What happened then? Fourteen thousand seven hundred men were struck down at once and consumed by divine fire. Since all the multitude of the people sinned, why did not the punishment fall on all alike? Especially since, as I said before, no one escaped from Koran's sedition. Why did God on the former occasion wish all the assemblage of sinners to be killed, but at this time a portion only? Surely because the Lord is full of justice and mercy and therefore his indulgence causes many concessions to his love, and his discipline to his severity. And so on the one occasion he gave first place |65 to discipline that the punishment of all the guilty might redound to the general betterment; on the other he yielded precedence to mercy, that the whole people might not perish. Although he acted with such mercy, yet because the punishment so often repeated for a part of the people did not profit them, finally he condemned them all to death. This example should contribute to our fear and our correction alike, that we, failing to be improved by their example, may not come to be punished by a destruction like theirs.
There is no doubt what their end was. Although the whole race of the Hebrews went out of Egypt to enter the promised land, yet not one of them entered it save two holy men alone. For it is written: "The Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying: 'How long shall I bear with this evil congregation, which murmur against me? As truly as I live, saith the Lord, as ye have spoken in mine ears this day, so will I do to you: your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness!'" What followed? "Your little ones," he said, "which you said would be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye have despised. But as for you, your carcasses, they shall fall in this wilderness." And what then? " All died and were struck down in the sight of the Lord."
What detail is lacking in this whole account? Would you see a ruler? Behold him, correcting present sins and disposing the future. Would you see a severe judge? Behold, he punishes the guilty. Would you see a just and loving judge? Behold, he spares the innocent. Would you see the judge of the whole world? Behold, his judgment is in all places. For as judge he accuses and as judge he rules; as judge he pronounces sentence; as judge he destroys the guilty, and as judge he rewards the innocent.
[Footnotes moved to the end and renumbered]
1. As is usually the case with writers trained in the later Roman rhetorical schools, Salvian's disclaimer of any interest in rhetorical style leads him to use an elaborate phraseology in his preface, somewhat at variance with his usual simpler and more colloquial style.
2. See Seneca De tranquillitate vitae I. 1, and IV. 1, infra. In these notes, references without title are to Salvian, De gubernatione Dei ( On the Government of God ): Ad ecclesiam refers to the treatise To the Church against Avarice; Ep. to the Letters.
3. See Cicero De natura deorum I. 11. 27. Salvian, however, cited the passage from Lactantius Institutiones divinae I. 5. 17. The best discussion of Salvian's borrowings from Lactantius will be found in Zschimmer, Salvianus und seine Schriften, p. 62.
4. Quoted by Lactantius op. cit. I. 5. 12 from Vergil Georgics IV. 221-222.
5. Ibid. I. 5. 25, quoted from. Cicero Disputationes Tusculanae I. 27. 66.
6. Cited by Lactantius op. cit. I. 5. 24 as from Cicero Do natura deorum, but the passage is not found there.
7. The early Christian attitude toward the Epicureans was regularly hostile, in striking contrast to their ready recognition of the kinship between the Stoic philosophy and Christianity. The Epicurean denial of any divine government of the world was in itself sufficient to lead Salvian to condemn their doctrines.
8. See Seneca De remediis fortuitorum XVI, end: "The happy man is not he who seems such to others, but to himself."
9. II Corinthians 12. 10.
10. Ibid. 12. 9.
11. A conception of the religious life common throughout the Middle Ages, and mirroring for the saints in this life the future joys of paradise. Compare the familiar line from the hymn of Peter Damiani:
"Avidi et semper pleni, quod habent desiderant."
12. See Salvian Ad ecclesiam IV. 9. 49: "Every command is hard that is given to unwilling men."
13. These were among the best-known examples of early Roman virtue; cf. H. W. Litchfield, "National Exempla Virtutis in Eoman Literature," Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, XXV (1914), 1-71. All these are cited in Valerius Maximus IV. 3-4, as examples of abstinence, continence and poverty, and were used by Christian writers from Augustine and Orosius to modern times to illustrate the same virtues. The contrast between Roman and Greek ambition which follows was also a commonplace before Salvian's time, and has been since.
14. See the story of Cornelius Rufinus in Valerius Maximus II. 9. 4; Tertullian Apologeticum 6.
15. A stock characteristic of the Stoic and the Epicurean sage: cf. Seneca Epistulae morales lxvi. 18; Cicero Disputationes Tusculanae II. 7. 17, De finibus 11. 27.
16. See Salvian Ep. V. 3: "Although I do not think that even this infirmity of your earthly vessel has been harmful to you, for its strength, as you know, is always hostile to the mind; so that I am right in thinking you as much stronger now in spirit, as you have begun to be weaker in the flesh."
17. I Corinthians 9. 27.
18. In common with others of his time, Salvian used the term "apostle" more loosely than we do now.
19. See I Timothy 5.23. An excellent example of Salvian's occasional readiness to distort Scripture for his purpose, perhaps justifiable in this case because of the frequent misuse of the same text by other authors, to support both sides of the same argument.
20. Galatians 5.17.