Cyprian & Lactantius · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Now that the question of providence has been settled, our next task is to show whether we ought to believe in many gods or rather in one. I believe our Institutes already demonstrated this point well enough: many gods cannot exist, since splitting divine power and might among several would necessarily diminish it; and whatever is diminished is certainly mortal, whereas what is not mortal cannot be diminished or divided. In God alone, then, power and might reach their fullness, incapable of shrinking or growing further. Were there many gods, though, each holding some portion of power and divinity, the sum total would shrink, and none among the many could possess the whole that is divided between them: each would go without exactly what the rest held. There cannot, then, be many rulers of this world, any more than many masters in one household, many pilots on one ship, many leaders of one herd or flock, or many kings in one hive; nor, for that matter, could many suns occupy the sky, any more than one body could house several souls at once: nature as a whole is unified precisely to this degree. And if it is a spirit that nourishes the world from within, and a mind, poured through its limbs, that stirs the whole mass and mingles itself with the great body, then it is clear, on the poet's own testimony, that the sole inhabitant of the world is one god, since no body can be inhabited and governed except by a single mind. All divine power, then, must rest in a single being, one whose will and command govern everything, and his greatness is such that no human being can put him into words or take him in through the senses. Where, then, did the belief in many gods arise among men, coming to be so persuasive? Surely every being worshipped as a god was, without exception, once a man — indeed among the first and greatest of kings; and who does not know that, after their death, they were granted divine honors either for the excellence by which they had benefited the human race, or won undying remembrance thanks to the discoveries and gifts with which they had enriched human life? And not only males but females as well. This is taught by the oldest writers of Greece, whom the Greeks call theologians, and likewise by the Romans who followed and imitated the Greeks — chief among them Euhemerus, and our own Ennius, who set forth the births, marriages, offspring, reigns, deeds, and deaths and tombs of all of them. Following them, Cicero, in the third book of On the Nature of the Gods, demolished the public religions, yet he himself, no more than anyone else, could bring forward the truth he did not know. Indeed he himself testified that falsehood is easy to expose, but truth lies hidden. 'Would that I could find the true as easily as I can refute the false!' he said — and he proclaimed this not merely as an evasive Academic, but truly and from the heart, because truth can never be drawn out by human senses; what human foresight was capable of achieving, it achieved — the exposing of falsehoods. For whatever is invented and made up, being propped on no real foundation, is easily taken apart. There is, then, one first principle and origin of all things, God, as Plato both understood and taught in the Timaeus; he declares his majesty so immense that no mind can grasp it nor any tongue put it into words. This same testimony is given by Hermes — the one whom Cicero says was counted among the gods by the Egyptians, the one named Trismegistus on account of his outstanding skill and mastery of many arts, predating, by a long stretch of time, not just Plato but Pythagoras and the Seven Sages as well. In Xenophon, Socrates argues that one ought not to seek out the form of god, and Plato, in his books on the Laws, says that what god actually is should not be inquired into, since it can be neither found nor described. Pythagoras too acknowledges one god, saying that he is an incorporeal mind, spread through and intent upon the whole of nature, granting to all living things the sense of life. Antisthenes, in his Physics, said that there is one natural god, even though nations and cities have their own local gods. Aristotle and his Peripatetics, and Zeno with his Stoics, held much the same view. It would take too long to go through each one's opinion individually; though they made use of different names, they all converged on one single power that governs the world. Yet although the philosophers, the poets, and even the very worshippers of the gods often admit a supreme god, no one has ever inquired into his worship and honor, no one has discussed it — precisely because of the conviction that, being always beneficent and incorruptible, he is never angry with anyone and needs no worship at all. So true it is: where fear is absent, religion cannot exist at all.
Now that we have answered the impious and detestable cleverness — or rather madness — of certain people, let us return to our subject. We said that, with religion removed, neither wisdom nor justice can be maintained: wisdom, since only in man, and in no beast, does the grasp of divinity that sets him apart from animals appear; justice, since without God, who is impossible to deceive, holding our appetites in check, our lives would turn wicked and impious. That our actions are watched by God matters not only for the good of common life but also for the truth of the matter, because once religion and justice are stripped away, we are dragged down either into the mindlessness of cattle, our reason lost, or into the savagery of beasts — indeed worse than beasts, for even beasts spare creatures of their own species. What could be fiercer or crueler than man, if, once the higher fear is removed, he could either evade or despise the force of the laws? Fear of God alone is what keeps human society intact — the very thing by which our life is upheld, guarded, and steered. But that fear is taken away if men become persuaded that God is incapable of anger — whereas both common utility and reason and truth itself persuade us that he is moved and indignant when injustice is done. We must return once more to what came before: since we have shown that the world was made by God, let us now show why it was made.
If anyone considers the whole administration of the world, he will surely recognize how correct the Stoics are in holding that the world came into being for our benefit. For everything of which the world consists, and everything it generates from itself, has been fitted to man's benefit. Man uses fire for warmth, for light, for softening food, and for working iron; he uses springs for drink and for washing, rivers for irrigating fields and for marking out territories; he uses the earth to obtain a variety of produce — the plains yielding grain, the hills suited to vine-planting, and the mountains supplying timber and wood; he uses the sea not only for trade and for bringing supplies from distant regions, but also for the abundance of every kind of fish. And if he makes use of these elements nearest to him, there can be no doubt that he makes use of the heavens as well, since even the operations of the heavens are tuned toward making fertile the ground that we depend on for life. The sun, in its restless courses and unequal spans, completes its yearly circuits, and either rises to bring forth day for labor, or sets to draw on night for rest; and by receding further toward the south or drawing nearer toward the north, it produces the alternations of winter and summer, so that the earth grows rich with the winter's moisture and frost, and in summer's heat the leafy crops are hardened to ripeness, or those that grow in moist ground are cooked through and softened. The moon too, ruler of the nighttime hours, governs monthly spans by the alternation of light lost and light regained, and lights up the blind, bristling darkness of night with the glow of her brightness, so that summer journeys, expeditions, and labors may be carried out without hardship or trouble, since it is by night that light stubble and dry meadows are best cut. The other stars too, by their rising or their setting, mark fixed points that supply the opportune moments of the seasons. They also give guidance to ships, so that they need not wander an errant course over the vast sea, since a helmsman who observes them correctly by their rule is carried to the harbor of his intended shore. The breath of the winds draws up the clouds, so that crops are watered by rain, so that vines overflow with grapes and orchards with fruit. And these things are supplied in turn throughout the world, so that there may never be lacking what sustains human life. But, one might object, that same earth also feeds the other living creatures, and even dumb animals are nourished by its produce. Did God, then, labor for the sake of dumb animals too? By no means, since they are devoid of reason. But we understand that these too were fashioned by God, in the same way, for man's use — some for food, some for clothing, some to assist his labor — so that it is clear that divine providence wished, through the abundance of things and supplies, to furnish and adorn human life; and for that reason he filled the air with birds, the sea with fish, and the earth with four-footed creatures. The Academics, however, push back against the Stoics by asking why, granted that God made everything for man's sake, so many things hostile, harmful, and destructive to us are found, both in the sea and on land. The Stoics, failing to see the truth, gave a most inept reply to this. According to them, plants and creatures alike include many whose usefulness remains concealed for now, but which will be discovered in the course of time, just as much that was unknown to earlier ages has since been discovered by necessity and use. But what usefulness, pray, can be found in mice, in cockroaches, in serpents, which are troublesome and harmful to man? Does some medicine lie hidden in them? If it does, let it someday be found — though indeed, if they complain that this is what counts as evil, it is against evils that it would be used, which is a plain evil in itself! They say that a viper, burned and reduced to ashes, cures the bite of that same creature. How much better it would have been for it not to exist at all, than for a remedy against it to have to be sought from the very creature itself! A shorter and truer answer could have been given in this way: when God formed man as, so to speak, his own image — the supreme work of divine craftsmanship — he breathed into him alone wisdom, so that he might bring all things under his rule and dominion and make use of all the world's advantages. Yet he placed before him a choice between good and evil, because he had given him wisdom, and the whole function of wisdom lies in distinguishing good from evil. No one, after all, is able to pick out what is better and recognize the good without also knowing how to shun and refuse the bad. The two are bound to each other, so that if either is removed, both must necessarily be removed. Only once good and evil have been set before it does wisdom carry out its task, seeking the good for advantage and rejecting the evil for safety. So then, just as countless good things were given for man to enjoy, so too were evils given for him to guard against. For if there were no evil, no danger, nothing at all that could harm man, the whole material of wisdom would be removed, and it would no longer be necessary to him. If only good things were placed before his eyes, what need would there be of thought, understanding, knowledge, reason, since whatever direction he reached his hand, it would be suited and fitting to his nature? It is as if someone wished to set out an elaborate feast before infants who as yet have no judgment: each would go for whatever impulse, hunger, or even chance drew him to, and whatever they took would be wholesome and beneficial to them. What harm, then, would there be in their remaining just as they are, forever infants and ignorant of things? But if you were to mix in bitter, useless, or even poisonous things, they would surely be misled by their own ignorance of good and evil, were wisdom not added, by which they might reject the bad and choose the good. You see, then, that it is because of evils, above all, that we need wisdom: had they not been set before us, we would not be rational beings. And if this reasoning is true — which the Stoics were never able to see — then that argument of Epicurus is also dissolved. He says: 'Either God wants to remove evils and cannot, or he can and does not want to, or he neither wants to nor can, or he both wants to and can. If he wants to and cannot, he is weak, which does not befit God; if he can and does not want to, he is envious, which is equally foreign to God; if he neither wants to nor can, he is both envious and weak, and therefore not God at all; if he both wants to and can — which alone befits God — then where does evil come from, and why has it not been done away with?' I am aware that this line of reasoning regularly unsettles many philosophers who defend providence, and are all but forced, against their own inclination, to concede that God takes no thought for anything — which is exactly what Epicurus is aiming at. Yet a closer look at the reasoning dissolves without difficulty what looks at first like a daunting objection. Nothing that he wills lies beyond his power, since neither incapacity nor spite touches him at all; evils, then, could be taken away, but he chooses not to — and even so, that choice implies no malice on his part. He does not remove them because, as I have explained, he grants wisdom at the same time, and there is more good and delight in wisdom than there is trouble in evils. For wisdom enables us even to know God, and through that knowledge to attain immortality, which is the highest good. And so, unless we first recognize evil, we cannot recognize good either. But this Epicurus failed to see, nor did anyone else, that if evils were removed, wisdom would likewise be removed, and no trace of virtue would remain in man — since virtue's whole function lies precisely in withstanding and conquering evil's harshness. Thus, for the trifling gain of having evils removed, we would be deprived of the greatest, truest, and most properly our own good. It is settled, then, that all things — evils as well as goods — were set in place for the sake of man.
It remains for me to show why God made man himself. Just as he fashioned the world for man's sake, so he fashioned man for his own sake, to be, as it were, the priest of his divine temple, the beholder of his works and of the things of heaven. Man alone, endowed with sense and capable of reason, can understand God, admire his works, and perceive his power and might; for this reason he was equipped with counsel, mind, and prudence; for this reason alone, among all living creatures, was he formed upright in body and stance, so that he might seem roused to the contemplation of his maker; for this reason alone he received speech and a tongue, the interpreter of thought, enabling him to proclaim his Lord's majesty aloud; and finally, for this reason all things were made subject to him, so that he himself might be subject to the God who fashioned and made him. If, then, God wished man to be his worshipper, and for that reason granted him such honor that he should have dominion over all things, it is surely most just that God, who has bestowed so much, should love, and that man, who is joined to us in a fellowship of divine law, should be loved as well. It is wrong, after all, for one who worships God to inflict harm on a fellow worshipper of God. From this we understand that man was fashioned for the sake of religion and justice. Marcus Tullius bears witness to this in his books On the Laws, saying: 'But of all the things discussed among learned men, nothing is surely more important than to understand clearly that we are born for justice.' If this is entirely true, then God wills that all men be just — that is, that they hold both God and man dear, revering God the way one reveres a father, and cherishing one's fellow man the way one cherishes a brother — on just these two points justice in its entirety rests. Whoever, then, either fails to acknowledge God or does harm to another human being, lives unjustly and against his own nature, and in this way breaks the institution and law of God.