10. You who judge others, be for once also a judge of yourself; look into the hiding-places of your own conscience; nay, since now there is not even any shame in your sin,19    Some texts read, “fear or shame in sinning.” and you are wicked, as if it were rather the very wickedness itself that pleased you, do you, who are seen clearly and nakedly by all other men, yourself also look upon yourself. For either you are swollen with pride, or greedy with avarice, or cruel with anger, or prodigal with gambling, or flushed with intemperance, or envious with jealousy, or unchaste with lust, or violent with cruelty; and do you wonder that God’s anger increases in punishing the human race, when the sin that is punished is daily increasing? You complain that the enemy rises up, as if, though an enemy were wanting, there could be peace for you even among the very togas of peace. You complain that the enemy rises up, as if, even although external arms and dangers from barbarians were repressed, the weapons of domestic assault from the calumnies and wrongs of powerful citizens, would not be more ferocious and more harshly wielded within. You complain of barrenness and famine, as if drought made a greater famine than rapacity, as if the fierceness of want did not increase more terribly from grasping at the increase of the year’s produce, and the accumulation of their price. You complain that the heaven is shut up from showers, although in the same way the barns are shut up on earth. You complain that now less is produced, as if what had already been produced were given to the indigent. You reproach plague and disease, while by plague itself and disease the crimes of individuals are either detected or increased, while mercy is not manifested to the weak, and avarice and rapine are waiting open-mouthed for the dead. The same men are timid in the duties of affection, but rash in quest of implores gains; shunning the deaths of the dying, and craving the spoils of the dead, so that it may appear as if the wretched are probably forsaken in their sickness for this cause, that they may not, by being cured, escape: for he who enters so eagerly upon the estate of the dying, probably desired the sick man to perish.

X. Qui alios judicas, aliquando et tu esto tui judex; conscientiae tuae latebras intuere, immo, quia nullus jam delinquendi metus vel pudor est, et sic peccatur quasi magis per ipsa peccata placeatur, qui perspicuus et nudus videris a cunctis, et ipse te respice. Aut enim superbia inflatus es, aut avaritia rapax, aut iracundia saevus, aut alea prodigus, aut vinolentia 0551B temulentus, aut livore invidus, aut libidine incestus, aut crudelitate violentus: et miraris in poenas generis humani iram Dei crescere, cum crescat quotidie quod puniatur? Hostem quereris exsurgere, quasi, etsi hostis desit, esse pax inter ipsas togas possit. Hostem quereris exsurgere, quasi non, etsi externa de barbaris arma et pericula comprimantur, ferocius intus et gravius de calumniis et injuriis potentium civium domesticae impugnationis tela grassentur. De sterilitate et fame quereris, quasi famem majorem siccitas quam rapacitas faciat, quasi non de captatis annonarum incrementis et pretiorum cumulis flagrantior inopiae ardor excrescat. Quereris claudi imbribus coelum, cum sic horrea claudantur in terris. Quereris nunc minus nasci, quasi quae nata sunt indigentibus 0551C praebeantur. Pestem et luem criminaris, cum peste 0552A ipsa et lue vel detecta sint vel aucta crimina singulorum, dum nec infirmis exhibetur misericordia, et defunctis avaritia inhiat ac rapina. Iidem ad pietatis obsequium timidi, ad impia lucra temerarii, fugientes morientium funera, et appetentes spolia mortuorum, ut appareat in aegritudine sua miseros ad hoc forsitan derelictos esse, ne possint, dum curantur, evadere: nam perire aegrum voluit qui censum pereuntis invadit.