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But, further, is it not obvious that the gods have abetted the
fulfilment of men's desires, instead of authoritatively bridling
them? For Marius, a low-born and self-made man, who ruthlessly
provoked and conducted civil wars, was so effectually aided by them,
that he was seven times consul, and died full of years in his seventh
consulship, escaping the hands of Sylla, who immediately afterwards
came into power. Why, then, did they not also aid him, so as to
restrain him from so many enormities? For if it is said that the gods
had no hand in his success, this is no trivial admission that a man can
attain the dearly coveted felicity of this life even though his own gods
be not propitious; that men can be loaded with the gifts of fortune as
Marius was, can enjoy health, power, wealth, honours, dignity,
length of days, though the gods be hostile to him; and that, on the
other hand, men can be tormented as Regulus was, with captivity,
bondage, destitution, watchings, pain, and cruel death, though the
gods be his friends. To concede this is to make a compendious
confession that the gods are useless, and their worship superfluous.
If the gods have taught the people rather what goes clean counter to
the virtues of the soul, and that integrity of life which meets a
reward after death; if even in respect of temporal and transitory
blessings they neither hurt those whom they hate nor profit whom they
love, why are they worshipped, why are they invoked with such eager
homage? Why do men murmur in difficult and sad emergencies, as if the
gods had retired in anger? and why, on their account, is the
Christian religion injured by the most unworthy calumnies? If in
temporal matters they have power either for good or for evil, why did
they stand by Marius, the worst of Rome's citizens, and abandon
Regulus, the best? Does this not prove themselves to be most unjust
and wicked? And even if it be supposed that for this very reason they
are the rather to be feared and worshipped, this is a mistake; for we
do not read that Regulus worshipped them less assiduously than
Marius. Neither is it apparent that a wicked life is to be chosen,
on the ground that the gods are supposed to have favored Marius more
than Regulus. For Metellus, the most highly esteemed of all the
Romans, who had five sons in the consulship, was prosperous even in
this life; and Catiline, the worst of men, reduced to poverty and
defeated in the war his own guilt had aroused, lived and perished
miserably. Real and secure felicity is the peculiar possession of
those who worship that God by whom alone it can be conferred.
It is thus apparent, that when the republic was being destroyed by
profligate manners, its gods did nothing to hinder its destruction by
the direction or correction of its manners, but rather accelerated its
destruction by increasing the demoralization and corruption that already
existed. They need not pretend that their goodness was shocked by the
iniquity of the city, and that they withdrew in anger.
For they were there, sure enough; they are detected, convicted:
they were equally unable to break silence so as to guide others, and to
keep silence so as to conceal themselves. I do not dwell on the fact
that the inhabitants of Minturnae took pity on Marius, and commended
him to the goddess Marica in her grove, that she might give him
success in all things, and that from the abyss of despair in which he
then lay he forthwith returned unhurt to Rome, and entered the city
the ruthless leader of a ruthless army; and they who wish to know how
bloody was his victory, how unlike a citizen, and how much more
relentlessly than any foreign foe he acted, let them read the
histories. But this, as I said, I do not dwell upon; nor do I
attribute the bloody bliss of Marius to, I know not what Minturnian
goddess [Marica], but rather to the secret providence of God, that
the mouths of our adversaries might be shut, and that they who are not
led by passion, but by prudent consideration of events, might be
delivered from error. And even if the demons have any power in these
matters, they have only that power which the secret decree of the
Almighty allots to them, in order that we may not set too great store
by earthly prosperity, seeing it is oftentimes vouchsafed even to
wicked men like Marius; and that we may not, on the other hand,
regard it as an evil, since we see that many good and pious worshippers
of the one true God are, in spite of the demons pre-eminently
successful; and, finally, that we may not suppose that these unclean
spirits are either to be propitiated or feared for the sake of earthly
blessings or calamities: for as wicked men on earth cannot do all they
would, so neither can these demons, but only in so far as they are
permitted by the decree of Him whose judgments are fully
comprehensible, justly reprehensible by none.
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