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These things being so, we do not attribute the power of giving
kingdoms and empires to any save to the true God, who gives happiness
in the kingdom of heaven to the pious alone, but gives kingly power on
earth both to the pious and the impious, as it may please Him, whose
good pleasure is always just. For though we have said something about
the principles which guide His administration, in so far as it has
seemed good to Him to explain it, nevertheless it is too much for us,
and far surpasses our strength, to discuss the hidden things of men's
hearts, and by a clear examination to determine the merits of various
kingdoms. He, therefore, who is the one true God, who never leaves
the human race without just judgment and help, gave a kingdom to the
Romans when He would, and as great as He would, as He did also to
the Assyrians, and even the Persians, by whom, as their own books
testify, only two gods are worshipped, the one good and the other
evil, to say nothing concerning the Hebrew people, of whom I have
already spoken as much as seemed necessary, who, as long as they were
a kingdom, worshipped none save the true God. The same, therefore,
who gave to the Persians harvests, though they did not worship the
goddess Segetia, who gave the other blessings of the earth, though
they did not worship the many gods which the Romans supposed to
preside, each one over some particular thing, or even many of them
over each several thing, He, I say, gave the Persians dominion,
though they worshipped none of those gods to whom the Romans believed
themselves indebted for the empire. And the same is true in respect of
men as well as nations. He who gave power to Marius gave it also to
Caius Caesar; He who gave it to Augustus gave it also to Nero;
He also who gave it to the most benignant emperors, the Vespasians,
father and son, gave it also to the cruel Domitian; and, finally,
to avoid the necessity of going over them all, He who gave it to the
Christian Constantine gave it also to the apostate Julian, whose
gifted mind was deceived by a sacrilegious and detestable curiosity,
stimulated by the love of power. And it was because he was addicted
through curiosity to vain oracles, that, confident of victory, he
burned the ships which were laden with the provisions necessary for his
army, and therefore, engaging with hot zeal in rashly audacious
enterprises, he was soon slain, as the just consequence of his
recklessness, and left his army unprovisioned in an enemy's country,
and in such a predicament that it never could have escaped, save by
altering the boundaries of the Roman empire, in violation of that omen
of the god Terminus of which I spoke in the preceding book; for the
god Terminus yielded to necessity, though he had not yielded to
Jupiter. Manifestly these things are ruled and governed by the one
God according as He pleases; and if His motives are hid, are they
therefore unjust?
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