Read City of God (Penguin Classics) Online
Authors: Saint Augustine
To have touched the tyrant’s hand will be for me
Earnest of peace.
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This suggestion is precluded by an unambiguous statement in another place, that God ‘makes a hypocrite to reign because of the perversity of the people’.
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I have now sufficiently explained, as far as I can, the reason why the one true and just God has assisted the Romans, who are good according to the standards of the earthly city, to the attainment of the glory of so great an empire. But it may be that there is another more hidden cause on account of the diverse merits of mankind, which are better known to God than to us. However, it is the conviction of all those who are truly religious, that no one can have true virtue without true piety, that is without the true worship of the true God; and that the virtue which is employed in the service of human glory is not true virtue; still, those who are not citizens of the Eternal City – which the holy Scriptures call the City of God – are of more service to the earthly city when they possess even that sort of virtue than if they are without it.
As for those who are endowed with true piety and who lead a good life, if they are skilled in the art of government, then there is no
happier situation for mankind than that they, by God’s mercy, should wield power. Yet such men attribute to the grace of God whatever virtues they may be able to display in this present life, because God has given those virtues to them in response to their wish, their faith, and their petition. At the same time they realize how far they fall short of the perfect righteousness, such as is found in the fellowship of the angels, for which they strive to fit themselves. However much praise and public approbation is given to the virtue which is engaged in the service of human glory, it is in no way to be compared to the humblest beginnings of the saints, whose hope has been placed in the grace and mercy of the true God.
20.
For virtue to serve the end of human glory is as shameful as for her to serve the end of sensual pleasure
The philosophers who set up virtue as the highest good for man
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seek to induce a sense of shame in those other philosophers
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who, while approving virtue, take physical pleasure as the end, and use that as the criterion of virtue; pleasure, in their view, is to be sought for its own sake, virtue as a means to that end. To shame them, their opponents paint a kind of picture in words,
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representing Pleasure sitting on a royal throne like some voluptuous queen, with Virtues as her obedient servants, waiting upon her nod, to fulfil her commands. She orders Prudence to be vigilant to take all steps to ensure the untroubled reign of pleasure. She bids Justice to provide all possible benefits to secure the friendships necessary for physical well-being, and to do no wrong to anyone, lest a breach of the law should interrupt the serenity of the life of pleasure. She instructs Fortitude to see to it that in case of physical pain which is not such as to bring her to suicide, she should resolutely keep in mind her mistress, Pleasure, so as to soften the pangs of present suffering by the recollection of previous delights. She enjoins Temperance to use moderation in food, though eating may be a source of delight, for fear that indulgence may cause some upset to health, which would be a serious hindrance to pleasure, for the Epicureans regard bodily health as a prime ingredient in pleasure. Thus the virtues, with all their glory and dignity, turned out to be the slaves of Pleasure, a mistress represented as a kind of exacting and worthless baggage. Nothing could be more shameful, say the Stoics, than this picture, nothing more hideously degraded,
nothing more intolerable to the eyes of decent people. And they are right.
But in my view the picture would still fall short of the beauty we require, if it were painted with the virtues as the slaves of human glory. Glory may not be a female voluptuary, but she is puffed up with empty conceit; and it is most improper that the Virtues, with their solidity and strength, should be her servants. For then Prudence would exercise no foresight, Justice make no dispensations, Fortitude show no endurance, Temperance impose no moderation, except so far as to win man’s approval, and to serve the ends of Glory and her inflated conceit.
And yet men must not think to free themselves from this degradation by posing as despisers of glory and paying no heed to the opinions of others, while they esteem themselves as wise men and win their own approval. For their virtue, if it exists, is dependent on the praise of man in another kind of way. For the man who wins his own approval, is still a man. But he who with genuine piety believes in God and hopes in him, is more concerned about what he finds displeasing in himself than what (if anything) is pleasing, not so much to himself as to the Truth. And he ascribes whatever there is that may be pleasing in himself entirely to the mercy of the God whom he fears to displease, offering thanks for faults amended, and pouring out prayers for the amendment of faults that still remain.
21.
The Roman Empire ordained by the true God, who is the source of all power, and by whose providence the universe is governed
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This being so, we must ascribe to the true God alone the power to grant kingdoms and empires. He it is who gives happiness in the kingdom of heaven only to the good, but grants earthly kingdoms both to the good and to the evil, in accordance with his pleasure, which can never be unjust. We have already said something on this matter, as far as he has willed to make it plain to us. But to examine the secrets of men’s hearts and to decide with clear judgement on the varying merits of human kingdoms – this would be a heavy task for us men, a task indeed far beyond our powers. And for that reason the one true God, who never leaves the human race unattended by his judgement or his help, granted dominion to the Romans when he willed and in the measure that he willed. It was he who gave sovereignty to the Assyrians, and also to the Persians (who, according to the evidence of
their literature, worshipped two gods only, a good god and an evil
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) to say nothing of the Hebrew people, about whom, and about their worship of one God only and the time of their sovereignty, I have already said enough, in my judgement. It was God who gave crops to the Persians without the worship of Segetia, and the other gifts of the earth without the worship of all those gods, each of whom the Romans assigned to a particular function, sometimes appointing several gods to one duty. God himself gave dominion to the Romans without the worship of those gods to whose worship the Romans thought they owed their Empire.
This is true also in respect of individual men. The same God gave power to Marius and to Gaius Caesar, to Augustus and to Nero, to the Vespasians, father and son,
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the most attractive emperors, as well as to Domitian, the most ruthless tyrant; and (we need not run through the whole list) the same God gave the throne to Constantine the Christian, and also to Julian the Apostate. Julian had exceptional endowments, perverted by sacrilegious and abominable superstition working through a love of domination. He gave his entire trust to the worthless oracles of superstition and, confident in the certainty of victory, he burnt the ships carrying essential food supplies. Then, pressing on feverishly with his inordinate designs he paid the just price for his rashness when he was slain, leaving his army destitute, in enemy territory.
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And the army could not escape except by giving the lie to that ‘presage’ of the god Terminus
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by the moving of the frontier of the Roman Empire. I have spoken of this in my last book. The god Terminus, who refused to give way to Jupiter, gave way to necessity.
It is clear that God, the one true God, rules and guides these events, according to his pleasure. If God’s reasons are inscrutable, does that mean that they are unjust?
22.
The duration of wars and their outcome depend on the decision of God
The same may be said of the duration of wars. It rests with the decision of God in his just judgement and mercy either to afflict or console mankind, so that some wars come to an end more speedily,
others more slowly. The Pirate War and the Third Punic War were brought to a successful conclusion with incredible rapidity, in a very short time, the first by Pompey, the second by Scipio.
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The war against the runaway gladiators, also, despite many defeats suffered by Roman commanders, including two consuls, and terrible destruction and devastation in Italy, was finished in two years, after heavy losses. Then the Picentines, the Massi and the Poligni, peoples of Italy, not foreigners, after serving Rome faithfully under the yoke of servitude essayed to life up their heads and assert their liberty, although Rome had by then subdued many nations and had destroyed Carthage. In this Italian War the Romans were often defeated; two consuls perished, as did other well-known senators. Yet this horror was not long drawn-out; four years saw the end of it. The Second Punic War, on the other hand, was attended with terrible losses and disasters to the Roman state; it lasted for eighteen years, and almost drained the strength of Rome to complete exhaustion. In two battles nearly seventy thousand Romans fell.
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The First Punic War took twenty-three years to finish; the Mithridatic War took forty. And no one should suppose that the Romans in earlier times were able, through their greater courage, to finish their wars more quickly. The Samnite War was fought in an early period highly praised for every kind of virtue; and that war was prolonged for almost fifty years, and in its course the Romans suffered a defeat of such magnitude that they had to pass under the yoke.
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But they did not love glory for the sake of justice; they appeared to love justice only for the sake of glory; and therefore they broke the treaty of peace that had been concluded.
The reason for recalling these facts is that many people are ignorant of past history, while some others feign ignorance, and if in this Christian era any war seems somewhat unduly protracted, they seize the chance for impudent attacks on our religion, crying out that if Christianity did not exist, and the divinities were worshipped with the ancient rites, this war would by now have been brought to an end
by that Roman valour which, with the help of Mars and Bellona, so speedily concluded so many wars in the past.
Let those who have read their history remember how long were the wars waged by Rome in times past, and with what diverse fortunes and grievous disasters they were attended; for the world is liable to be tempest-tossed by such misfortunes, like a storm-swept sea. Let them acknowledge the facts, even if it goes against the grain; and left them stop destroying themselves by crazy insults against God, and refrain from deceiving the ignorant
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The war in which Radagaisus, king of the Goths, a demon-worshipper, was vanquished in one day, with his immense forces
Our adversaries do not recall with gratitude that wonderful instance of God’s merciful action in our own times, only just the other day; in fact they do their best to bury it in oblivion. If we pass it over in silence, we shall show ourselves equally ungrateful.
Radagaisus,
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king of the Goths, had taken up a position in the vicinity of Rome, at the head of an immense army of savages, and the threat weighed heavily on Roman shoulders. But then, in a single day, he was vanquished, without one casualty to Rome, without even one wounded; more than a hundred thousand of his army were laid low, and Radagaisus himself was taken prisoner and soon paid the penalty of death he so richly deserved.
If that impious creature had entered Rome with his huge army of the ungodly, would he have given any quarter? Would he have shown any respect for the sacred sites of the martyrs?
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Would he have feared God in the person of any man? Would he have left any blood unshed, any honour unviolated? If Radagaisus had conquered, think of the claims the pagans would have made for those gods of theirs! The insolent boasts that he had conquered, had attained such power, because he had appeased the gods, and invited their assistance, with daily sacrifices – sacrifices which the Christian religion forbade to the Romans! When he was approaching the place where he was over-
whelmed at a mere sign from the Majesty on high, and when the report of his progress had spread over all the world, we were told in Carthage that the pagans believed and spread it abroad, even boasted, that the Gothic king enjoyed the protection and support of friendly gods, to whom, they said, he sacrificed daily, and could not conceivably be conquered by those who did not offer such rites to the Roman gods, and would not allow anyone to offer them. And those wretches do not give thanks to the great mercy of God, who after deciding to use a barbarian invasion as a chastisement for men’s immorality – which deserved an even harsher punishment – tempered his wrath with such great compassion. And so, in the first place, he allowed the barbarian to be miraculously defeated, lest the glory should be given to those demons, whose help he was known to have entreated, to the overthrow of feeble minds. And, after that, he suffered Rome to be taken by barbarians
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who, contrary to the usages of war in former times, protected those who took sanctuary in holy places out of reverence for the Christian religion, and who showed such hostility, in the name of the Christian religion, to those demons and the rites of their blasphemous sacrifices, in which the Goth had placed his trust, that they seemed to be waging a far more ruthless war with them than with men.
Thus the true Lord and Governor of the world has chastised the Romans with the scourge of his mercy, and has shown to the votaries of demons, by this incredible defeat, that those sacrifices are needless, even for the preservation of safety in this present world, so that all those who are sensible enough to face the facts, instead of engaging in obstinate debate, may not abandon true religion under pressure of the circumstances of the moment, but may adhere to it more loyally in confident expectation of eternal life.