Cyprian & Lactantius · a new plain-English translation from the original language
As I turn it over in my mind and often ponder it, that earlier condition of the human race seems to me both astonishing and shameful: that through the folly of a single age, which took up various religions and believed there were many gods, mankind fell so suddenly into such ignorance of itself that, truth being taken from its sight, neither the worship of the true God nor any rational account of humanity was retained, men seeking the highest good not in heaven but on earth. For this reason the happiness of the ancient ages was certainly changed. For men began, having abandoned the parent and founder of all things, God, to venerate the senseless figments of their own fingers. What that depravity produced, what evils it brought, the matter itself declares. For having turned away from the highest good — which is blessed and everlasting precisely because it cannot be seen, touched, or grasped — and from the virtues that agree with that good, which are likewise immortal, and having slipped down to these corrupt and fragile gods, devoting themselves to the things by which only the body is adorned, fed, and delighted, they sought for themselves an everlasting death together with their gods and with bodily goods, since every body is subject to death. Injustice and impiety, of the same kind as these religions, therefore followed, as was inevitable. For men ceased to lift their faces toward heaven; instead, minds pressed downward clung to earthly things — to earthly religions just as to earthly goods. There followed the disintegration of the human race, and fraud, and every kind of wickedness, because, since they scorned the everlasting, incorruptible goods that man by rights should crave above everything else, and chose instead what was temporary and fleeting; and men's confidence in evil grew greater, since they preferred the crooked to the straight because it was more immediate. Thus a fog and darkness overtook human life, which in earlier ages had moved in the clearest light. And, fittingly for this depravity, once wisdom itself had vanished, men at last started awarding themselves the label "wise." Yet in that very era when everybody counted as wise, the label of wisdom belonged to nobody at all — if only that word, later thrown open to the public and by then whittled down to a handful, had held onto its genuine meaning! For perhaps those few, by talent or authority or constant exhortation, could have freed the people from vice and error. But wisdom had so utterly perished that from the very arrogance of the title it is plain none of those so called was truly wise. And yet, before this thing called philosophy had even been devised, there are said to have been seven men who, because they were the first of all to dare inquire and dispute about matters of nature, deserved to be considered and called wise. O wretched and calamitous age, in which throughout the whole world only seven were fit to be summoned by the name of man! For no one can rightly be called a man except one who is wise. But if all the rest besides these seven were fools, then not even those seven were truly wise, since by the judgment of fools no one can truly be wise. So far was wisdom from them that not even afterward, as learning increased and many great minds bent constantly toward this very goal, could it be perfected or the truth grasped. For after the glory of those seven sages, it is astonishing with what eagerness the whole of Greece blazed to search out the truth. And first they judged the very name of "wisdom" too arrogant, and called themselves not wise men but lovers of wisdom. By doing this they condemned both those who had rashly assumed for themselves the name of sages as men in error and folly, and admitted their own ignorance besides — a fact they never tried to hide. Whenever nature had, so to speak, blocked their talents from reaching some matter so that they had no account to give of it, they were in the habit of confessing outright that they knew and perceived nothing at all. Hence those are found to be far wiser who saw themselves as unwise in some part than those who believed themselves wise.
Since, then, neither those who were called wise were truly wise, nor did those who came later hesitate to confess their ignorance, what remains except that wisdom must be sought elsewhere, since it was not found where it was being sought? What cause, then, should we suppose there was, that though sought by so many minds and over so much time with the utmost effort and labor, it was not discovered — except that the philosophers sought it outside its proper bounds? For since these men, having traveled through and explored everything, nowhere grasped any wisdom, and since it must exist somewhere, it appears that it is above all to be sought precisely where the label of folly seems to lie: under whose covering God, so that the hidden mystery of his divine work should not lie exposed, concealed the treasury of wisdom and truth. For this reason I am indeed accustomed to marvel that, when Pythagoras and later Plato, inflamed with love of tracking down the truth, had penetrated even to the Egyptians and the Magi and the Persians in order to learn the rites and sacred things of those nations — for they suspected that wisdom was bound up with religion — they never went near the Jews alone, among whom at that time alone it existed, and to whom they could more easily have gone. Yet I hold that divine providence itself steered them away, denying them any means of grasping the truth, since foreigners were at that point still forbidden to gain acquaintance with the religion and justice belonging to the one true God. For God had determined, as the last age drew near, to send from heaven a great leader, who would reveal to the nations abroad that truth which had been taken away from a faithless and ungrateful people. I shall attempt to discuss this matter in this book, once I have first shown that wisdom is so bound up with religion that neither can be torn from the other.
The worship of the gods, as I taught in the first book, does not possess wisdom — not merely because it subjects the divine creature, man, to earthly and fragile things, but because nothing is discussed there that avails toward the cultivation of morals and the shaping of life; nor does it contain any inquiry into truth, but merely a ritual observance, one carried out not through any devotion of the mind but through the mere labor of the body. On that ground it cannot be reckoned true religion, seeing that it makes men neither more just nor more virtuous through any teaching. In just the same way, philosophy without religion — meaning without the highest form of piety — fails to count as genuine wisdom. After all, if the power governing this world sustains humankind with astonishing generosity and, as it were, dotes on it with fatherly indulgence, that power surely expects gratitude and honor in return; and no man can claim a reasoned piety while remaining thankless for gifts sent from heaven — hardly the behavior of someone wise. Since, then, as I said, philosophy and the worship of the gods are separated and widely divided from one another — for there are professors of wisdom through whom, certainly, one does not gain access to the gods, and there are priests of religion through whom one does not learn wisdom — it is clear that neither the one is true wisdom nor the other true religion. For this reason philosophy could not grasp the truth, nor could the worship of the gods give an account of itself, which it lacks. But where wisdom coheres with religion in an inseparable bond, both must necessarily be true, because in worshiping we ought also to be wise — that is, to know what and how we ought to worship — and in being wise we ought also to worship, that is, in deed and act to carry out what we have come to know. So where do wisdom and religion actually meet? Naturally, in the place where a single God receives worship, where every deed and every life traces back to one source and one sum total — put simply, wherever the very people teaching wisdom also serve as God's priests. Nor should anyone be troubled by the fact that it has often happened, and can happen, that some philosopher takes up a priesthood of the gods; but when that happens philosophy and religion still are not united; instead, philosophy goes quiet during the sacred rites, and religion goes quiet whenever philosophy takes the floor. For that religion is mute — not only because it belongs to mute things, but because its rite lies in the hand and in the fingers, not in the heart or on the tongue, as does ours, which is true. That is why wisdom is embedded in religion and religion in wisdom — the two cannot be pulled apart, since being wise amounts to nothing more than honoring the true God through worship that is just and devout. Here is a further argument that helps us see and confirm that worshiping many gods runs contrary to nature: every god who is worshiped by man must necessarily, amid the solemn rites and prayers, be addressed as "father" — not merely as a mark of honor, but also for good reason, since he is older than man and, like a father, provides life, safety, and sustenance. Thus Jupiter receives the title of father from those who pray to him, and the same goes for Saturn, Janus, Liber, and each of the rest in turn — a thing Lucilius mocks in his council of the gods: that there is none of us but is called, to a man, either "best father" of the gods, or father Neptune, Liber, father Saturn, Mars, Janus, father Quirinus. But if nature does not allow that one man should have many fathers — since he is begotten from one alone — then to worship many gods too is against nature and against piety. One, therefore, is to be worshiped, who can truly be named father; and he must likewise be lord, since just as he can indulge, so too he can restrain. He is to be called father because he grants us many great gifts; he is to be called lord because he holds the greatest power of chastising and punishing. That the same being who is father is also lord, the reasoning of civil law likewise demonstrates. For who could raise children unless he held over them the power of a master? Nor is it without cause that he is called "father of the household," even if he has only sons: the name "father" plainly embraces even the slaves, since "household" follows upon it, and the name "household" embraces even the sons, since "father" precedes it. Hence it is clear that the very same man is both father of his slaves and lord of his sons. Indeed, a son is emancipated by the hand as though a slave, and a freed slave takes the name of patron as though a son. But if for this reason he is named father of the household, so that it may appear he is endowed with a twofold power — since he ought both to indulge, because he is father, and to restrain, because he is lord — then the same person is slave who is also son, the same is lord who is also father. Just as, then, by the necessity of nature there can be only one father, so too there can be only one lord. For what will a slave do, if many masters command different things? Religions of many gods, therefore, are against reason and against nature, since there cannot be many fathers, nor many lords, and yet gods must necessarily be called both fathers and lords. It follows that no one can hold onto truth while answering to a crowd of fathers and lords at once — a mind splintered that way just drifts in every direction; and religion likewise cannot stand firm without a single, fixed home. The worship of the gods, then, cannot be true, in the same way that marriage cannot be so called where one woman has many husbands — such a woman will instead be named either a prostitute or an adulteress; for one in whom modesty, chastity, and fidelity are absent must necessarily lack virtue. So too the religion of the gods is unchaste and unclean, because it lacks fidelity, because that unstable and uncertain honor has neither head nor origin.
From these things it appears how closely wisdom and religion are bound to one another. Wisdom looks toward sons, which demands love; religion toward slaves, which demands fear. For just as sons ought to love and honor a father, so slaves ought to worship and revere a lord. But God, who is one, since he sustains both roles, of father and of lord, we ought both to love him, because we are his sons, and to fear him, because we are his slaves. Neither, then, can religion be separated from wisdom, nor wisdom set apart from religion, since it is the same God who must both be understood — which belongs to wisdom — and honored — which belongs to religion. But wisdom comes first, religion follows, since to know God comes first, to worship him follows. So in these two names there is one single force, though they seem to be different things: for the one is set in perception, the other in action; yet they are alike two streams flowing from one spring. And the spring of both wisdom and religion is God, from whom, if these two streams wander away, they must necessarily dry up; and those who do not know him can be neither wise nor religious. Thus it happens that both philosophers and worshipers of the gods resemble either disowned sons or runaway slaves, since the former do not seek a father, nor the latter a lord. And just as the disowned do not obtain their father's inheritance, nor runaways their pardon, so too philosophers will never gain immortality — the very inheritance belonging to the heavenly kingdom, that highest good they pursue above everything — and worshipers of the gods will never dodge the sentence of eternal death, the true lord's reckoning against those who have deserted his majesty and his name. That God is at once father and lord, both sides failed to know — both the worshipers of the gods and the very professors of wisdom — because either they thought nothing at all was to be worshiped, or they approved false religions, or, even if they understood the force and power of the supreme God, as did Plato, who says there is one maker-god of the world, and Marcus Tullius, who admits that man was begotten by the supreme God under a certain splendid condition, still they did not render to him the worship owed as to the highest father, which would have followed as a necessary consequence. That gods cannot serve as either fathers or lords is demonstrated not merely by their sheer number, as shown above, but by logic too: nowhere is it recorded that mankind was shaped by the gods, and no evidence exists that the gods came before humanity began — indeed men clearly already walked the earth before Vulcan, Liber, Apollo, or Jupiter himself were even born; nor is the fashioning of man usually assigned either to Saturn or to Heaven, his father. But if none of those who are worshiped is handed down as having shaped and instituted man from the beginning, then none of them can be called man's father, and so not god either. It is not right, therefore, to venerate those by whom man was not begotten, since... he cannot be begotten by many. One alone, therefore, is to be worshiped — he who came before Jupiter, before Saturn, before heaven itself and earth. For it must necessarily be he who shaped man, who made heaven and earth before man existed. Father is the title owed solely to the one who created; lord belongs solely to the one who rules, wielding genuine and unending authority over life and death. Whoever does not worship him is both a foolish slave, who either flees his own lord or does not know him, and an impious son, who either hates or does not recognize his own true father.
Given that I have already demonstrated the inseparability of wisdom and religion, what remains is to turn to a discussion of these two subjects in their own right. I am well aware how difficult a discussion of heavenly matters is, but still it must be ventured, so that truth, once brought to light, may lie open, and many may be freed from error and ruin — those who scorn and reject it while it lies hidden under a covering of apparent folly. Yet before turning to a discussion of God and his works, a few preliminary words about the prophets are needed, since I must now draw on their testimony — something I had held off from doing in the previous books. Anyone keen on laying hold of the truth needs, above all, to do more than devote attention to interpreting the prophets' words — he must also dig carefully into the era each one lived in, so as to learn what they predicted and how many years passed before each prediction came true. Nor is there any difficulty in establishing these things. For it is attested under which king each of them suffered the prompting of the divine spirit, and many writers have published books on chronology, beginning from the prophet Moses, who preceded the Trojan War by nearly nine hundred years. He, after ruling the people for forty years, had as his successor Joshua, who held the leadership for twenty-seven years. From then they were under judges for three hundred and seventy years. Then, the form of government changing, they began to have kings. These held power for four hundred and fifty years, right up to Zedekiah's reign, when the Babylonian king besieged and captured the Jews, who then suffered a lengthy servitude — lasting until Cyrus the Great, seventy years later, returned them to their own lands and homes — Cyrus, who took up rule over the Persians at the same time that Tarquinius Superbus ruled at Rome. Since, then, the whole sequence of times can be gathered both from Jewish and from Greek and Roman histories, the times of each of the prophets individually can likewise be established; and among them Zechariah was without question the final one, generally agreed to have prophesied during the eighth month of King Darius's second regnal year. So it is found that the prophets are older even than the Greek writers. All this I set forth so that those who strive to discredit the sacred scripture as something new and recently invented may recognize their error, not knowing from what source the origin of holy religion has flowed. But if anyone, having gathered and examined these chronologies, lays a sound foundation for his teaching, he will grasp the truth thoroughly and, once truth is known, will set aside error.