The poor, indeed, in the extremes of their misery, pay all the exactions of which I have spoken, in utter ignorance of the object or reason of the payments. For who is allowed to discuss the payments, or inquire into the reasons for the amounts due? The sum is openly published only when the rich fall out with one another, and some of them feel slighted because they learn that assessments have been passed without their advice and management. Then you will hear some among them say: "What an unconscionable crime! Two or three decide the ruin of the many; a few powerful men determine what is to be paid for by many poor wretches!" For each individual rich man thinks it due to his honor to object to any decree passed in his absence, but he does not consider it due to justice to object to any wrong being enacted in his presence.
Finally, what they have criticized in others they themselves afterward establish in law, either in requital for the earlier contempt, or as proof of their power. As a result the most unhappy poor are like men far out at sea, buffeted by conflicting winds; they are overwhelmed by the billows that break over them now from one side, now from the other.
8. But surely, you say, those who are unjust in this respect are known to be moderate and just in another, and atone for their |147 wickedness in the one matter by their generosity in the other. For in proportion as they burden the poor with the weight of new indictions they sustain them by proffering new alleviations; in proportion as the lesser men are weighed down by new tributes, they are relieved by new remedies.
But this is not the case, for the injustice is alike in both the exactions and the remedies. As the poor are the first to receive the burden, they are the last to obtain relief. For whenever, as happened lately, the ruling powers have thought best to take measures to help the bankrupt cities to lessen their taxes in some measure, at once we see the rich alone dividing with one another the remedy granted to all alike. Who then remembers the poor? Who summons the needy and humble to share in the common benefit? Who allows the man who is always first in bearing the burden to have even the last place in receiving relief? What more can I say? Only that the poor are not reckoned as taxpayers at all, except when the weight of taxation is being imposed on them; they are outside the number when remedies are being distributed.
Under such circumstances can we think ourselves undeserving of God's severe punishment when we ourselves continually so punish the poor? Can we believe that God ought not to exercise his judgment against us all, when we are constantly unjust? For where, or among what people, do these evils exist save only among the Romans? Who commit such grave acts of injustice as ours? Take the Franks, they are ignorant of this wrong; the Huns are immune to it; there is nothing of the sort among the Vandals, nothing among the Goths. For in the Gothic country the barbarians are so far from tolerating this sort of oppression that not even |148 Romans who live among them have to bear it. Hence all the Romans in that region have but one desire, that they may never have to return to the Roman jurisdiction. It is the unanimous prayer of the Roman people in that district that they may be permitted to continue to lead their present life among the barbarians.
Yet we are surprised that the Goths are not conquered by our resistance, when the Romans would rather live among them than at home. Not only have our kinsmen no desire at all to escape from them to us, but they even leave us to take refuge with them. I could find occasion to wonder why all the poor and needy taxpayers do not follow their example, except for the one factor that hinders them, namely, that they cannot transfer their poor possessions and homes and their households. For, since many of them leave their tiny fields and shops to escape the enforced payment of taxes, how could they help wishing to take off with them, if it were at all possible, the property they are compelled to abandon? They are not capable of doing what they would probably prefer, hence they do the one thing they can. They put themselves under the care and protection of the powerful, make themselves the surrendered captives of the rich and so pass under their jurisdiction. Still I should not consider this a serious or unfitting procedure; on the contrary, I should laud the public spirit of the powerful to whom the poor entrust themselves, if they did not sell their patronage, if the defence they claim to give the poor were |149 due to their humanity and not to their greed. It is a serious and grievous situation, that the rich make a show of protecting the poor only in order to rob them, that they defend the wretched only on condition of making them more wretched still by this defence. For all those who seem to be enjoying protection assign to their patrons the bulk of their property before they receive any help, and thus the sons' inheritance is destroyed that the fathers may be secure. Protection for the parents is assured by the beggary of the children. See then the aid and patronage afforded by the great: they do nothing for the benefit of those who come under their care, but only for their own. Some aid is granted the parents for the time being, but only on condition that in the future the children shall lose everything. It is a mere process of sale, and certain of the great are sure to demand a very dear price for everything they offer. I said it was a process of sale ---- I wish they would sell in the ordinary sense of the term, for in that case perhaps they would leave something to the purchaser! But this is a new sort of buying and selling; the seller gives nothing and receives everything, while the buyer receives nothing and loses all that he had. Now practically every sales agreement has this characteristic, that the element of desire is on the side of the buyer, and that of need on that of the seller, inasmuch as the buyer wishes to increase his substance and the seller to diminish his. This, however, is an unheard-of sort of trading, in which the property of the sellers increases while nothing remains to the buyers but sheer beggary.
What an intolerable and monstrous thing it is, one that human hearts can hardly endure, that one can hardly bear to hear spoken of, that many of the wretched poor, despoiled of their tiny holdings, after they have completely lost their property, must still pay taxes for what they have lost! Though possession has been forfeited, the |150 assessment is not cancelled: they are without property but are overwhelmed with taxes. Who can fairly estimate this evil? The poor wretches pay taxes for the invaders who have swooped down on their estates. After the father's death, the sons have no claim on the little farms that should rightly be theirs, but are forced to pay ruinous taxes for them. As a result, what else is accomplished by this great wrongdoing except that men stripped naked by private robbery, die under the public exactions, and taxation ends the lives of those whose property has been carried off by plunderers?
Therefore some of those of whom I speak, who are either shrewder than the rest or have been sharpened by necessity, have lost their homes and farms by such encroachments, or have fled before the taxgatherers, because they cannot hold their property, and seek out the farms of the rich and great, to become their coloni .
Those who are driven by the terror of the enemy flee to the forts, and those who have lost their immunity as free men take refuge in some asylum out of sheer desperation. So also these men, who are no longer able to guard the home and condition of their birth, subject themselves to the lowly yoke of serfdom. They have been reduced to such a necessitous state that they are cut off not only from their former possessions, but also from their rank. They are exiled not alone from their property but from their very selves; losing all that was theirs along with their freedom, they |151 lack any title to their holdings and forfeit the very rights of liberty.
9. Even this might through sheer necessity seem somehow tolerable, if there were not further misfortune to follow. Their lot is made more bitter by a worse injustice still. For they are received as strangers; they become natives only on the terms of their present condition. Recalling the example of that evil sorceress of old who is said to have changed men into beasts, we might say that all who are received on the farms of the rich are transformed as if by Circe's potions. For the owners begin to count those whom they have received as outsiders and aliens, as their own property; they turn into slaves men known to be free-born. Do we wonder that the barbarians are able to capture us, when we take our brothers captive? It is not at all strange that our states are being devastated and destroyed. We have long been providing by the oppression of the multitude for our own eventual capture, falling into captivity by our enslavement of others. Much later than we deserve, do we now at length suffer the treatment that we have meted out to others, and in the words of the Holy Scripture, eat the labor of our own hands. Under the judgment of a just God we are paying what we owe. We showed no mercy to exiles; behold, we ourselves are in exile: we deceived wanderers; behold, we ourselves, now wanderers, are deceived in turn: we took advantage of circumstances to ruin free-born men; behold, we ourselves are beginning to live on alien soil, and fear the same ruin.
How great is the deceptive blindness of sinful minds! We are suffering from the condemnation of God's judgment and still do not acknowledge that we are being judged. Some of the saints wonder that the others who have thus far not endured any such |152 fate are not reformed by our example! Not even those of us who are already smitten by God are being corrected by the torments justly due to our wickedness. What intolerable pride is ours! However many are enduring the punishment that their sins require, no one deigns to acknowledge the cause of his trouble. The reasons for our pride are perfectly obvious: even though we are at last suffering a little, we do not yet suffer as we deserve. So great is the mercy of God that he does not wish us to endure the full penalties for our misdeeds, but only a part of what is due; he chastens the wicked, but not to the full measure of their sin. He wishes us to acknowledge our misdoings rather than to endure their penalties, to the end that by his loving and salutary correction he may show us what we deserve to suffer, but not inflict on us the stripes we deserve. In this he follows the words of the blessed apostle, who said: "Dost thou not know that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance? But after thy hardness and impenitent heart thou treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath."
In truth our actions suit the words of the apostle, for God calls us to repentance, but we treasure up wrath; he invites us to receive pardon, but we daily heap up our offences. We bring force to bear on him by our iniquities; we ourselves arm the divine wrath against us. We compel God against his will to take vengeance on our monstrous crimes; we give him scarcely any opportunity to spare us. For although no token of injustice can ever light on him or appear in him, our actions are such that if he did not take vengeance on our sins he would seem to be unjust.
10. Surely, you say, a man who has once been a sinner may have ceased to do wrong. Is there any end to wrongdoing? Do not men give up life sooner than iniquity? What man does not die in his evil pursuits, to be buried with his sins and crimes? Truly, one might apply to such men the words of the prophet: "Their |153 graves are their homes forever, and they are compared to foolish cattle, and are become like them." If only they were like cattle! It would at least have been something gained, to have gone astray through mere brute folly. To have sinned, not through ignorance, but in despite of God, is worse and deserves a heavier penalty. Do you claim that this is the case with the laity only, and not with even a few among the clergy? With worldly men only, and not with many of the religious also, or rather men given over to worldly vices under the empty show of religion? These, to be sure, after the shameful guilt of their past misdeeds, have gained themselves the honorary name of sanctity. They have altered in their profession but not in their actual way of life, and, thinking that the service of God depends on costume more than on action, have changed their garments but not their hearts. Why should men think their guilt less hateful, who, though they are said to have performed a sort of penance, do not put off their old habits when they lay aside their former style of dress? Their actions as a whole are such that there is less reason to suppose that they have already done penance for their misdeeds than that they afterwards repented of their penitence. There is less ground to think that they have repented their evil life than that they have since regretted their promise of a good one.
Many men know that I am speaking the truth, and can even bear witness to my words in their own conscience. Chief among these are the religious who have gained some reputation by a general repentance and now seek after new honors, and buy powers they formerly lacked. They are so anxious to be not merely men of the world, but more than worldly, that what they were before their repentance does not now suffice them unless they may become greater than they were in the past. Do they not repent of their conversion?
So also do those men repent of their conversion and their brief |154 thought of God, who, abstaining from intercourse with their wives, do not refrain from invasion of other men's property; who, professing physical continence, run riot in incontinence of spirit. A strange sort of conversion, truly! They do not do what is permissible, but commit forbidden sins. They refrain from lawful wedded life but not from rapine.
What vain delusion is this? Sins were forbidden us by God, not marriage. Your deeds do not suit your convictions; you who call yourselves adherents of virtue should not consort with crime. What you are doing is utterly absurd; this is not conversion to God but aversion from him. If, as is rumored, you have left off long since the functions even of lawful wedlock, now at last give up your sin. It is indeed just that you should refrain from crime of all sorts, but if you think this impossibly difficult, at least give up your greatest and most monstrous sins. Grant, whoever you are, that the neighbors whose land adjoins yours cannot remain prosperous; grant that the poor cannot support life near you; grant that you persecute the indigent and plunder the wretched; grant that you cause affliction to all men, provided that they are outside your own circle: still, I beg, at least spare your own family. And if you think it too hard and burdensome to spare all who are yours, then spare those who have preferred you not only to their other relatives and kinsmen, but even to those most closely bound to them and their dearly loved children. Yet why should I speak of their loved ones and their children, when they have preferred you almost to their very life and hope? There is nothing praiseworthy in this, as everyone who has committed the error now recognizes. But what has that to do with you, whom even their mistakes have advantaged? Your debt to such men is the greater because they have erred from too great trust in you. They were indeed blinded by devotion, and consequently are branded and censured by all; but even so you are under greater obligations to them because they have incurred the blame of all for love of you. |155
11. What is there to compare with this among the barbarous Goths? Who among them injures those who love him, attacks his friends, and cuts the throats of his dear ones with his own dagger? You attack those who love you, you cut off the hands of those who offer gifts, you kill your closest friends, and do you not fear and tremble? What would you do if you had not felt the present judgment of God in the scourging you have just received? You increase the count and constantly add new crimes to your former misdeeds. Think what punishment awaits your worse deeds, when even lesser faults are regularly punished by demons. Be content now, I pray, with robbing your friends and companions. Let it be enough that the poor have been harried and beggars despoiled by you, that hardly any one can keep from trembling in your presence, no one can feel secure. Torrents rushing down from Alpine crags, or flames driven by the wind, are more easily borne. No such death as this ---- to use a well known figure ---- do sailors die, devoured by the engulfing whirlpool or by Scylla's proverbial dogs. You evict your neighbors from their little farms, those nearest you from their houses and property. Would you "be placed alone in the midst of the earth," as it is written? This is the one end you cannot gain. Seize all that you can, occupy by force all that you can, still you shall always find a neighbor. Consider, please, other men, whom even you, willingly or not, regard with honor; consider others, whom even you, willingly or not, admire. They are above others in honor, but on a level with them in their own estimation; they are greater in their power and less in their humility. You yourself, to whom I am now speaking, surely know whom I mean, and you of whom I now complain ought to recognize whom I honor by this praise. I only wish that there were many who deserve such praise; the nobility of a great number might work healing for all.
But suppose that you do not wish to win praise; tell me, why do you wish to be worthy of condemnation? Why is nothing dearer |156 to you than injustice, nothing more delightful than avarice, nothing more cherished than the seizure of other men's goods? Why do you judge nothing more precious than wickedness, nothing more excellent than rapine? Learn the true good from a pagan, who says: "One should be fenced about by charity and goodwill, not by arms."
So your delusions lead you astray; the wickedness of your blind and evil heart deceives you. If you wish to be upright, to be powerful, to be great, you ought to surpass other men not in ill will but in honor. I once read somewhere: "No one is wicked but a fool; for if he were wise, he would prefer to be good." Do you, therefore, if you can at last return to sanity, put off your wickedness, if you wish wisdom. For if you hope to be at all wise or sane, you must discard all that you have been and change completely. Deny yourself that you may not be denied by Christ; cast yourself off that you may be received by him; lose yourself, that you may not perish. For the Savior says: " Whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it." Wherefore love this profitable loss, that you may gain true safety. For God will never set you free, unless you have first condemned yourself.
[Footnotes moved to the end]
1. 1 Timothy 1. 8-10.
2. The rest of this chapter is quoted in an abridged translation by Voltaire in his Dictionnaire philosophique, s.v. "Hérésie," with the prefatory remark that it is the most sensible attack on the spirit of intolerance that can be found. Voltaire had apparently forgotten or not read Augustine's treatise Contra epistolam Manichaei (Migne, PL, XLII, col. 173), in which (c. 1) he prays for "a mind calm and tranquil, thinking rather of your correction than your subversion. For although the Lord through his servants overturns the realms of error, yet he bids the men themselves, in so far as they are men, be amended rather than destroyed."
3. See Luke 12. 47-48.
4. Orosius' account of the conversion of the Goths, while agreeing with Salvian's on the responsibility of the Romans for the heresy of the Goths, illuminates by contrast the comprehension and sympathy with which Salvian states the absence of moral responsibility on the part of the barbarians for a heresy that appeared to them orthodox. Salvian's attitude is the more remarkable in one whose devotion to Christ is so strong that at times he has Christ overshadow the other Persons of the Trinity. Orosius says (VII. 33. 19) : "Before this the Goths sent ambassadors to ask that bishops be sent from whom they might learn the precepts of the Christian faith. Valens the emperor, with damnable perversity, sent teachers of the Arian creed. The Goths have held to the instructions of the first faith that they received. So by a just judgment of God they burned alive the man through whose fault they, when they die, are doomed to burn for their vicious error."
5. See IV. 2 supra. As Zschimmer ( op. cit., 58 n.l.) points out, this is a very notable statement. Salvian clearly understands the historical connection of Roman Arianism with that of the Germans; either he actually knew that Ulfilas in his translation of the Bible made alterations to suit the Arian doctrines, or he is merely repeating some of the usual charges brought against Ulfilas and other Arian missionaries by contemporaries of the orthodox faith.