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For what kind of augury is that which they have declared to be most
beautiful, and to which I referred a little ago, that Mars, and
Terminus, and Juventas would not give place even to Jove, the king
of the gods? For thus, they say, it was signified that the nation
dedicated to Mars, that is, the Roman, should yield to none the
place it once occupied; likewise, that on account of the god
Terminus, no one would be able to disturb the Roman frontiers; and
also, that the Roman youth, because of the goddess Juventas, should
yield to no one. Let them see, therefore, how they can hold him to
be the king of their god's, and the giver of their own kingdom, if
these auguries set him down for an adversary, to whom it would have
been honorable not to yield. However, if these things are true, they
need not be at all afraid. For they are not going to confess that the
gods who would not yield to Jove have yielded to Christ. For,
without altering the boundaries of the empire, Jesus Christ has
proved Himself able to drive them, not only from their temples, but
from the hears of their worshippers. But, before Christ came in the
flesh, and, indeed, before these things which we have quoted from
their books could have been written, but yet after that auspice was
made under king Tarquin, the Roman army has been divers times
scattered or put to flight, and has shown the falseness of the
auspice, which they derived from the fact that the goddess Juventas
had not given place to Jove; and the nation dedicated to Mars was
trodden down in the city itself by the invading and triumphant Gauls;
and the boundaries of the empire, through the falling away of many
cities to Hannibal, had been hemmed into a narrow space. Thus the
beauty of the auspices is made void, and there has remained only the
contumacy against Jove, not of gods, but of demons. For it is one
thing not to have yielded, and another to have returned whither you
have yielded. Besides, even afterwards, in the oriental regions,
the boundaries of the Roman empire were changed by the will of
Hadrian; for he yielded up to the Persian empire those three noble
provinces, Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Assyria. Thus that god
Terminus, who according to these books was the guardian of the Roman
frontiers, and by that most beautiful auspice had not given place to
Jove, would seem to have been more afraid of Hadrian, a king of
men, than of the king of the gods. The aforesaid provinces having
also been taken back again, almost within our own recollection the
frontier fell back, when Julian, given up to the oracles of their
gods, with immoderate daring ordered the victualling ships to be set on
fire. The army being thus left destitute of provisions, and he
himself also being presently killed by the enemy, and the legions being
hard pressed, while dismayed by the loss of their commander, they were
reduced to such extremities that no one could have escaped, unless by
articles of peace the boundaries of the empire had then been established
where they still remain; not, indeed, with so great a loss as was
suffered by the concession of Hadrian, but still at a considerable
sacrifice. It was a vain augury, then, that the god Terminus did
not yield to Jove, since he yielded to the will of Hadrian, and
yielded also to the rashness of Julian, and the necessity of
Jovinian. The more intelligent and grave Romans have seen these
things, but have had little power against the custom of the state,
which was bound to observe the rites of the demons; because even they
themselves, although they perceived that these things were vain, yet
thought that the religious worship which is due to God should be paid
to the nature of things which is established under the rule and
government of the one true God, "serving," as saith the apostle,
"the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for evermore."
The help of this true God was necessary to send holy and truly pious
men, who would die for the true religion that they might remove the
false from among the living.
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