|
What great thing, therefore, is it for that eternal and celestial
city to despise all the charms of this world, however pleasant, if for
the sake of this terrestrial city Brutus could even put to death his
son, a sacrifice which the heavenly city compels no one to make? But
certainly it is more difficult to put to death one's sons, than to do
what is required to be done for the heavenly country, even to
distribute to the poor those things which were looked upon as things to
be massed and laid up for one's children, or to let them go, if there
arise any temptation which compels us to do so, for the sake of faith
and righteousness. For it is not earthly riches which make us or our
sons happy; for they must either be lost by us in our lifetime, or be
possessed when we are dead, by whom we know not, or perhaps by whom we
would not. But it is God who makes us happy, who is the true riches
of minds. But of Brutus, even the poet who celebrates his praises
testifies that it was the occasion of unhappiness to him that he slew
his son, for he says, "And call his own rebellious seed For menaced
liberty to bleed. Unhappy father! howsoe'er The deed be judged by
after days."
But in the following verse he consoles him in his unhappiness,
saying, "His country's love shall all o'erbear."
There are those two things, namely, liberty and the desire of human
praise, which compelled the Romans to admirable deeds. If,
therefore, for the liberty of dying men, and for the desire of human
praise which is sought after by mortals, sons could be put to death by
a father, what great thing is it, if, for the true liberty which has
made us free from the dominion of sin, and death, and the devil,-not
through the desire of human praise, but through the earnest desire of
fleeing men, not from King Tarquin, but from demons and the prince
of the demons, we should, I do not say put to death our sons, but
reckon among our sons Christ's poor ones? If, also, another Roman
chief, surnamed Torquatus, slew his son, not because he fought
against his country, but because, being challenged by an enemy, he
through youthful impetuosity fought, though for his country, yet
contrary to orders which he his father had given as general; and this
he did, notwithstanding that his son was victorious, lest there should
be more evil in the example of authority despised, than good in the
glory of slaying an enemy;, if, I say, Torquatus acted thus,
wherefore should they boast themselves, who, for the laws of a
celestial country, despise all earthly good things, which are loved
far less than sons? If Furius Camillus, who was condemned by those
who envied him, notwithstanding that he had thrown off from the necks
of his countrymen the yoke of their most bitter enemies, the
Veientes, again delivered his ungrateful country from the Gauls,
because he had no other in which he could have better opportunities for
living a life of glory;, if Camillus did thus, why should he be
extolled as having done some great thing, who, having, it may be,
suffered in the church at the hands of carnal enemies most grievous and
dishonoring injury, has not betaken himself to heretical enemies, or
himself raised some heresy against her, but has rather defended her,
as far as he was able, from the most pernicious perversity of
heretics, since there is not another church, I say not in which one
can live a life of glory, but in which eternal life can be obtained?
If Mucius, in order that peace might be made with King Porsenna,
who was pressing the Romans with a most grievous war, when he did not
succeed in slaying Porsenna, but slew another by mistake for him,
reached forth his right hand and laid it on a red-hot altar, saying
that many such as he saw him to be had conspired for his destruction,
so that Porsenna, terrified at his daring, and at the thought of a
conspiracy of such as he, without any delay recalled all his warlike
purposes, and made peace;, if, I say, Mucius did this, who shall
speak of his meritorious claims to the kingdom of heaven, if for it he
may have given to the flames not one hand, but even his whole body,
and that not by his own spontaneous act, but because he was persecuted
by another? If Curtius, spurring on his steed, threw himself all
armed into a precipitous gulf, obeying the oracles of their gods,
which had commanded that the Romans should throw into that gulf the
best thing which they possessed, and they could only understand thereby
that, since they excelled in men and arms, the gods had commanded that
an armed man should be cast headlong into that destruction;, if he did
this, shall we say that that man has done a great thing for the eternal
city who may have died by a like death, not, however, precipitating
himself spontaneously into a gulf, but having suffered this death at
the hands of some enemy of his faith, more especially when he has
received from his Lord, who is also King of his country, a more
certain oracle, "Fear not them who kill the body, but cannot kill
the soul?" If the Decii dedicated themselves to death, consecrating
themselves in a form of words, as it were, that falling, and
pacifying by their blood the wrath of the gods, they might be the means
of delivering the Roman army;, if they did this, let not the holy
martyrs carry themselves proudly, as though they had done some
meritorious thing for a share in that country where are eternal life and
felicity, if even to the shedding of their blood, loving not only the
brethren for whom it was shed, but, according as had been commanded
them, even their enemies by whom it was being shed, they have vied
with one another in faith of love and love of faith. If Marcus
Pulvillus, when engaged in dedicating a temple to Jupiter, Juno,
and Minerva, received with such indifference the false intelligence
which was brought to him of the death of his son, with the intention of
so agitating him that he should go away, and thus the glory of
dedicating the temple should fall to his colleague;, if he received
that intelligence with such indifference that he even ordered that his
son should be cast out unburied, the love of glory having overcome in
his heart the grief of bereavement, how shall any one affirm that he
had done a great thing for the preaching of the gospel, by which the
citizens of the heavenly city are delivered from divers errors and
gathered together from divers wanderings, to whom his Lord has said,
when anxious about the burial of his father, "Follow me, and let the
dead bury their dead?" Regulus, in order not to break his oath,
even with his most cruel enemies, returned to them from Rome itself,
because (as he is said to have replied to the Romans when they wished
to retain him) he could not have the dignity of an honorable citizen at
Rome after having been a slave to the Africans, and the
Carthaginians put him to death with the utmost tortures, because he
had spoken against them in the senate. If Regulus acted thus, what
tortures are not to be despised for the sake of good faith toward that
country to whose beatitude faith itself leads? Or what will a man have
rendered to the Lord for all He has bestowed upon him, if, for the
faithfulness he owes to Him, he shall have suffered such things as
Regulus suffered at the hands of his most ruthless enemies for the good
faith which he owed to them? And how shall a Christian dare vaunt
himself of his voluntary poverty, which he has chosen in order that
during the pilgrimage of this life he may walk the more disencumbered on
the way which leads to the country where the true riches are, even God
Himself;, how, I say, shall he vaunt himself for this, when he
hears or reads that Lucius Valerius, who died when he was holding the
office of consul, was so poor that his funeral expenses were paid with
money collected by the people?, or when he hears that Quintius
Cincinnatus, who, possessing only four acres of land, and
cultivating them with his own hands, was taken from the plough to be
made dictator, an office more honorable even than that of consul, and
that, after having won great glory by conquering the enemy, he
preferred notwithstanding to continue in his poverty? Or how shall he
boast of having done a great thing, who has not been prevailed upon by
the offer of any reward of this world to renounce his connection with
that heavenly and eternal country, when he hears that Fabricius could
not be prevailed on to forsake the Roman city by the great gifts
offered to him by Pyrrhus king of the Epirots, who promised him the
fourth part of his kingdom, but preferred to abide there in his poverty
as a private individual? For if, when their republic,, that is,
the interest of the people, the interest of the country, the common
interest,, was most prosperous and wealthy, they themselves were so
poor in their own houses, that one of them, who had already been twice
a consul, was expelled from that senate of poor men by the censor,
because he was discovered to possess ten pounds weight of silverplate,
since, I say, those very men by whose triumphs the public treasury
was enriched were so poor, ought not all Christians, who make common
property of their riches with a far nobler purpose, even that
(according to what is written in the Acts of the Apostles) they may
distribute to each one according to his need, and that no one may say
that anything is his own, but that all things may be their common
possession,, ought they not to understand that they should not vaunt
themselves, because they do that to obtain the society of angels, when
those men did well-nigh the same thing to preserve the glory of the
Romans?
How could these, and whatever like things are found in the Roman
history, have become so widely known, and have been proclaimed by so
great a fame, had not the Roman empire, extending far and wide, been
raised to its greatness by magnificent successes? Wherefore, through
that empire, so extensive and of so long continuance, so illustrious
and glorious also through the virtues of such great men, the reward
which they sought was rendered to their earnest aspirations, and also
examples are set before us, containing necessary admonition, in order
that we may be stung with shame if we shall see that we have not held
fast those virtues for the sake of the most glorious city of God,
which are, in whatever way, resembled by those virtues which they held
fast for the sake of the glory of a terrestrial city, and that, too,
if we shall feel conscious that we have held them fast, we may not be
lifted up with pride, because, as the apostle says, "The sufferings
of the present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory which
shall be revealed in us." But so far as regards human and temporal
glory, the lives of these ancient Romans were reckoned sufficiently
worthy. Therefore, also, we see, in the light of that truth which,
veiled in the Old Testament, is revealed in the New, namely, that
it is not in view of terrestrial and temporal benefits, which divine
providence grants promiscuously to good and evil, that God is to be
worshipped, but in view of eternal life, everlasting gifts, and of
the society of the heavenly city itself;, in the light of this truth
we see that the Jews were most righteously given as a trophy to the
glory of the Romans; for we see that these Romans, who rested on
earthly glory, and sought to obtain it by virtues, such as they were,
conquered those who, in their great depravity, slew and rejected the
giver of true glory, and of the eternal city.
|
|