29. See Jerome Adv. Rufinum I. 11: "When vice is attacked anonymously, the man who is angry at the attack accuses himself. It were the part of a prudent man, therefore, though annoyed, to hide his guilt and cover his clouded heart by a bright front."
30. This mention of the notion, prevalent in the fifth century, of the old age of the Roman power, is somewhat at variance with Salviun's usual point of view. Sidonius used "the old age of the world" as a commonplace (cf. Ep. VIII. 6.3); Cyprian (Ad Demetrianum 4) made it the chief answer to the usual charges against the Christians: "You blame the Christians because as the world grows old its parts are weakened." Salvian, on the other hand, saw the old regime as continuing with new vigor, gained from the barbarians, to take the place of the old vices.
31. The efforts of the central government to do away with such inequalities are illustrated by the decree of Gratian, Theodosius and Valentinian, a.d. 383 (Cod. Theod. XI. 13. 1) : "Let all the privileges granted to a few individuals to the destruction of the many be annulled, and all who have received immunities of this sort by any means be reduced to an equal lot with the other provincials . . . "; by the decree of the same emperors in 385 ( Ibid. I. 20) providing that all be bound "by the same equal form of levy"; and by that of Arcadius and Honorius in 399 ( Ibid. 1. 26) removing all privilege, making all men equally subject to taxation, especially in "those provinces from which the complaint arises." The repetition of such provisions illustrates clearly enough the futility of enacting them, which increased in the fifth century.
32. See V. 8 infra. We are reminded, however, how much the rich also had to complain of the burdens of taxation, by the description (Sidonius Ep. V. 17. 5) of a church festival of which the crowning pleasure was the conversation of Sidonius and his wealthy friends with "no mention of the imperial officers or of the taxes, not a word to be betrayed, and no one to betray it."
33. I John 5.19.
34. See V. 10, infra: "Thinking the service of God depends more on costume than on actions, they have changed their garments but not their hearts." Caesarius of Arles, who is said by Cyprian ( Vita 1.1. 11) never to have given up in the slightest degree the customs of the brothers at Lerins, said in the first chapter of his Regula ad monachos (Migne, PL, LXVII, col. 1099) : "In the first place if any man come to conversion ... let his lay garments not be changed, unless he have first made bills of sale for his possessions." Elsewhere he said ( Epistola ad germanos, ibid . col. 1155): "To lay aside secular garments and put on religious ones is the work of a moment. . . . Let him not be wont to wear a style of clothing either too mean, or displaying pride by frequent change, or of a ruinous elegance." Evidently, then, his idea of a religious habit was not a set uniform, but one distinguished from secular clothing chiefly by its simplicity. The emphasis laid by this prominent alumnus of the monastery at Lerins on the change in clothing as an indication of the adoption of a religious life seems adequate to settle the question much mooted among editors of Salvian, whether the change of garments in the present passage is to be taken literally or figuratively.
35. See Cyprian Ad Demetrianum 10: "And do you wonder that the wrath of God increasingly punishes the human race, when the sins to be punished increase daily?"
36. Isaiah 50. 11.
37. Matthew 23. 32-33.
38. That is, the people of Sodom and Gomorrah; cf. I.8, supra.
39. Genesis 19. 12-13.
40. Matthew 11.23-24; cf. Luke 10.12-15.
41. Psalms 73.9, 11; 94.7.
42. Ibid. 53.1.
43. In the classical period this was already a popular proverb: Scelera non habent consilium; cf. Quintilian Institutio oratoria VII. 2. 44.
44. Cf. Lactantius De ira Dei 10.44: "Nor is it probable that the smaller and humbler creatures should have a rule of life, while the larger and chief ones lack it."
45. There appears to be a slight lacuna in the text, unless, as Hartel conjectures (cf. Pauly's note ad loc), the preposition ex, for which an object is here supplied, has crept into the MS text from a marginal notation, ex standing for exempla.
46. See Vergil Georgics IV. 200.
47. Acts 17. 28.
48. Romans 1. 20.
49. Ephesians 3.15.
50. John 3. 16.
51. Romans 8.32. Note that the Vulgate reading is the future, donabit, while Salvian had donavit.
52. Romans 5. 6-7.
53. Ibid. 5. 8-9.