Salvian, On the Government of God (1930) pp.189-223. Book 7
Book VII. : Wherein Roman vice is contrasted with Vandal virtue
[Translated by Eva M. Sanford]
THE SEVENTH BOOK
1. My description, at the end of the previous book, of the weakness and misery of the Romans, may seem to be at variance with my general proposition. I admitted that the very people who, as pagans, conquered and ruled the world, are being conquered and enslaved, now that they have become Christians. Is not this clear evidence of God's neglect of human affairs? The charge is easily refuted by what I said long ago about the pagan nations. Those who know the law of God and neglect it are more guilty than those who fail to observe it through lack of knowledge.
However, if God is willing, since we have reached the point in our undertaking at which something should be said of the old Romans, we shall, with God's help, prove that his favor to them in the past was as just as is his present severity toward us, and that his help to them in former times was as fully deserved as is our punishment now.
Would that this same punishment were of benefit to us! Much harder and more grievous than punishment is the fact that no amendment follows. The Lord wishes to cure us by his chastisement, but improvement does not result. How can we explain this evil? Cattle and flocks are cured by surgery; when the diseased organs of mules, asses and swine have been cauterized they acknowledge the healing effect of the fire, and at once when the corruption of the infected parts has been burned away or cut out, living flesh grows in place of the dead tissue. But we are burned and cut, yet are not healed by the surgeon's tools or the burning of the cautery. |190 What is more serious, such care makes us even worse. It is not mere chance that we undergo the same treatment as flocks and cattle afflicted by incurable diseases. For in all parts of the world, since the healing care that is given us has no effect, our lives are being brought to an end by death and destruction. Indeed, not to repeat what I said some time ago, how can we define these disorders except by saying that we are at the same time living in misery and in luxury? Grant that luxury is the vice of the fortunate (though no one can be both infamous and happy at the same time, since there is no true happiness without honor), grant that these are the vices of a long peace and plentiful security, why then are they found where there is no longer peace or security? Almost throughout the Roman world peace and security have ceased. Why do only the vices they engender survive? Who can tolerate licentiousness in a needy man? Wantonness in poverty earns the more reproach, and a worthless fellow is more heavily censured if his condition is wretched.
The whole Roman world is at once wretched and voluptuous. What poor man is also wanton? What man awaiting captivity thinks of the circus? Who laughs in the shadow of death? Yet we, in the fear of captivity, continue to frequent the games, and shadowed by the fear of death, we laugh. You would think the whole Roman people had been steeped in Sardonic herbs: they are dying, yet they laugh. So in almost every part of the world tears follow close upon our laughter; and the saying of our Lord comes home to us at the present time: "Woe unto you that laugh, for ye shall weep."
2. The great length at which I have spoken of the disgraceful character of the public spectacles may have led you to assume that the abstinence of the barbarians from this particular vice of |191 ours is their only point of moral superiority to us, inasmuch as we are not polluted as they are by the crime of carnal lust and the filth of mortal fornication. Let us then, if you please, compare the Romans in this respect also with other nations. I cannot indeed think of any with whom we may be more justly compared than those whom God has put into the very bosom of the state and made owners and lords of the Roman land. Although there was absolutely no ground to dispute his judgment in this, still, since he has taken away from us the best part of our territory, and given it to the barbarians, let us see whether he seems to have exercised justice in this transfer.
No one questions that the Aquitanians and the Nine Peopleshad the very marrow of the Gallic provinces, rich in every sort of fertility, and not in fertility alone, but in qualities sometimes ranked above this, charm, beauty and luxury. Almost all that district is still covered with close-planted vines, flowering meadows, plowed fields, fruit orchards, charming groves, springing fountains, flowing streams or waving grain, so that the owners and masters of the land truly seem to have taken for their own not so much a section of ground as a likeness of paradise. What conclusion can be drawn from this? Unquestionably those men ought to have been more fervent in service to God whom he had especially enriched by the most abundant evidence of his favor. What is more right and fitting than that those whom their Lord seemed especially to have favored by his gifts should themselves make an earnest effort to please him by their religious worship, particularly since God lays no heavy or burdensome demands on us? For he does not call on us to plow or hoe, to spade up the earth or prepare the ground for vines, nor, to sum up, does he exact from his slaves what we require of ours. What does he himself say? "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest; take my yoke |192 upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls ; for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
So we see that the Lord calls us not to labor but to rest. What does he exact of us, what does he order us to offer him, save only faith, chastity, humility, sobriety, mercy and sanctity? All these assuredly do not burden but adorn us. Nor is this all; they adorn our present life to the end that they may adorn even more the life to come. O good and loving master, of inestimable mercy! He has given us the gifts of religion at the present time that he may later reward us for the gifts he now gives! These virtues, then, all the Aquitanians should have cultivated, and indeed, as I said before, they should have made more especial efforts in this direction, since they had received the especial gifts of God. What resulted from their prosperity? What was bound to result? Was it not the exact reverse of what should have happened? In all the provinces of Gaul these men who are first in wealth, are first also in vice: nowhere is pleasure more shameless, life more vicious, or moral standards more corrupt. This is the return they have given God for his sacred gifts, that as far as by his generosity he had drawn them to his favor, so far they by their abuse have labored to arouse his anger.
3. Or is this perhaps false, and are all my statements due to envy rather than truth? I shall not use the method of proof some men employ in the courts, bringing in as witnesses outsiders or persons unsuitable to testify for some other reason. I shall cross-question the very men by whom these things have been done. I have spoken falsely if they deny me. They confess, and indeed, which is much more serious, they confess without any apparent grief. For now in their confession they have the same attitude as in their commission of the fault. Just as then they were not ashamed to perform disgraceful acts, so now they do not in the least repent having |193 performed them. We must indeed make exception for a very small number of men distinguished for their holiness, who, as one of their number has said, "have given their wealth to redeem their crime." Of these we must make an exception, men who, we believe, were actually guilty only of lesser crimes even in the midst of the almost universal entanglements of vice, and who merited conversion by God's divine power. Now one for whom favor is reserved has not been altogether injurious to his master in his actions. What more can I say? I think that a man whom God has persuaded at last to cease from his wrongdoing has always had God in mind, even in the midst of his error.
The rest, however, at least the great majority and the most noble, are all very nearly of a kind: the intemperance of all is a devouring whirlpool, their life a brothel. Why should I speak of brothels? Even those I think are less wicked than the men of whom I spoke. For the prostitutes in them have not experienced the marriage bond, and so do not defile what they do not know; their shameless lives require atonement, it is true, but they are not liable to the charge of adultery. Add to this that such haunts are few, and few the prostitutes who have condemned themselves to a most unhappy life in them. Among the Aquitanians, on the other hand, what city in its richest and most elegant quarters was not practically a brothel? What rich and powerful man did not live in lustful vice? Who among them did not plunge into the pit of the most sordid associations? Who honored his wife by a faithful observance of his marriage vows? Nay, as far as passive endurance of their lust is concerned, who among them did not reduce his wife to the status of his maidservants and degrade the sacrament of holy matrimony so far that no woman in the house was made to seem more |194 contemptible by her husband's conduct than she who was made chief in it by the dignity of marriage?
4. Perhaps some one is thinking that what I say is not strictly accurate; for the matrons of southern Gaul did continue to exercise their rights and to hold honor and power as mistresses of their households. That is true. Many of them indeed did keep unimpaired their right of government, but scarcely one kept her marriage rights unpolluted. Our present object of investigation is not the power of women, but the infamous conduct of their husbands. However, I should not even say that the matrons kept their power uninjured, since a wife who has not kept her connubial rights safe and inviolate has not kept her full rights of domination. When the master of the house acts as husband of the maidservants, the mistress is not far removed from the mean position of the slave. Who among the rich men of Aquitania did not so act? Who among them has not been considered by his shameless maids, and with good, reason, as either adulterer or husband? For, as the prophet said: ''They were as fed horses in the morning; everyone neighed after his neighbor's wife." Those of whom he spoke sinned perhaps less grievously, and, I think, with less intention of wrong than did our men. The Aquitanians more truly resembled the post horses: they whinnied not after a few women merely, but after all their household maids ---- that is, after their own herds ---- and, like those; beasts called the stallions of the herd, they waxed wanton with the heat of their intoxicating passion, and attacked whatever woman was first exposed to the onslaught of their shameless lust. Since this is the case, I ask the wise what sort of families they think were found where such men were heads of the households? What corruption do they think there would be among the slaves, where there Avas such great vice among the masters? For if the head is diseased no part of the body is sound, and no member performs its functions when the dominating part is not functioning. Moreover, |195 the master's relation to his house is that of the head to the body, its very life, setting up standards of living for all its members. The most unfortunate aspect of the matter is that all follow the worse example more readily, and evil associations corrupt good manners more easily than good ones will correct the evil. Furthermore, since even good and honorable heads of families cannot make their slaves good, what do you think becomes of the household morality when the master himself sets an example of lewdness? And yet in such a case we have not only an example of immorality but a sort of enforced necessity, since the slave women are compelled to obey their wanton masters against their will, and the lust of those in power is the compulsion of their subjects. From this we may see how great was the filth of shameless vice when women subject to the most depraved of masters were not allowed to be chaste even when they wished.
5. It may be difficult, you think, to prove this, and no traces are likely to be found remaining of the past debauchery and lust. See, then, how many of these men, even though they no longer have any country, and are living as paupers in comparison with their past wealth, are really worse than before. They are worse not only in that they continue to live as they did formerly, but in the very fact that their crimes never cease. Indeed their evil deeds, though not worse than before in character, are more numerous; thus, even though no new devices lend novelty to their sins, the number of their misdoings is increased.
Add to this that, as I have said, it is old men, and poor ones, who live in such a fashion; for each of these points increases the evil. Surely it is less shocking for young men and rich to sin. But what hope of cure is there for men who are not recalled from their wonted vice either by miserable poverty or by extreme age? Some of them, I suppose, are relying on a foolish assurance of long life or the intention of eventual penitence; is it not a strange prodigy that men should be given over to vice even at the very time of |196 death? This being the case, what more can be said? I add one more point, however, that many are living in this fashion today, even among the enemy, and subject as captives to daily fear and danger, and although it was on account of the excessive wickedness of their lives that God surrendered them into the hands of the enemy, they do not forsake their vice even among the barbarians.
6. Perhaps those among whom they now live are of such a character that these vices please them, and they would be most grievously offended if they were to see the Romans living chastely in the midst of their vices. If this were the ease, still the wickedness of others ought not to make us wicked. It should be of more importance in every man's eyes to be good on his own account than to be wicked for another. We should strive to please God by our uprightness rather than men by our vices. Consequently, even if a man lives among unchaste barbarians, he ought to seek chastity, which is of service to him, rather than lewdness, which pleases his lustful enemies. But note a point that serves to increase our guilt: among chaste barbarians we ourselves are unchaste. I shall say even more; the barbarians themselves are offended by our vices. Among the Goths no one is permitted to indulge in fornication; only the Romans in their land, by national and titular prerogative, are allowed this vice. What hope, I ask, have we then in the sight of God? We love vice, while the Goths execrate it; we flee from purity, while they love it; fornication with them is a perilous vice, but with us a mark of honor. Do we think that we can stand before God, do we think that we can attain salvation, when every crime of impurity, every disgraceful vice, is committed by the Romans and censured by the barbarians? At this point I ask those who consider us better than the barbarians to tell me which of these evils are committed by even a very few of the Goths, and which of them are not committed by all or nearly all of the Romans? Yet |197 we wonder that the lands of the Aquitanians and of us all have been given by God to the barbarians, though those same barbarians are now purifying by their chastity the places polluted by the fornication of the Romans.
7. Is this the case in Aquitania alone? Let us pass under review other parts of the world also, and not speak exclusively of the Gauls. Have not the same crimes or greater ones destroyed the provinces of Spain? Even if the divine wrath had handed these lands over to any other barbarians you might name, the enemies of chastity in them would have suffered tortures worthy of their vices. But as an added evidence of the condemnation of their shamelessness they were delivered into the hands of the Vandals, the most shamefast of barbarians. In the captivity of Spain God wished to give a twofold evidence of his hatred of carnal lust and love of chastity, when he put the Vandals in command solely on account of their preeminent chastity and subjected the Spaniards to them solely on account of their surpassing lewdness. What do I mean by this? Were there not anywhere in the world stronger barbarians to whom the Spanish lands might be surrendered? Many, without doubt, nay, all of them were stronger, if I am not mistaken. But he handed the people of Spain over to the weakest of the enemy expressly to show that it was not the strength but the merit of the Vandals that conquered, and that we were not being overwhelmed by the power of our foes, who then seemed most unheroic, but only by the wickedness of our vices, that the saying of the Lord to the Jews might be fulfilled in us: ''According to their uncleanness and according to their transgressions have I done unto them, and hid my face from them.'' Elsewhere speaking to the same people, he said: ''The Lord shall bring a nation against them from far . . . |198 with the hoofs of his horses shall they tread down all thy streets; they shall slay thy people by the sword."
So all that the Lord said has been fulfilled in us, and our punishment has vindicated the force of his divine words.
8. Since the majority of barbarian nations have drunk Roman blood and torn our flesh, we may ask why it is especially into the power of those once considered the most cowardly of the enemy that the Lord has delivered the greatest resources of the state and the wealthiest people who bear the Roman name. Why else indeed, except to make us recognize, as I said before, that the outcome depended on merit, not on strength, and that this should serve to confound and punish us, that we were given into the power of the weakest, and must recognize the correction of God's hand in the fact that not the bravest but the most despised of our enemies overcame us. For we read that whenever God has willed that men should clearly see his great works, the action has been performed through the medium of a few men, of men of the lowest sort, so that his divine handwork might not be ascribed to human power.
Thus indeed Sisera, the captain before whom the Hebrew army trembled, was laid low by a woman; a woman's hand struck down Abimelech, the stormer of cities, and the ironclad hosts of the Assyrians were routed by the help of a widow. Not to speak of women only, did not the Lord wish Benedad, king of Syria, whom thirty-two kings and armies of like proportions served, as well as countless thousands of his own people, to be conquered by a few serving-men, so that God himself might be recognized as the author of so great a victory? Against the Midianites also, who, as the Book of Judges relates, had filled all the land like locusts, Gideon was ordered to fight with a few men, not because he had not more in his army, but he was forbidden to lead many men to battle for |199 fear that a multitude might claim some share in the victory as their own. When Gideon had gathered together thirty thousand armed men, the Lord spoke thus to him: "The people that are with thee are too many for me to give Midian into their hands." What followed? He left Gideon, to fight against countless thousands of barbarians, only three hundred men. Indeed, he commanded the force of soldiers to be reduced to such a scanty number in order that their lack of men might prevent any claim of credit for a victory divinely won. Why he did this, the Lord himself declared most plainly: "Lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying: 'Mine own hand hath saved me.' ''
Let all the wicked hearken, I say, let all the presumptuous hearken, and all who excel in power; let all men hear what the Lord says: "Lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, 'Mine own hand hath saved me.' "
9. Let all men hear, I repeat, who utter blasphemies against the Lord, let all hear who put their trust in man. God declares that all men speak against him who presume to think that they can be freed by their own might. Who is there among the Romans who does not hold this opinion? Who is there in our number who does not blaspheme in this respect almost constantly? It is common knowledge that the state has no longer any strength, yet not even now do we acknowledge to whose favor we owe it that we still live. Whenever God gives us a degree of prosperity beyond our hopes and deserts, one man ascribes it to fate, another to chance, another to the strategy of our leaders, another to their foresight, another to the administration, another to his patron, but none to God.
Yet we wonder that his divine hand fails to give us some things for which we wish, though we deny him credit for what he has given in the past. What else are we doing, when we ascribe the good things he gives us to the blind workings of chance, the ability of our leaders, or any other minor agencies? Following such |200 arguments we ought to thank the earth for our yearly harvests, the vineyards for the vintage, the sea for hauls of fish, the forests for the wood we cut, the sheep for our clothing, and other beasts for the meat with which we are filled. What sense is there in our willingness to be grateful to God for his other gifts when we deny him gratitude for his greatest benefits? What man of our condition would be satisfied to have another thank him for some minor favor if he had denied him credit for his greatest gifts? So though we cannot thank God worthily, we shall fall far short of what is due him if we are grateful to him only for the means of daily life, and withhold from him our gratitude for helping us in time of trouble, freeing us in the midst of dangers and preserving us by his constant protection when we are placed in the midst of barbarous nations.
Not so do the Goths or the Vandals regard him, being better in this respect than ourselves, though trained by heretical teachers. However, I have grounds to suspect that certain men are offended by what I say. Since the truth must outweigh the fear of giving offence I shall say it nevertheless, and say it repeatedly: not so do the Goths or the Vandals act, for when they are in danger they beg help of God and they call their prosperity the gift of his divine love. In fact our misfortune in the last war furnished proof of this difference between us. For the Goths through fear put their hope in God, and we through presumption put ours in the Huns. The Goths sought peace and we denied it; they sent bishops to make terms and we rejected them; they honored God even in the person of alien priests and we despised him in our own. Was not the outcome of these events consonant with the actions of each side? To them in the depths of fear was given the palm of victory; to us in the height of confidence was given confusion, so that the words of our Lord were clearly exemplified in us and in them: "For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that |201 humbleth himself shall be exalted." To them was given exaltation for their humility and to us humiliation for our pride.