Chapter 2.—Of Those Things Which are Contained in Books Second and Third.

We had promised, then, that we would say something against those who attribute the calamities of the Roman republic to our religion, and that we would recount the evils, as many and great as we could remember or might deem sufficient, which that city, or the provinces belonging to its empire, had suffered before their sacrifices were prohibited, all of which would beyond doubt have been attributed to us, if our religion had either already shone on them, or had thus prohibited their sacrilegious rites.  These things we have, as we think, fully disposed of in the second and third books, treating in the second of evils in morals, which alone or chiefly are to be accounted evils; and in the third, of those which only fools dread to undergo—namely, those of the body or of outward things—which for the most part the good also suffer.  But those evils by which they themselves become evil, they take, I do not say patiently, but with pleasure.  And how few evils have I related concerning that one city and its empire!  Not even all down to the time of Cæsar Augustus.  What if I had chosen to recount and enlarge on those evils, not which men have inflicted on each other; such as the devastations and destructions of war, but which happen in earthly things, from the elements of the world itself.  Of such evils Apuleius speaks briefly in one passage of that book which he wrote, De Mundo, saying that all earthly things are subject to change, overthrow, and destruction.134    Comp. Bacon’s Essay on the Vicissitudes of Things.  For, to use his own words, by excessive earthquakes the ground has burst asunder, and cities with their inhabitants have been clean destroyed:  by sudden rains whole regions have been washed away; those also which formerly had been continents, have been insulated by strange and new-come waves, and others, by the subsiding of the sea, have been made passable by the foot of man:  by winds and storms cities have been overthrown; fires have flashed forth from the clouds, by which regions in the East being burnt up have perished; and on the western coasts the like destructions have been caused by the bursting forth of waters and floods.  So, formerly, from the lofty craters of Etna, rivers of fire kindled by God have flowed like a torrent down the steeps.  If I had wished to collect from history wherever I could, these and similar instances, where should I have finished what happened even in those times before the name of Christ had put down those of their idols, so vain and hurtful to true salvation?  I promised that I should also point out which of their customs, and for what cause, the true God, in whose power all kingdoms are, had deigned to favor to the enlargement of their empire; and how those whom they think gods can have profited them nothing, but much rather hurt them by deceiving and beguiling them; so that it seems to me I must now speak of these things, and chiefly of the increase of the Roman empire.  For I have already said not a little, especially in the second book, about the many evils introduced into their manners by the hurtful deceits of the demons whom they worshipped as gods.  But throughout all the three books already completed, where it appeared suitable, we have set forth how much succor God, through the name of Christ, to whom the barbarians beyond the custom of war paid so much honor, has bestowed on the good and bad, according as it is written, “Who maketh His sun to rise on the good and the evil, and giveth rain to the just and the unjust.”135    Matt. v. 45.

CAPUT II. De his quae libro secundo et tertio continentur.

Promiseramus ergo quaedam nos esse dicturos adversus eos, qui Romanae reipublicae clades in religionem nostram referunt, et commemoraturos quaecumque et quantacumque occurrere potuissent, vel satis esse viderentur, mala, quae illa civitas pertulit, vel ad ejus imperium provinciae pertinentes, antequam eorum sacrificia prohibita fuissent: quae omnia procul dubio nobis tribuerent, si jam vel illis clareret nostra religio, vel ita eos a sacris sacrilegis prohiberet. Haec in secundo et tertio libro satis, quantum existimo, absolvimus: in secundo agentes de malis morum, quae mala vel sola, vel maxima deputanda 0113 sunt; in tertio autem de his quae stulti sola perpeti exhorrent, corporis videlicet externarumque rerum, quae plerumque patiuntur et boni. Illa vero mala non dico patienter, sed libenter habent, quibus ipsi fiunt mali. Et quam pauca dixi de sola ipsa civitate atque ejus imperio? nec inde omnia usque ad Caesarem Augustum. Quid, si commemorare voluissem, et exaggerare illa mala, quae non sibi invicem homines faciunt, sicut sunt vastationes eversionesque bellantium, sed ex ipsius mundi elementis terrenis accidunt rebus? quae uno loco Apuleius breviter stringit in eo libro quem de Mundo scripsit , terrena omnia dicens mutationes, conversiones atque interitus habere. Namque immodicis tremoribus terrarum, ut verbis ejus utar, dissiluisse humum, et interceptas urbes cum populis dicit: abruptis etiam imbribus prolutas totas esse regiones: illas etiam quae prius fuerant continentes, hospitibus atque advenis fluctibus insulatas, aliasque desidia maris pedestri accessu pervias factas: ventis ac procellis eversas esse civitates: incendia de nubibus emicasse , quibus Orientis regiones conflagratae perierunt; et in Occidentis plagis scaturigines quasdam ac proluviones easdem strages dedisse. Sic ex Aetnae verticibus quondam effusis crateribus, divino incendio per declivia, torrentis vice flammarum flumina cucurrisse. Si haec atque hujusmodi, quae habet historia, unde possem, colligere voluissem, quando finissem quae illis temporibus evenerunt, antequam Christi nomen illa istorum vana et verae saluti perniciosa comprimeret? Promiseram etiam me demonstraturum, quos eorum mores, et quam ob causam Deus verus ad augendum imperium adjuvare dignatus est, in cujus potestate sunt regna omnia; quamque nihil eos adjuverint hi quos deos putant, et potius quantum decipiendo et fallendo nocuerint: unde nunc mihi video esse dicendum, et magis de incrementis imperii Romani. Nam de noxia fallacia daemonum, quos velut deos colebant, quantum malorum invexerit moribus eorum, in secundo maxime libro non pauca jam dicta sunt. Per omnes autem absolutos tres libros, ubi opportunum visum est, commendavimus etiam in ipsis bellicis malis quantum solatiorum Deus per Christi nomen, cui tantum honoris, Barbari detulerunt praeter bellorum morem, bonis malisque contulerit, quomodo qui facit solem suum oriri super bonos et malos, et pluit super justos et injustos (Matth. V, 45).