Read City of God (Penguin Classics) Online
Authors: Saint Augustine
Maidens and boys are carried off, children are torn from parents’ embrace; mothers are subjected to the pleasure of the conquerors; temples and homes are despoiled; there is fire and slaughter everywhere; the scene is crowded with fighting men, with dead bodies, with bloodshed and lamentation.
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If he had omitted the mention of temples, we might have supposed that it was the custom for enemies to spare the abodes of gods. Yet the Roman temples had to dread this fate, not at the hands of foreign foes, but at the hands of Catiline and his associates, that is, of Roman citizens and senators of the highest birth; but they, to be sure, were men without conscience, murderers of the land that bore them.
6.
Not even the Romans spared the conquered in the temples of captured cities
Why should I survey in this argument the wars waged by many nations which supply no instance of mercy shown the conquered in the abodes of their gods? Let us observe the Romans themselves; let us give them further examination. It was said of them, in their particular praise, that it was their custom ‘To spare the conquered and beat down the proud’;
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and that they chose ‘rather to pardon than to avenge the wrongs’
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they suffered. To extend their dominions these Romans captured, stormed or overthrew many mighty cities. Do we ever read of any privilege extended to certain temples, to ensure that any who took refuge in them should be given their freedom? Or did they act thus, even though the historians fail to mention it? These historians particularly look for points to praise. Is it likely that they would omit actions which, by their own standards, would be most convincing evidence of religious feeling?
That great Roman, Marcus Marcellus, who captured the splendid city of Syracuse, is said to have wept over its coming downfall and to have shed his own tears before shedding Syracusan blood.
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He also took care to preserve the honour of his enemies, for before he ordered the invasion of the town, the victor issued an edict that no violence should be done to the person of any free citizen. And yet that city was overthrown in the usual manner of warfare, and there is no record of any proclamation by that honourable and merciful commander to order that anyone who fled to this temple or that should be immune from harm. And this would certainly not have passed unrecorded, since the records could not allow his weeping to remain unmentioned, nor his edict utterly forbidding the violation of his enemy’s honour.
Fabius, who crushed Tarentum, is commended for having abstained from plundering images.
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For when his secretary inquired what were his commands about the statues of the gods, many of which had been captured, he seasoned his moderation with a joke. He asked what sort of images they were and, on being told that many of them were of impressive size, and some were even armed, he said, ‘Let us leave the Tarentines their angry gods.’ Now since the Roman chroniclers could not fail to mention the tears of one and the jocularity of the other, the honourable clemency of Marcellus and the humorous moderation of Fabius, is it likely that they would omit to record it if these two had shown mercy to any man out of respect for their gods by forbidding massacre or enslavement in some temple or other?
7.
In the sack of Rome, the cruelties conformed to the conventions of war; the acts of clemency were due to the power of Chrise’s name
All the devastation, the butchery, the plundering, the conflagrations, and all the anguish which accompanied the recent disaster at Rome
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were in accordance with the general practice of warfare. But there was something which established a new custom, something which changed the whole aspect of the scene; the savagery of the barbarians took on such an aspect of gentleness that the largest basilicas were selected and set aside to be filled with people to be spared by the enemy. No one was to be violently used there, no one snatched away.
Many were to be brought there for liberation by merciful foes; none were to be taken from there into captivity even by cruel enemies. This is to be attributed to the name of Christ and the influence of Christianity. Anyone who fails to see this is blind; anyone who sees it and fails to give praise for it is thankless; anyone who tries to stop another from giving praise is a madman. Let us hope that no one with any sense will ascribe the credit for this to the brutal nature of the barbarians. Their fierce and savage minds were terrified, restrained, and miraculously controlled by him who long ago said, through his prophet, ‘I will visit their iniquities with a rod, and their sins with scourges: but I will not disperse my mercy from them.’
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8.
Blessings and disasters often shared by good and bad
No doubt this question will be asked, ‘Why does the divine mercy extend even to the godless and ungrateful?’ The only explanation is that it is the mercy of one ‘who makes his sun rise on the good and on the bad, and sends rain alike on the righteous and the unrighteous’.
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Some of the wicked are brought to penitence by considering these facts, and amend their impiety, while others, in the words of the Apostle, ‘despise the riches of God’s goodness and forebearance, in the hardness and impenitence of their hearts, and lay up for themselves a store of wrath in the day of God’s anger and of the revelation of the just judgement of God, who will repay every man according to his actions’.
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Yet the patience of God still invites the wicked to penitence, just as God’s chastisement trains the good in patient endurance. God’s mercy embraces the good for their cherishing, just as his severity chastens the wicked for their punishment. God, in his providence, decided to prepare future blessings for the righteous, which the unrighteous will not enjoy, and sorrows for the ungodly, with which the good will not be tormented. But he has willed that these temporal goods and temporal evils should befall good and bad alike, so that the good things should not be too eagerly coveted, when it is seen that the wicked also enjoy them, and that the evils should not be discreditably shunned, when it is apparent that the good are often afflicted with them.
The most important question is this: What use is made of the things thought to be blessings, and of the things reputed evil? The good man
is not exalted by this world’s goods; nor is he overwhelmed by this world’s ills. The bad man is punished by misfortune of this kind just because he is corrupted by good fortune.
However, it often happens that God shows more clearly his manner of working in the distribution of good and bad fortune. For if punishment were obviously inflicted on every wrongdoing in this life, it would be supposed that nothing was reserved for the last judgement; on the other hand, if God’s power never openly punished any sin in this world, there would be an end to belief in providence. Similarly in respect of good fortune; if God did not grant it to some petitioners with manifest generosity, we should not suppose that these temporal blessings were his concern, while if he bestowed prosperity on all just for the asking we might think that God was to be served merely for the sake of those rewards, and any service of him would prove us not godly but rather greedy and covetous.
This being so, when the good and the wicked suffer alike, the identity of their sufferings does not mean that there is no difference between them. Though the sufferings are the same, the sufferers remain different. Virtue and vice are not the same, even if they undergo the same torment. The fire which makes gold shine makes chaff smoke; the same flail breaks up the straw, and clears the grain; and oil is not mistaken for lees because both are forced out by the same press. In the same way, the violence which assails good men to test them, to cleanse and purify them, effects in the wicked their condemnation, ruin, and annihilation. Thus the wicked, under pressure of affliction, execrate God and blaspheme; the good, in the same affliction, offer up prayers and praises. This shows that what matters is the nature of the sufferer, not the nature of the sufferings. Stir a cesspit, and a foul stench arises; stir a perfume, and a delightful fragrance ascends. But the movement is identical.
9.
The reasons why the good and the wicked are equally afflicted
Thus, in this universal catastrophe, the sufferings of Christians have tended to their moral improvement, because they viewed them with the eyes of faith.
First, they consider in humility the sins which have moved God’s indignation so that he has filled the world with dire calamities. And although they are free from criminal and godless wickedness, still they do not regard themselves as so far removed from such wrongdoing as
not to deserve to suffer the temporal ills which are the recompense of sin. Everyone of them, however commendable his life, gives way at times to physical desires, and, while avoiding monstrous crimes, the sink of iniquity and the abomination of godlessness, is yet guilty of some sins, infrequent sins, perhaps, or more frequent because more trivial. Apart from this, it is not easy to find anyone who, when confronted with those whose fearful arrogance, lust, and greed, whose detestable wickedness and impiety, have caused God to give effect to his threats and warnings by bringing destruction on the earth – it is not, I say, easy to find anyone who regards such men as they should be regarded – who, when he meets them, treats them as they should be treated.
We tend culpably to evade our responsibility when we ought to instruct and admonish them, sometimes even with sharp reproof and censure, either because the task is irksome, or because we are afraid of giving offence; or it may be that we shrink from incurring their enmity, for fear that they may hinder and harm us in worldly matters, in respect either of what we eagerly seek to attain, or of what we weakly dread to lose. And so, although the good dislike the way of life of the wicked, and therefore do not fall into the condemnation which is in store for the wicked after this life, nevertheless, because they are tender towards damnable sins of the wicked, and thus fall into sin through fear of such people (pardonable and comparatively trivial though those sins may be), they are justly chastised with afflictions in this world, although they are spared eternal punishment; and they rightly feel this life to be bitter when they are associated with the wicked in the afflictions sent by God. But it was through love of this world’s sweetness that they refused to be bitter to those sinners.
If anyone refrains from reproof and correction of ill-doers because he looks for a more suitable occasion, or because he fears that this will make them worse, or fears that they will hinder the instruction of others, who are weak, in a good and godly way of life, and that they will oppress them, and turn them away from the faith, in such a case the action seems to be prompted not by self-interest but by counsels of charity. What is culpable is when those whose life is different and who abhor the deeds of the wicked are nevertheless indulgent to the sins of others, which they ought to reprehend and reprove, because they are concerned to avoid giving offence to them, in case they should harm themselves in respect of things which may be rightly and innocently enjoyed by good men, but which they desire more than is
right for those who are strangers in this world and who fix their hope on a heavenly country.
There are the weaker brothers, in the married state, who have children or look to have them, who are masters of houses and households; the Apostle addresses them in the churches, teaching them and warning them how they ought to live, wives with husbands and husbands with wives, children with parents and parents with children, servants with masters and masters with servants.
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Such men are eager to acquire many of this world’s temporal goods, and grieve to lose them, and for that reason they have not the heart to offend men whose lives of shame and crime they detest. But they are not alone.
Even those who have a higher standard of life, who are not entangled in the bonds of marriage, who are content with little food and scanty clothing, are often fearful of attacks by the wicked upon their reputation and their safety, and so refrain from reproaches. They are not so afraid of the wicked as to yield to their villainous threats to the extent of committing crimes like theirs; but though they do not commit them they too often fail to reprehend them, for although they might perhaps convert some by such rebuke they fear that, if the attempt failed, their safety and reputation might be endangered or destroyed. And this is not due to prudence, nor is it because they see their reputation and safety as essential means whereby mankind may receive the benefit of instruction; it is rather due to weakness – because they delight in flattery and popularity and because they dread the judgement of the mob, and the torture or death of the body. In fact, they are constrained by self-interest, not by the obligations of charity.
So this seems to me a major reason why the good are chastized along with the evil, when God decides to punish moral corruption with temporal calamities. Good and bad are chastised together, not because both alike live evil lives, but because both alike, though not in the same degree, love this temporal life. But the good ought to have despised it, so that the others might be reformed and corrected and might aim at life eternal; or, if they refused to be partners in this enterprise, so that they might be borne with, and loved as Christians should love their enemies, since in this life it is always uncertain whether or not they are likely to experience a change of heart.
In this matter a uniquely heavy responsibility rests on those to whom this message is given by the prophet: ‘He indeed will die in his sin, but I will require his blood at the hand of the watchman.’
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For
‘watchmen’, that is, leaders of the people, have been appointed in the churches for this purpose, that they should be unsparing in their condemnation of sin. This does not mean that a man is entirely free from blame in this regard if, without being a ‘watchman’, he recognizes, but ignores, opportunities of warning and admonishing those with whom the exigencies of this life force him to associate – if he evades this duty for fear of offending them, because he is concerned for those worldly advantages, which are not in themselves discreditable, but to which he is unduly attached. There is a further reason for the infliction of temporal suffering on the good, as is seen in the case of Job – that the spirit of man may be tested, that he may learn for himself what is the degree of disinterested devotion that he offers to God.