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This, rather, is the religion worthy of your desires, O admirable
Roman race, the progeny of your Scaevolas and Scipios, of
Regulus, and of Fabricius. This rather covet, this distinguish
from that foul vanity and crafty malice of the devils. If there is in
your nature any eminent virtue, only by true piety is it purged and
perfected, while by impiety it is wrecked and punished. Choose now
what you will pursue, that your praise may be not in yourself, but in
the true God, in whom is no error. For of popular glory you have had
your share; but by the secret providence of God, the true religion
was not offered to your choice. Awake, it is now day; as you have
already awaked in the persons of some in whose perfect virtue and
sufferings for the true faith we glory: for they, contending on all
sides with hostile powers, and conquering them all by bravely dying,
have purchased for us this country of ours with their blood; to which
country we invite you, and exhort you to add yourselves to the number
of the citizens of this city, which also has a sanctuary of its own in
the true remission of sins.
Do not listen to those degenerate sons of thine who slander Christ and
Christians, and impute to them these disastrous times, though they
desire times in which they may enjoy rather impunity for their
wickedness than a peaceful life. Such has never been Rome's ambition
even in regard to her earthly country. Lay hold now on the celestial
country, which is easily won, and in which you will reign truly and
for ever. For there shall thou find no vestal fire, no Capitoline
stone, but the one true God. "No date, no goal will here ordain:
But grant an endless, boundless reign."
No longer, then, follow after false and deceitful gods; abjure them
rather, and despise them, bursting forth into true liberty. Gods
they are not, but malignant spirits, to whom your eternal happiness
will be a sore punishment. Juno, from whom you deduce your origin
according to the flesh, did not so bitterly grudge Rome's citadels to
the Trojans, as these devils whom yet ye repute gods, grudge an
everlasting seat to the race of mankind. And thou thyself hast in no
wavering voice passed judgment on them, when thou didst pacify them
with games, and yet didst account as infamous the men by whom the plays
were acted. Suffer us, then, to assert thy freedom against the
unclean spirits who had imposed on thy neck the yoke of celebrating
their own shame and filthiness. The actors of these divine crimes thou
hast removed from offices of honor; supplicate the true God, that He
may remove from thee those gods who delight in their crimes, a most
disgraceful thing if the crimes are really theirs, and a most malicious
invention if the. crimes are feigned. Well done, in that thou hast
spontaneously banished from the number of your citizens all actors and
players. Awake more fully: the majesty of God cannot be propitiated
by that which defiles the dignity of man How, then, can you believe
that gods who take pleasure in such lewd plays, belong to the number of
the holy powers of heaven, when the men by whom these plays are acted
are by yourselves refused admission into the number of Roman citizens
even of the lowest grade? Incomparably more glorious than Rome, is
that heavenly city in which for victory you have truth; for dignity,
holiness; for peace, felicity; for life, eternity. Much less does
it admit into its society such gods, if thou dost blush to admit into
thine such men. Wherefore, if thou wouldst attain to the blessed
city, shun the society of devils. They who are propitiated by deeds
of shame, are unworthy of the worship of right-hearted men. Let
these, then, be obliterated from your worship by the cleansing of the
Christian religion, as those men were blotted from your citizenship by
the censor's mark.
But, so far as regards carnal benefits, which are the only blessings
the wicked desire to enjoy, and carnal miseries, which alone they
shrink from enduring, we will show in the following book that the
demons have not the power they are supposed to have; and although they
had it, we ought rather on that account to despise these blessings,
than for the sake of them to worship those gods, and by worshipping
them to miss the attainment of these blessings they grudge us. But
that they have not even this power which is ascribed to them by those
who worship them for the sake of temporal advantages, this, I say,
I will prove in the following book; so let us here close the present
argument.
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