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Let us here recite the passage in which Tully expresses his
astonishment that the apotheosis of Romulus should have been credited.
I shall insert his words as they stand: "It is most worthy of remark
in Romulus, that other men who are said to have become gods lived in
less educated ages, when there was a greater propensity to the
fabulous, and when the uninstructed were easily persuaded to believe
anything. But the age of Romulus was barely six hundred years ago,
and already literature and science bad dispelled the errors that attach
to an uncultured age." And a little after he says of the same
Romulus words to this effect: "From this we may perceive that Homer
had flourished long before Romulus, and that there was now so much
learning in individuals, and so generally diffused an enlightenment,
that scarcely any room was left for fable. For antiquity admitted
fables, and sometimes even very clumsy ones; but this age [of
Romulus] was sufficiently enlightened to reject whatever had not the
air of truth." Thus one of the most learned men, and certainly the
most eloquent, M. Tullius Cicero, says that it is surprising that
the divinity of Romulus was believed in, because the times were
already so enlightened that they would not accept a fabulous fiction.
But who believed that Romulus was a god except Rome, which was
itself small and in its infancy? Then afterwards it was necessary that
succeeding generations should preserve the tradition of their
ancestors; that, drinking in this superstition with their mother's
milk, the state might grow and come to such power that it might dictate
this belief, as from a point of vantage, to all the nations over whom
its sway extended. And these nations, though they might not believe
that Romulus was a god, at least said so, that they might not give
offence to their sovereign state by refusing to give its founder that
title which was given him by Rome, which had adopted this belief, not
by a love of error, but an error of love. But though Christ is the
founder of the heavenly and eternal city, yet it did not believe Him
to be God because it was founded by Him, but rather it is founded by
Him, in virtue of its belief. Rome, after it had been built and
dedicated, worshipped its founder in a temple as a god; but this
Jerusalem laid Christ, its God, as its foundation, that the
building and dedication might proceed. The former city loved its
founder, and therefore believed him to be a god; the latter believed
Christ to be God, and therefore loved Him. There was an antecedent
cause for the love of the former city, and for its believing that even
a false dignity attached to the object of its love; so there was an
antecedent cause for the belief of the latter, and for its loving the
true dignity which a proper faith, not a rash surmise, ascribed to its
object. For, not to mention the multitude of very striking miracles
which proved that Christ is God, there were also divine prophecies
heralding Him, prophecies most worthy of belief, which being already
accomplished, we have not, like the fathers, to wait for their
verification. Of Romulus, on the other hand, and of his building
Rome and reigning in it, we read or hear the narrative of what did
take place, not prediction which beforehand said that such things
should be. And so far as his reception among the gods is concerned,
history only records that this was believed, and does not state it as a
fact; for no miraculous signs testified to the truth of this. For as
to that wolf which is said to have nursed the twin-brothers, and which
is considered a great marvel, how does this prove him to have been
divine? For even supposing that this nurse was a real wolf and not a
mere courtezan, yet she nursed both brothers, and Remus is not
reckoned a god. Besides, what was there to hinder any one from
asserting that Romulus or Hercules, or any such man, was a god? Or
who would rather choose to die than profess belief in his divinity?
And did a single nation worship Romulus among its gods, unless it
were forced through fear of the Roman name? But who can number the
multitudes who have chosen death in the most cruel shapes rather than
deny the divinity of Christ? And thus the dread of some slight
indignation, which it was supposed, perhaps groundlessly, might exist
in the minds of the Romans, constrained some states who were subject
to Rome to worship Romulus as a god; whereas the dread, not of a
slight mental shock, but of severe and various punishments, and of
death itself, the most formidable of all, could not prevent an immense
multitude of martyrs throughout the world from not merely worshipping
but also confessing Christ as God. The city of Christ, which,
although as yet a stranger upon earth, had countless hosts of
citizens, did not make war upon its godless persecutors for the sake of
temporal security, but preferred to win eternal salvation by abstaining
from war. They were bound, imprisoned, beaten, tortured, burned,
torn in pieces, massacred, and yet they multiplied. It was not given
to them to fight for their eternal salvation except by despising their
temporal salvation for their Saviour's sake.
I am aware that Cicero, in the third book of his De Republica, if
I mistake not, argues that a first-rate power will not engage in war
except either for honor or for safety. What he has to say about the
question of safety, and what he means by safety, he explains in
another place, saying, "Private persons frequently evade, by a
speedy death, destitution, exile, bonds, the scourge, and the other
pains which even the most insensible feel. But to states, death,
which seems to emancipate individuals from all punishments, is itself a
punishment; for a state should be so constituted as to be eternal.
And thus death is not natural to a republic as to a man, to whom death
is not only necessary, but often even desirable. But when a state is
destroyed, obliterated, annihilated, it is as if (to compare great
things with small) this whole world perished and collapsed." Cicero
said this because he, with the Platonists, believed that the world
would not perish. It is therefore agreed that, according to Cicero,
a state should engage in war for the safety which preserves the state
permanently in existence though its citizens change; as the foliage of
an olive or laurel, or any tree of this kind, is perennial, the old
leaves being replaced by fresh ones. For death, as he says, is no
punishment to individuals, but rather delivers them from all other
punishments, but it is a punishment to the state. And therefore it is
reasonably asked whether the Saguntines did right when they chose that
their whole state should perish rather than that they should break faith
with the Roman republic; for this deed of theirs is applauded by the
citizens of the earthly republic. But I do not see how they could
follow the advice of Cicero, who tell us that no war is to be
undertaken save for safety or for honor; neither does he say which of
these two is to be preferred, if a case should occur in which the one
could not be preserved without the loss of the other. For manifestly,
if the Saguntines chose safety, they must break faith; if they kept
faith, they must reject safety; as also it fell out. But the safety
of the city of God is such that it can be retained, or rather
acquired, by faith and with faith; but if faith be abandoned, no one
can attain it. It is this thought of a most steadfast and patient
spirit that has made so many noble martyrs, while Romulus has not
had, and could not have, so much as one to die for his divinity.
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