Cyprian & Lactantius · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Men of great and outstanding intellect, having given themselves wholly to learning, devoted whatever labor they could to the pursuit of truth, scorning every private and public occupation, since they judged it far more splendid to search out and grasp the reasoning of things human and divine than to cling to the piling up of wealth or the heaping up of honors—matters which, being frail and earthly and pertaining only to the care of the body, make no one better or more just. Those men were indeed most worthy of attaining knowledge of the truth, since they desired to know it with such passion, and set it before all other things—for it is well known that some cast aside their family estates and renounced every pleasure, so that, stripped and unencumbered, they might follow virtue alone and naked; and the very name and authority of virtue carried such weight among them that they judged the reward of the highest good to consist in virtue itself. Yet they neither obtained what they sought, nor did their effort and diligence come to anything, because truth—that is, the hidden mystery of the highest God who made all things—cannot be grasped by human wit and by the senses proper to man. Were it otherwise, God and man would stand undivided, supposing a human mind capable of grasping the counsels and ordering of that eternal majesty. Since, then, it was impossible for divine reason to become known to man by his own resources, God did not allow man, seeking the light of wisdom, to wander longer in error, or to roam through impenetrable darkness with no fruit for his labor. He opened man's eyes at last, and made the knowledge of truth his own gift, so as to show that human wisdom is nothing, and to point out to the wandering and lost the way to attain immortality. Yet this heavenly gift and benefit finds few takers, for truth stays concealed under a veil of obscurity: scholars scorn it as lacking capable defenders, while the unlettered despise it for the harshness bound up in it, a harshness that human nature, prone as it is to vice, cannot endure—for since bitterness is mixed with the virtues, while vices are seasoned with pleasure, men, put off by the one and charmed by the other, are carried headlong, and, deceived by an appearance of good, embrace evils in place of goods—I judged it needful to remedy these errors, guiding the educated toward true wisdom and those without learning toward true religion. This calling ought to be reckoned far better, more useful, and more glorious than that of oratory, in which we were long occupied, training young men not toward virtue but plainly toward clever malice; and now we shall speak with far greater rightness of heavenly teachings, teachings by which men's minds can be shaped toward reverence for the true majesty. Nor does anyone deserve better of human affairs who brings the skill of speaking well than one who teaches men to live devoutly and blamelessly. For this reason philosophers among the Greeks were held in greater glory than orators. The former were judged instructors in living rightly—far more excellent a title—since eloquence concerns only a few, whereas living well concerns everyone. Yet that training in contrived disputes has been of great use to us, so that now, with greater abundance and skill in speaking, we may plead the cause of truth. Though truth can be defended without eloquence, as it has often been defended by many, still it ought to be made bright and, in a manner, asserted with the clarity and polish of style, so that it may pour into men's minds with greater power, girded by its own strength and graced by the brilliance of eloquence. Our discourse, then, is set upon religion and matters divine. For if certain very great orators, veterans by now of their profession, once they had worked through their pleadings' labors, finally devoted themselves to philosophy and deemed it the most fitting repose from their toils, and if they twisted their minds in the search for things that could not be found, so that they seem to have sought not leisure for themselves but a new labor, and one indeed far more troublesome than what they had practiced before—how much more rightly may I betake myself to that holy, true, divine wisdom, as to some most secure harbor, in which all things are easy to state, sweet to hear, simple to understand, honorable to undertake? And if certain wise arbiters of fairness set down compilations of civil law to settle citizens' quarrels and disputes, then with how much greater justice and skill ought we to compose divine institutes in writing—works speaking not of drainage, water rights, or property claims, but treating hope, life, salvation, immortality, and God himself, so as to quiet death-dealing superstitions and the ugliest errors? Setting aside, then, the champions of this earthly philosophy, who bring nothing certain, let us take the straight road. If indeed I thought them sufficiently fit guides to right living, I myself would follow them and urge others to follow; but since they are at odds with one another in great strife, and often disagree even with themselves, it is plain that their path is by no means straight, since each has stamped out his own way as he pleased, and left great confusion to those seeking truth. But we, who have received the sacred trust of true religion, since truth has been revealed to us by God, since we follow God as the teacher of wisdom and the leader of virtue, summon all people without any distinction of sex or age to the heavenly food; for no food is sweeter to the mind than the knowledge of truth. To assert and set forth this knowledge we have devoted seven books, although the matter is nearly an endless and immense task, such that if anyone wished to expand and pursue it fully, so great an abundance of material would flow out to him that his discourse would find neither limit to its books nor an end. But we shall gather everything briefly, because the matters we intend to present are so plainly clear and luminous that it seems rather astonishing that truth should appear so obscure to men, and especially to those commonly considered wise—or rather because our sole task will be to instruct men — that is, to lead them out of the confusion binding them and onto a truer path. If we succeed in this, as I hope, we shall send them on to the most abundant and full fountain of learning itself, by whose draught and drinking they may quench the thirst conceived in their inmost being and put out its burning; and all things will be easy, plain, and clear to them, provided only they are not too weary to lend the patience of reading or listening to grasp the discipline of wisdom. For many, clinging stubbornly to empty superstitions, harden themselves against manifest truth, having done well not so much by the religions they wrongly assert as ill by themselves. Though they have a straight road before them, they follow crooked, winding paths, abandoning the level way so as to slip over a precipice, forsaking the light so as to lie helpless and blind in darkness. These must be counseled not to fight against themselves, and to be willing at last to be freed from their inveterate errors—which indeed they will do, if they ever come to perceive plainly the purpose of their birth. Depravity springs from just this: not knowing oneself. Whoever has shaken this off, once the truth is known, will know what he should be directed toward and how his life ought to be led. I sum up briefly the whole of this knowledge: that no religion is to be undertaken without wisdom, and no wisdom is to be approved without religion.
Now that I had taken up the task of setting forth the truth, I judged it unnecessary to begin from that question which seems to come first by nature—whether there is a providence that watches over all things, or whether all things happen and are carried on by chance. Democritus is the author of this view, Epicurus its confirmer. But before them Protagoras, who called the gods into doubt, and afterward Diagoras, who denied them, and certain others who did not think gods existed, accomplished nothing else than to make people think there was no providence. Yet the other philosophers, and above all the Stoics, refuted them most sharply, teaching that the world could neither have come to be without divine reason, nor stand firm unless governed by the highest reason. And Marcus Tullius, though a defender of the Academic school, discoursed both often and at length on the providence that governs all things, confirming the arguments of the Stoics and bringing forward many new ones of his own—which he does throughout all the books of his philosophy, but most of all in those on the nature of the gods. Nor indeed was it hard to expose as false the claims of a handful of misguided thinkers, given the testimony of peoples and nations, which do not disagree on this one point. For there is no one so uncultivated, so savage in manners, that, lifting his eyes to the sky, even though he does not know by whose providence this whole visible order is governed, does not nonetheless understand that there is some providence, from the very greatness, motion, arrangement, constancy, usefulness, beauty, and balance of things, and that what stands together by such wondrous design cannot but have been set in order by some greater counsel. And it would certainly be quite easy for us to pursue this topic as fully as one likes; but because the matter has been much debated among philosophers, and those who deny providence seem to have been answered sufficiently by sharp and eloquent men, and because it is necessary for us to speak, scattered throughout this whole work we have undertaken, of the skillful working of divine providence, let us for the present set aside this question, which hangs together with the rest in such a way that nothing, it seems, can be discussed by us without at the same time discussing providence.
Let, then, the starting point of our work be that question which follows and comes second: whether one god's power governs the world, or many gods share that rule. No one who has any sense and reasons things through with himself fails to understand that there is one, who both made all things and governs them by the same power with which he made them. What call is there for a multitude to uphold the world's governance? Unless perhaps we shall suppose that, if there were several, each would have less strength and power—which indeed is the position of those who want there to be many gods, since it is necessary that they be weak, seeing that individually, without the help of the rest, they could not sustain the steering of so great a mass. But God, who is eternal mind, is in every respect of perfect and complete power; and if this is true, it is necessary that he be one. For power, or virtue, that is absolute retains its own proper firmness. A thing counts as whole when nothing can be subtracted from it, and as perfect when nothing further could be added. Who would doubt that the most powerful king is the one commanding the entire globe? Not unreasonably so, for everything everywhere is his, and every resource flows toward him from every direction. But if several were to divide up the world, each would certainly have less wealth, less strength, since each would confine himself within his allotted portion. In the same way, gods too, if there were several, would each be weaker, since others would possess just as much in themselves. But the perfect nature of power can exist in that in which the whole resides, rather than in that in which only a small part of the whole is found. If God is perfect, as he must be, he can be nothing other than singular, with everything held within him. It is necessary, then, that the powers and capacities of many gods be weaker, since each one will lack exactly what is present in the others; and thus the more numerous they are, the smaller each will be. What of the fact that that supreme power over things, that divine force, cannot be divided even once? For whatever admits division must also admit destruction. But since destruction has no place in God, who is incorruptible and eternal, divine power, as a consequence, admits no division. God, then, is one, if nothing else can possess so much power; and yet those who suppose there are many gods say that duties are divided among them. We shall discuss all this in its proper place. For now I hold to what pertains to the present point: supposing they split responsibilities between them, we arrive at an identical result: no single one of them suffices alone for everything. He, then, will not be perfect who cannot govern everything when the others are idle. Thus it comes about that the perfect power of one is needed to rule the world, rather than the weakness of many. Whoever thinks that so great a vastness cannot be ruled by one is mistaken, and fails to grasp the true scale of divine majesty's strength and power, supposing as he does that the single god who was able to make the world is not able to govern the very thing he made. But should he picture in thought the sheer immensity of this divine work, and consider that, though nothing existed beforehand, it was still called into being from nothing by God's power and design—a work which could not have been begun and completed except by one—he will then understand that it is far easier for what was established by one to be ruled by one. One might object that a work as vast as the world's fashioning could never have been accomplished by a single maker. However many he supposes, however great, whatever greatness, power, virtue, and majesty he assigns to the many, I gather all of that together into one and say that it exists in the one, so that as much of these things exists in him as cannot even be conceived or expressed. And in this matter, since we fall short both in perception and in words—because the human breast cannot contain so great a light of understanding, nor mortal tongue the explanation of such great things—this very fact we ought to understand and declare. I see again what might be said on the other side, that the many are such as we suppose the one to be. But this can by no means be so, because the power of each would be unable to advance further, meeting the powers of the others in its way. For it is necessary that each keep within his own limits and be unable to overstep them, or, if he oversteps them, drive out another from his own bounds. Believers in many gods fail to notice that these gods might well desire opposing things, a divergence from which quarrels and conflict would spring up between them—just as Homer imagined the gods warring among themselves, some wishing Troy to be taken, others resisting. It is necessary, then, that the world be ruled by the decision of one. For unless the power over each several part is referred back to a single providence, the sum total itself cannot hold together, with each one caring for nothing more than what belongs to him properly—just as military affairs, too, cannot function unless there is one commander and director. For if in a single army there were as many commanders as there are legions, as many as there are cohorts, as many as there are companies, as many as there are wings of cavalry, first the battle line could not even be drawn up, with each one refusing to risk himself, nor could it easily be governed or kept in order, since all would follow their own private plans, and by their disagreement would do more harm than good; likewise in this governance of the natural order, unless a single figure bears responsibility for the total sum, all will unravel and fall apart. To say that the world is ruled by the decision of many is like someone claiming that in one body there are many minds, since the services of the limbs are many and varied, so that separate minds are believed to govern each of the body's senses; likewise there are many feelings by which we are commonly stirred, whether to anger or desire or joy or fear or pity, so that in all of these as many minds are thought to be at work. If anyone should indeed say this, he would seem not even to grant that there is the one mind that there is. But if in one body a single mind holds the governance of so many things and attends to all of them at once, why should anyone suppose that the world cannot be ruled by one, but can be ruled by many? Because those who champion many gods understand this, they say that the gods preside over individual things and parts in such a way that there is nonetheless one outstanding ruler. So then the rest will not be gods, but attendants and servants, whom that one greatest and most powerful being has set over these duties, so that they serve his command and his nod. If they are not all equal, then not all of them are gods; for the same thing cannot be both what serves and what rules. For if ‘god’ names the highest power of all, such a being must be incorruptible, perfect, immune to suffering, subject to no one. Those, then, whom necessity compels to obey one greatest god are not gods. But since those who think this way are not wrong without reason, we shall reveal the cause of this error a little later. For now, let us confirm the oneness of the divine power by testimonies.
The prophets, who were quite numerous, proclaim one god, speak of one god, since, being full of the spirit of the one god, they foretold with equal and harmonious voice what was to come. But those without a share of truth think they should not be trusted, saying that their utterances were not divine but human—namely, that their proclaiming a single god must mean they were mad or lying. And yet we see that most of their prophecies have been fulfilled day after day, and a divination agreeing upon one consistent view shows that they were not raving. For who out of his senses could not only foretell the future but also speak in a coherent and connected way? Were they, then, deceivers who said such things? What is farther from them than a design to deceive, seeing that they restrained others from every kind of fraud? For this reason they were sent by God, that they might be both heralds of his majesty and correctors of human depravity. Moreover, the desire to invent and to lie belongs to those who seek wealth, who crave gain—a motive quite alien to those consecrated men. For they carried out the office entrusted to them in such a way that, having abandoned everything necessary for the upkeep of life, they took thought neither for the future nor even for the next day, content with whatever food was supplied to them at the moment. And these men not only had no gain, but suffered torment and death as well. For the precepts of justice are bitter to the wicked and to those who live badly. And so those whose sins were both exposed and forbidden put them to death, torturing them most cruelly. Those, then, who had no eagerness for gain also had no desire and no reason to deceive. What of the fact that some of them were leaders, or even kings, upon whom suspicion of greed or fraud cannot fall, yet by that same mode of divination they too bore witness to the one god?