The City of God, Volume I by Saint of Hippo Augustine
18. _How far Christians ought to be from boasting, if they have done
2094 words | Chapter 162
anything for the love of the eternal country, when the Romans did
such great things for human glory and a terrestrial city._
What great thing, therefore, is it for that eternal and celestial
city to despise all the charms of this world, however pleasant, if
for the sake of this terrestrial city Brutus could even put to death
his son,--a sacrifice which the heavenly city compels no one to make?
But certainly it is more difficult to put to death one's sons, than
to do what is required to be done for the heavenly country, even
to distribute to the poor those things which were looked upon as
things to be amassed and laid up for one's children, or to let them
go, if there arise any temptation which compels us to do so, for
the sake of faith and righteousness. For it is not earthly riches
which make us or our sons happy; for they must either be lost by us
in our lifetime, or be possessed when we are dead, by whom we know
not, or perhaps by whom we would not. But it is God who makes us
happy, who is the true riches of minds. But of Brutus, even the poet
who celebrates his praises testifies that it was the occasion of
unhappiness to him that he slew his son, for he says,
"And call his own rebellious seed
For menaced liberty to bleed.
Unhappy father! howsoe'er
The deed be judged by after days."[213]
But in the following verse he consoles him in his unhappiness, saying,
"His country's love shall all o'erbear."
There are those two things, namely, liberty and the desire of human
praise, which compelled the Romans to admirable deeds. If, therefore,
for the liberty of dying men, and for the desire of human praise
which is sought after by mortals, sons could be put to death by a
father, what great thing is it, if, for the true liberty which has
made us free from the dominion of sin, and death, and the devil,--not
through the desire of human praise, but through the earnest desire of
freeing men, not from King Tarquin, but from demons and the prince
of the demons,--we should, I do not say put to death our sons, but
reckon among our sons Christ's poor ones? If, also, another Roman
chief, surnamed Torquatus, slew his son, not because he fought
against his country, but because, being challenged by an enemy,
he through youthful impetuosity fought, though for his country,
yet contrary to orders which he his father had given as general;
and this he did, notwithstanding that his son was victorious, lest
there should be more evil in the example of authority despised, than
good in the glory of slaying an enemy;--if, I say, Torquatus acted
thus, wherefore should they boast themselves, who, for the laws of
a celestial country, despise all earthly good things, which are
loved far less than sons? If Furius Camillus, who was condemned by
those who envied him, notwithstanding that he had thrown off from
the necks of his countrymen the yoke of their most bitter enemies,
the Veientes, again delivered his ungrateful country from the Gauls,
because he had no other in which he could have better opportunities
for living a life of glory;--if Camillus did thus, why should he be
extolled as having done some great thing, who, having, it may be,
suffered in the church at the hands of carnal enemies most grievous
and dishonouring injury, has not betaken himself to heretical
enemies, or himself raised some heresy against her, but has rather
defended her, as far as he was able, from the most pernicious
perversity of heretics, since there is not another church, I say not
in which one can live a life of glory, but in which eternal life can
be obtained? If Mucius, in order that peace might be made with King
Porsenna, who was pressing the Romans with a most grievous war, when
he did not succeed in slaying Porsenna, but slew another by mistake
for him, reached forth his right hand and laid it on a red-hot altar,
saying that many such as he saw him to be had conspired for his
destruction, so that Porsenna, terrified at his daring, and at the
thought of a conspiracy of such as he, without any delay recalled all
his warlike purposes, and made peace;--if, I say, Mucius did this,
who shall speak of his meritorious claims to the kingdom of heaven,
if for it he may have given to the flames not one hand, but even his
whole body, and that not by his own spontaneous act, but because he
was persecuted by another? If Curtius, spurring on his steed, threw
himself all armed into a precipitous gulf, obeying the oracles of
their gods, which had commanded that the Romans should throw into
that gulf the best thing which they possessed, and they could only
understand thereby that, since they excelled in men and arms, the
gods had commanded that an armed man should be cast headlong into
that destruction;--if he did this, shall we say that that man has
done a great thing for the eternal city who may have died by a like
death, not, however, precipitating himself spontaneously into a
gulf, but having suffered this death at the hands of some enemy of
his faith, more especially when he has received from his Lord, who
is also King of his country, a more certain oracle, "Fear not them
who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul?"[214] If the Decii
dedicated themselves to death, consecrating themselves in a form of
words, as it were, that falling, and pacifying by their blood the
wrath of the gods, they might be the means of delivering the Roman
army;--if they did this, let not the holy martyrs carry themselves
proudly, as though they had done some meritorious thing for a share
in that country where are eternal life and felicity, if even to
the shedding of their blood, loving not only the brethren for whom
it was shed, but, according as had been commanded them, even their
enemies by whom it was being shed, they have vied with one another in
faith of love and love of faith. If Marcus Pulvillus, when engaged
in dedicating a temple to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, received with
such indifference the false intelligence which was brought to him of
the death of his son, with the intention of so agitating him that he
should go away, and thus the glory of dedicating the temple should
fall to his colleague;--if he received that intelligence with such
indifference that he even ordered that his son should be cast out
unburied, the love of glory having overcome in his heart the grief
of bereavement, how shall any one affirm that he has done a great
thing for the preaching of the gospel, by which the citizens of the
heavenly city are delivered from divers errors, and gathered together
from divers wanderings, to whom his Lord has said, when anxious about
the burial of his father, "Follow me, and let the dead bury their
dead?"[215] Regulus, in order not to break his oath, even with his
most cruel enemies, returned to them from Rome itself, because (as
he is said to have replied to the Romans when they wished to retain
him) he could not have the dignity of an honourable citizen at Rome
after having been a slave to the Africans, and the Carthaginians put
him to death with the utmost tortures, because he had spoken against
them in the senate. If Regulus acted thus, what tortures are not to
be despised for the sake of good faith toward that country to whose
beatitude faith itself leads? Or what will a man have rendered to the
Lord for all He has bestowed upon him, if, for the faithfulness he
owes to Him, he shall have suffered such things as Regulus suffered
at the hands of his most ruthless enemies for the good faith which
he owed to them? And how shall a Christian dare vaunt himself of
his voluntary poverty, which he has chosen in order that during the
pilgrimage of this life he may walk the more disencumbered on the
way which leads to the country where the true riches are, even God
Himself;--how, I say, shall he vaunt himself for this, when he hears
or reads that Lucius Valerius, who died when he was holding the
office of consul, was so poor that his funeral expenses were paid
with money collected by the people?--or when he hears that Quintius
Cincinnatus, who, possessing only four acres of land, and cultivating
them with his own hands, was taken from the plough to be made
dictator,--an office more honourable even than that of consul,--and
that, after having won great glory by conquering the enemy, he
preferred notwithstanding to continue in his poverty? Or how shall he
boast of having done a great thing, who has not been prevailed upon
by the offer of any reward of this world to renounce his connection
with that heavenly and eternal country, when he hears that Fabricius
could not be prevailed on to forsake the Roman city by the great
gifts offered to him by Pyrrhus king of the Epirots, who promised him
the fourth part of his kingdom, but preferred to abide there in his
poverty as a private individual? For if, when their republic,--that
is, the interest of the people, the interest of the country, the
common interest,--was most prosperous and wealthy, they themselves
were so poor in their own houses, that one of them, who had already
been twice a consul, was expelled from that senate of poor men by
the censor, because he was discovered to possess ten pounds weight
of silver-plate,--since, I say, those very men by whose triumphs the
public treasury was enriched were so poor, ought not all Christians,
who make common property of their riches with a far nobler purpose,
even that (according to what is written in the Acts of the Apostles)
they may distribute to each one according to his need, and that no
one may say that anything is his own, but that all things may be
their common possession,[216]--ought they not to understand that they
should not vaunt themselves, because they do that to obtain the
society of angels, when those men did well-nigh the same thing to
preserve the glory of the Romans?
How could these, and whatever like things are found in the Roman
history, have become so widely known, and have been proclaimed by so
great a fame, had not the Roman empire, extending far and wide, been
raised to its greatness by magnificent successes? Wherefore, through
that empire, so extensive and of so long continuance, so illustrious
and glorious also through the virtues of such great men, the reward
which they sought was rendered to their earnest aspirations, and also
examples are set before us, containing necessary admonition, in order
that we may be stung with shame if we shall see that we have not held
fast those virtues for the sake of the most glorious city of God, which
are, in whatever way, resembled by those virtues which they held fast
for the sake of the glory of a terrestrial city, and that, too, if we
shall feel conscious that we have held them fast, we may not be lifted
up with pride, because, as the apostle says, "The sufferings of the
present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory which shall be
revealed in us."[217] But so far as regards human and temporal glory,
the lives of these ancient Romans were reckoned sufficiently worthy.
Therefore, also, we see, in the light of that truth which, veiled in
the Old Testament, is revealed in the New, namely, that it is not in
view of terrestrial and temporal benefits, which divine providence
grants promiscuously to good and evil, that God is to be worshipped,
but in view of eternal life, everlasting gifts, and of the society
of the heavenly city itself;--in the light of this truth we see that
the Jews were most righteously given as a trophy to the glory of the
Romans; for we see that these Romans, who rested on earthly glory, and
sought to obtain it by virtues, such as they were, conquered those who,
in their great depravity, slew and rejected the giver of true glory,
and of the eternal city.
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