|
But what is relevant to the present question is this, that however
admirable our adversaries say the republic was or is, it is certain
that by the testimony of their own most learned writers it had become,
long before the coming of Christ, utterly wicked and dissolute, and
indeed had no existence, but had been destroyed by profligacy. To
prevent this, surely these guardian gods ought to have given precepts
of morals and a rule of life to the people by whom they were worshipped
in so many temples, with so great a variety of priests and sacrifices,
with such numberless and diverse rites, so many festal solemnities, so
many celebrations of magnificent games. But in all this the demons
only looked after their own interest, and cared not at all how their
worshippers lived, or rather were at pains to induce them to lead an
abandoned life, so long as they paid these tributes to their honor,
and regarded them with fear. If any one denies this, let him
produce, let him point to, let him read the laws which the gods had
given against sedition, and which the Gracchi transgressed when they
threw everything into confusion; or those Marius, and Cinna, and
Carbo broke when they involved their country in civil wars, most
iniquitous and unjustifiable in their causes, cruelly conducted, and
yet more cruelly terminated; or those which Sylla scorned, whose
life, character, and deeds, as described by Sallust and other
historians, are the abhorrence of all mankind. Who will deny that at
that time the republic had become extinct?
Possibly they will be bold enough to suggest in defence of the gods,
that they abandoned the city on account of the profligacy of the
citizens, according to the lines of Virgil:
|
Gone from each fane,
each sacred shrine,
Are those who made this realm divine.
|
|
But, firstly, if it be so, then they cannot complain against the
Christian religion, as if it were that which gave offence to the gods
ant caused them to abandon Rome, since the Roman immorality had long
ago driven from the altars of the city a cloud of little gods, like as
many flies. And yet where was this host of divinities, when, long
before the corruption of the primitive morality, Rome was taken and
burnt by the Gauls? Perhaps they were present, but asleep? For at
that time the whole city fell into the hands of the enemy, with the
single exception of the Capitoline hill; and this too would have been
taken, had not, the watchful geese aroused the sleeping gods! And
this gave occasion to the festival of the goose, in which Rome sank
nearly to the superstition of the Egyptians, who worship beasts and
birds. But of these adventitious evils which are inflicted by hostile
armies or by some disaster, and which attach rather to the body than
the soul, I am not meanwhile disputing. At present I speak of the
decay of morality, which at first almost imperceptibly lost its
brilliant hue, but afterwards was wholly obliterated, was swept away
as by a torrent, and involved the republic in such disastrous ruin,
that though the houses and wails remained standing the leading writers
do not scruple to say that the republic was destroyed. Now, the
departure of the gods "from each fane, each sacred shrine," and
their abandonment of the city to destruction, was an act of justice,
if their laws inculcating justice and a moral life had been held in
contempt by that city. But what kind of gods were these, pray, who
declined to live with a people who worshipped them, and whose corrupt
life they had done nothing to reform?
|
|