Lactantius, The Divine Institutes

But undoubtedly this is the cause1027 Thus far he has refuted the arguments of Furius, the advocate of injustice. He now shows the reasons why Lælius, who was esteemed most wise, does not worthily maintain the cause of justice, i.e., because he was ignorant of heavenly wisdom. [See cap. xvii. p. 152, supra.] why he appears to be foolish who prefers to be in want, or to die rather than to inflict injury or take away the property of another,—namely, because they think that man is destroyed by death. And from this persuasion all the errors both of the common people and also of the philosophers arise. For if we have no existence after death, assuredly it is the part of the most foolish man not to promote the interests of the present life, that it may be long-continued, and may abound with all advantages. But he who shall act thus must of necessity depart from the rule of justice. But if there remains to man a longer and a better life—and this we learn both from the arguments of great philosophers, and from the answers of seers, and the divine words of prophets—it is the part of the wise man to despise this present life with its advantages, since its entire loss is compensated by immortality. The same defender of justice, Lælius, says in Cicero:1028 De Republ., i. 3. “Virtue altogether wishes for honour; nor is there any other reward of virtue.” There is indeed another, and that most worthy of virtue, which you, O Lælius, could never have supposed; for you had no knowledge of the sacred writings. And this reward it easily receives, and does not harshly demand. You are greatly mistaken, if you think that a reward can be paid to virtue by man, since you yourself most truly said in another place: “What riches will you offer to this man? what commands? what kingdoms? He who regards these things as human, judges his own advantages to be divine.” Who, therefore, can think you a wise man, O Lælius, when you contradict yourself, and after a short interval take away from virtue that which you have given to her? But it is manifest that ignorance of the truth makes your opinion uncertain and wavering.

In the next place, what do you add? “But if all the ungrateful, or the many who are envious, or powerful enemies, deprive virtue of its rewards.” Oh how frail, how worthless, have you represented virtue to be, if it can be deprived of its reward! For if it judges its goods to be divine, as you said, how can there be any so ungrateful, so envious, so powerful, as to be able to deprive virtue of those goods which were conferred upon it by the gods? “Assuredly it delights itself,” he says, “by many comforts, and especially supports itself by its own beauty.” By what comforts? by what beauty? since that beauty is often charged upon it as a fault, and turned into a punishment. For what if, as Furius said,1029 Vid. ch. xii. a man should be dragged away, harassed, banished, should be in want, be deprived of his hands, have his eyes put out, be condemned, put into chains, be burned, be miserably tortured also? will virtue lose its reward, or rather, will it perish itself? By no means. But it will both receive its reward from God the Judge, and it will live, and always flourish. And if you take away these things, nothing in the life of man can appear to be so useless, so foolish, as virtue, the natural goodness and honour of which may teach us that the soul is not mortal, and that a divine reward is appointed for it by God. But on this account God willed that virtue itself should be concealed under the character of folly, that the mystery of truth and of His religion might be secret; that He might show the vanity and error of these superstitions, and of that earthly wisdom which raises itself too highly, and exhibits great self-complacency, that its difficulty being at length set forth, that most narrow path might lead to the lofty reward of immortality.

I have shown, as I think, why our people are esteemed foolish by the foolish. For to choose to be tortured and slain, rather than to take incense in three fingers, and throw it upon the hearth,1030 [In focum. Here it means the brazier placed before an image.] appears as foolish as, in a case where life is endangered, to be more careful of the life of another than of one’s own. For they do not know how great an act of impiety it is to adore any other object than God, who made heaven and earth, who fashioned the human race, breathed into them the breath of life, and gave them light. But if he is accounted the most worthless of slaves who runs away and deserts his master, and if he is judged most deserving of stripes and chains, and a prison, and the cross, and of all evil; and if a son, in the same manner, is thought abandoned and impious who deserts his father, that he may not pay him obedience, and on this account is considered deserving of being disinherited, and of having his name removed for ever from his family,—how much more so does he who forsakes God, in whom the two names entitled to equal reverence, of Lord and Father, alike meet? For what benefit does he who buys a slave bestow upon him, beyond the nourishment with which he supplies him for his own advantage? And he who begets a son has it not in his power to effect that he shall be conceived, or born, or live; from which it is evident that he is not the father, but only the instrument1031 Generandi ministrum. of generation. Of what punishments, therefore, is he deserving, who forsakes Him who is both the true Master and Father, but those which God Himself has appointed? who has prepared everlasting fire for the wicked spirits; and this He Himself threatens by His prophets to the impious and the rebellious.1032 [Perpetually recurring are such ideas and interpretations of God’s warnings. Vol. iv. p. 542.]

CAPUT XIX. De virtute, et Christianorum cruciatibus; ac de jure patris et domini.

0609B Sed nimirum haec causa efficit, ut stultus esse videatur, qui egere aut mori malit, quam noceat, vel eripiat aliquid alteri, quod hominem morte deleri putant. Ex qua persuasione omnes tum vulgi, tum etiam philosophorum nascuntur errores. Si enim post mortem nihil sumus, profecto stultissimi est hominis non huic vitae consulere, ut sit quam diutina et commodis omnibus plena. Quod qui faciet, a justitiae regula discedat necesse est. Si autem superest homini vita melior et longior, quod et philosophorum magnorum argumentis, et vatum responsis, et prophetarum divinis vocibus discimus; hanc praesentem cum suis bonis contemnere, sapientis est, cujus omnis jactura immortalitate pensatur. Apud Ciceronem idem ille justitiae defensor Laelius. «Vult, inquit, plane virtus 0609C honorem; nec est virtutis ulla alia merces.» Est plane, et quidem virtute dignissima, quam tu, Laeli, nunquam poteras suspicari; nihil enim divinarum noveras litterarum. Quam tamen illa, inquit, accipit facile, exigit non acerbe. Erras vehementer, si putas ab homine praemium solvi posse virtuti, cum ipse alio loco verissime dixeris: «Huic tu viro quas divitias 0610A objicies? quae imperia? quae regna? qui ista putat humana, sua bona divina judicat?» Quis ergo te sapientem, Laeli, putet, cum ipse tibi loquare contraria? et paulo post virtuti adimas, quae dedisti? Sed videlicet ignorantia veri facit incertam labantemque sententiam.

Deinde quid adjungis? «Sed si aut ingrati universi, aut invidi multi, aut inimici potentes suis virtutem praemiis spoliant.» O quam fragilem, quam inanem virtutem induxisti, si spoliari praemio suo potest! Quae si bona sua divina judicat, ut aiebas, qui possunt existere tam ingrati, tam invidi, tam potentes, qui virtutem spoliare valeant iis bonis, quae fuerint in eam collata divinitus? «Nae illa se, inquit, multis solatiis oblectat; maximeque suo decore seipsa 0610B sustentat.» Quibus solatiis? quo decore? cum in crimen saepe veniat, et in poenam decor ille vertatur. Quid enim, si ut Furius dicebat, «rapiatur, vexetur, exterminetur; egeat, auferantur ei manus, effodiantur oculi, damnetur, vinciatur, uratur, miseris etiam modis necetur,» perdetne suum praemium virtus? An potius peribit ipsa? Minime. Sed et mercedem suam Deo judice accipiet, et vivet, et semper vigebit. Quae si tollas, nihil potest in vita hominum tam inutile, tam stultum videri esse, quam virtus; cujus naturalis bonitas et honestas docere nos potest, animam non esse mortalem, divinumque illi a Deo praemium constitutum. Sed idcirco virtutem ipsam Deus sub persona stultitiae voluit esse celatam, ut mysterium veritatis ac religionis suae esset arcanum; ut has religiones, 0610C sapientiamque terrenam extollentem se altius, sibique multum placentem, vanitatis errorisque damnaret; ut proposita denique difficultate, angustissimus trames ad immortalitatis praemium sublime perduceret.

Docui, ut opinor, cur populus noster apud stultos stultus habeatur. Nam cruciari atque interfici malle, quam 0611A thura tribus digitis comprehensa in focum jactare, 0611A tam ineptum videtur, quam in periculo vitae, alterius animam magis curare quam suam. Nesciunt enim quantum sit nefas adorare aliud praeterquam Deum, qui condidit coelum atque terram; qui humanum genus finxit, inspiravit, luce donavit. Quod si servorum nequissimus habetur, qui dominum suum fuga deserit, isque verberibus, et vinculis, et ergastulo, et cruce, et omni malo dignissimus judicatur; et si filius eodem modo perditus atque impius existimatur qui patrem suum derelinquit, ne illi obsequatur, ob eamque causam dignus putatur, qui sit exhaeres, et cujus nomen in perpetuum de familia deleatur: quanto magis qui Deum deserit, in quem duo vocabula domini et patris aeque veneranda conveniunt? Nam 0611B ille, qui servum pretio comparat, quid in eum beneficii confert, praeter alimenta, quae illi utilitatis suae gratia subministrat? Et qui filium generat, non habet in potestate ut concipiatur, ut nascatur, ut vivat. Unde apparet non esse illum patrem, sed tantummodo generandi ministrum. Quibus ergo suppliciis dignus est desertor ejus, qui et dominus verus, et pater est, nisi quae Deus ipse constituit? qui spiritibus injustis aeternum paravit ignem; quod ipse per vates suos impiis ac rebellibus comminatur.