect and consummate power. And if this is true, He must be one. For power, or virtue, when absolute, retains its own proper firmness. But that is to be reckoned solid from which nothing can be taken away; that perfect, to which nothing can be added. Who would doubt that he is the most powerful king, who has the dominion of the whole world? and not without reason: since all things that are anywhere are His; since to Him alone are all resources gathered together from every quarter.
But if several divide the world among themselves, each singly will assuredly have less of resources, less of powers, since each contains himself within his prescribed portion. In the same manner also the gods, if there be several, will have less might, others having just as much in themselves. But the nature of virtue can be more perfect in that in which the whole is, than in that in which a small part is from the whole. But God, if He is perfect (because He is perfect) as He ought to be, cannot be except one, so that in Him are all things. The virtues, therefore, and powers of the gods must of necessity be weaker: because each one lacks just so much as is in the rest; and so the more numerous they are, the lesser they will be. What of this, that that supreme power of things and divine force cannot be divided even once?
For whatever admits division, must of necessity also admit destruction. But if destruction is far from God, because He is incorruptible and eternal, it follows that the divine power cannot be divided. God, therefore, is one, if there can be nothing else that should grasp just as much of power; and yet those who suppose there to be many say that they have apportioned offices among themselves: concerning all of which we shall dispute in their place. Meanwhile I hold that which pertains to the present passage. If they have apportioned offices among themselves, the matter rolls back to the same point, that any one of them cannot suffice for all things. He will therefore now no longer be perfect, who, when the rest cease, cannot govern all things.
So it comes to pass that for the ruling of the world there is more need of the perfect virtue of one than of the feebleness of many. But he who thinks that this so great magnitude cannot be ruled by one is deceived. For he does not understand how great is the force and power of the divine majesty, if he supposes that the singular God, who was able to make the world, cannot govern the same that He made. But if he should conceive in his mind how great is the immensity of this divine work—since formerly there was nothing, yet by the virtue and counsel of God it was wrought together out of nothing; which work could not be begun and completed except by one—he will now understand that it is far easier for that to be ruled by one, which was established by one.
Someone perhaps may say that so immense a work as the world could not even be fashioned except by several: however many, however great he makes them, whatever of greatness, power, virtue, and majesty he has placed in the many, all of that I gather into one, and I say that it is in one; so that there is in Him as much of those things as can neither be conceived nor uttered. In which matter, since we fail both in sense and in words—because the human breast can grasp neither the light of so great an intelligence, nor the tongue of a mortal the explanation of so great things—we ought to understand and to say this very thing. I see again what may be said on the contrary side: that those many are such as we wish the one to be.
But this can in no wise come to pass, because the power of each one will not be able to advance further, the powers of the rest meeting it. For it is necessary either that each be unable to transgress his own bounds, or, if he shall have transgressed, that he drive the other from his own borders. They who believe the gods to be many do not see that it may come to pass that some should will the contrary; from which thing dispute and contention would arise among them: just as Homer feigned the gods warring among themselves, when some wished Troy to be taken, others resisted. By the will of one, therefore, the world must of necessity be ruled. For unless the power of the several parts be referred to one providence, the sum itself will not be able to stand together, each one caring for nothing more than what properly pertains to him:
just as not even a military affair can stand, unless it have one leader and director. But if in one army there were as many commanders as there are legions, as many as cohorts, as many as wedges, as many as squadrons, in the first place the battle-line could not even be drawn up, each one refusing the danger; nor could it easily be ruled or tempered, since all use their own private counsels, by the diversity of which they would do more harm than good: so in this empire of the nature of things, unless there be one to whom the care of the whole sum is referred, all things will be dissolved and will fall to ruin. But to say that the world is ruled by the will of many is just as if someone should affirm that in one body there are many minds: because the services of the members are many and various;
so that single minds might be believed to rule the single senses of the body, likewise the many affections by which we are wont to be moved—whether to anger, or to desire, or to gladness, or to fear, or to pity—so that in all these just as many minds might be thought to operate: which if anyone should indeed say, he would seem not even to have that one mind which is one. But if in one body one mind possesses the governance of so great things, and is at the same time intent upon all of them, why should anyone suppose that the world cannot be ruled by one, but can be by several? Because these assertors of the gods understand this, they say that the gods so preside over single things and parts, that nevertheless there is one excellent ruler.
Now therefore the rest will not be gods, but attendants and ministers, whom that one greatest and most powerful of all has set over these offices; and they themselves will serve at His command and beck. If all are not equal, then they are not all gods. For this same thing cannot be, that which serves and that which lords it. For if 'God' is the name of supreme power, He ought to be incorruptible, perfect, impassible, subject to nothing. Therefore those are not gods whom necessity compels to obey one greatest God. But because they who think thus are not deceived in vain, we shall a little later open up the cause of this error. Now let us prove by testimonies the unity of the divine power. Chapter Four.
The prophets, who were exceedingly many, proclaim one God, speak of one: inasmuch as, being full of the Spirit of the one God, they foretold the things that were to be with equal and consonant voice. But indeed those void of the truth do not think these are to be believed. For they say that those were not divine but human voices. Forsooth, because they make proclamation concerning one God, they were either madmen or deceivers. Yet we see that their prophecies have been fulfilled and are daily being fulfilled; and the divination, agreeing into one judgment, teaches that they were not frenzied. For who, of a mind unhinged, could not only foretell things to come, but even speak things that cohere? Were they then deceivers, who spoke such things?
What was so far removed from them as a method of deceiving, when they restrained all others from every fraud? For they were sent by God for this purpose, that they might be both heralds of His majesty and correctors of human depravity. Moreover, the will of feigning and lying belongs to those who covet wealth, who desire gains; which thing was far from those holy men. For they discharged the office delegated to them in such a way that, having abandoned all things necessary for the protection of life, they laboured not only for no morrow, but not even for the day, content with the extemporaneous food which God supplied; and these men not only had no gain, but even tortures and death. For the precepts of justice are bitter to the vicious and to those who live evilly.
And so those, whose sins were both reproved and forbidden, put them to death after most cruel tortures. Therefore from those from whom the zeal for gain was absent, the will and cause of deceiving was also absent. What of this, that some of them were princes or even kings, upon whom no suspicion of cupidity and fraud could fall, and yet made proclamation of the one God by the same divination as the rest? Chapter Five. But let us by all means leave aside the testimonies of the prophets, lest the proof should seem less suitable concerning those in whom there is no belief at all. Let us come to the authors; and let us cite as witnesses to the proof of the truth those very ones whom they are wont to use against us—the poets, I say, and the philosophers. Out of these it is necessary that we prove the one God:
not because they had a knowledge of the truth, but because the force of truth itself is so great that no one can be so blind as not to see the divine brightness thrusting itself upon his eyes. The poets, therefore, although they adorned the gods with songs and amplified their deeds with the highest praises, yet very often confess that all things are contained and ruled by one spirit or mind. Orpheus, who is the most ancient of poets, and contemporary with the gods themselves (since he is said to have sailed among the Argonauts with the sons of Tyndareus and with Hercules), calls the true and great God 'prōtogonon,' that is, first-begotten; because before Him nothing was begotten, but from Him all things were generated: him also he names 'phanēta';
because, when as yet there was nothing, He first appeared and came forth out of the infinite. And because he could not conceive in his mind His origin and nature, he said that He was born out of boundless air: 'the radiant son of the First-begotten, over the expanse of air.' For he had nothing further to say. He says that this one is the parent of all the gods, for whose sake He founded the heaven, and provided for His children that they might have a dwelling and a common seat: 'He founded for the immortals an imperishable home.' Led, therefore, by nature and reason, he understood that there is a most excellent power, the founder of heaven and earth. For he could not say that Jupiter was the prince of things, who was begotten of Saturn; nor Saturn himself, who was reported to have been born of Heaven:
but he did not dare to set up Heaven itself as if it were the first God, because he saw it to be an element of the world, which itself stood in need of an author. This reasoning led him to that first-begotten God, to whom he assigns and attributes the primacy. Homer could give us nothing that pertains to the truth, who wrote down human rather than divine things. Hesiod could have, who comprehended the generation of the gods in the work of one book. But yet he gave nothing, taking his beginning not from God the founder, but from Chaos, which is the confused heap of crude and disordered matter: whereas he ought first to have explained whence, when, and how Chaos itself had begun to be, or to subsist. Doubtless, just as all things were arranged, ordered, and effected by some craftsman:
so it is necessary that matter itself was fashioned by someone. Who, then, made this, except God, to whose power all things are subject? But he shrank from this while he shuddered at the truth he did not know. For not by the prompting of the Muses, as he wished to seem, did he pour forth that song on Helicon; but he had come prepared and premeditated. The first of our own, Maro (Virgil), was not far from the truth; whose words concerning the most high God, whom he named Mind and Spirit, are these: 'In the beginning a Spirit within nourishes the heaven and the lands and the liquid plains, the shining globe of the moon, and the Titanian stars;'
'and a Mind, infused throughout the limbs, sets the whole mass in motion, and mingles itself with the great body.' And lest perchance anyone should not know who that Spirit was who had so great power, he declared in another place, saying: 'For God goes through all the lands, the tracts of the sea, and the deep heaven. Hence the flocks, the herds, men, every kind of wild beast—each at its birth draws its slender life from this source.' Ovid too, in the beginning of his illustrious work, without any disguising of the name, confesses that the world was furnished by God, whom he calls the fabricator of the world, the artificer of things. And if either Orpheus, or these our own poets, had perpetually maintained what they perceived under the leading of nature, they would have held, with the truth grasped, the same doctrine which we follow.
But thus far concerning the poets. Let us come to the philosophers, whose authority is weightier and judgment more certain; because they are believed to have applied themselves not to fictitious matters, but to investigating the truth. Thales of Miletus, who was one of the number of the seven sages, and who is reported to have been the first of all to inquire concerning natural causes, said that water was that from which all things were born; and that God was the Mind which formed all things out of water. Thus he placed the matter of things in moisture; he set the beginning and cause of generation in God. Pythagoras thus defined what God was: 'A Spirit, passing through and diffused throughout all the parts of the world and all nature; from which all living things that are born take their life.'
Anaxagoras said that God was an infinite Mind, which is moved through itself. Antisthenes said that there were indeed many popular gods, but one natural God, the artificer of the whole sum. Cleanthes and Anaximenes say that the aether is the most high God; to which opinion our poet assented: 'Then the almighty Father, Aether, descends with fruitful showers into the lap of his joyful spouse, and, mingled with her great body, mighty he nourishes all her offspring.' Chrysippus calls God a natural force endowed with divine reason, and sometimes a divine necessity. Likewise Zeno calls Him a divine and natural law. The opinion of all these, however uncertain it be, nevertheless looks to the same point, that they agree there is one providence.
For whether you say nature, or aether, or reason, or mind, or fatal necessity, or divine law, or whatever else—it is the same thing which by us is called God. Nor does the diversity of appellations stand in the way, since by the very signification all things are rolled back to one. Aristotle, although he is at variance with himself, and both says and feels things contrary to himself, nevertheless testifies in sum that one Mind presides over the world. Plato, who is judged the wisest of all, plainly and openly defends monarchy; and names neither aether, nor reason, nor nature, but, as it is, God; and that by Him this world was fashioned perfect and marvellous.
Cicero, who followed and imitated him in very many matters, frequently confesses God, and calls Him supreme in those books which he wrote On the Laws; and he argues that the world is governed by Him when he discusses the Nature of the Gods, in this manner: 'Nothing is more excellent than God; it is therefore necessary that the world be ruled by Him. God is therefore obedient or subject to no nature; He Himself therefore governs all nature.' And what God is, he defines in the Consolation: 'Nor indeed can God Himself, who is understood by us, be understood in any other way than as a certain mind, free and unbound, separated from all mortal admixture, perceiving and moving all things.'