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The City of God

Chapter 13.--Concerning the Love of Praise, Which, Though It is a Vice, is Reckoned a Virtue, Because by It Greater Vice is Restrained.

Wherefore, when the kingdoms of the East had been illustrious for a long time, it pleased God that there should also arise a Western empire, which, though later in time, should be more illustrious in extent and greatness. And, in order that it might overcome the grievous evils which existed among other nations, He purposely granted it to such men as, for the sake of honor, and praise, and glory, consulted well for their country, in whose glory they sought their own, and whose safety they did not hesitate to prefer to their own, suppressing the desire of wealth and many other vices for this one vice, namely, the love of praise. For he has the soundest perception who recognizes that even the love of praise is a vice; nor has this escaped the perception of the poet Horace, who says,

"You're bloated by ambition? take advice:

Yon book will ease you if you read it thrice." ¹

And the same poet, in a lyric song, hath thus spoken with the desire of repressing the passion for domination:

"Rule an ambitious spirit, and thou hast

A wider kingdom than if thou shouldst join

To distant Gades Lybia, and thus

Shouldst hold in service either Carthaginian." ²

Nevertheless, they who restrain baser lusts, not by the power of the Holy Spirit obtained by the faith of piety, or by the love of intelligible beauty, but by desire of human praise, or, at all events, restrain them better by the love of such praise, are not indeed yet holy, but only less base. Even Tully was not able to conceal this fact; for, in the same books which he wrote, De Republica, when speaking concerning the education of a chief of the state, who ought, he says, to be nourished on glory, goes on to say that their ancestors did many wonderful and illustrious things through desire of glory. So far, therefore, from resisting this vice, they even thought that it ought to be excited and kindled up, supposing that that would be beneficial to the republic. But not even in his books on philosophy does Tully dissimulate this poisonous opinion, for he there avows it more clearly than day. For when he is speaking of those studies which are to be pursued with a view to the true good, and not with the vainglorious desire of human praise, he introduces the following universal and general statement:

"Honor nourishes the arts, and all are stimulated to the prosecution of studies by glory; and those pursuits are always neglected which are generally discredited." ³

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De civitate Dei (CCSL)

Caput XIII: De amore laudis, qui, cum sit uitium, ob hoc uirtus putatur, quia per ipsam uitia maiora cohibentur.

Quamobrem quam diu fuissent regna orientis inlustria, uoluit deus et occidentale fieri, quod tempore esset posterius, sed imperii latitudine et magnitudine inlustrius, idque talibus potissimum concessit hominibus ad domanda grauia mala multarum gentium, qui causa honoris laudis et gloriae consuluerunt patriae, in qua ipsam gloriam requirebant, salutemque eius saluti suae praeponere non dubitauerunt, pro isto uno uitio, id est amore laudis, pecuniae cupiditatem et multa alia uitia conprimentes. nam sanius uidet, qui et amorem laudis uitium esse cognoscit, quod nec poetam fugit Horatium, qui ait:

laudis amore tumes: sunt certa piacula, quae te

ter pure lecto poterunt recreare libello.

idemque in carmine lyrico ad reprimendam dominandi libidinem ita cecinit:

latius regnes auidum domando

spiritum, quam si Libyam remotis

Gadibus iungas et uterque Poenus

seruiat uni.

uerumtamen qui libidines turpiores fide pietatis inpetrato spiritu sancto et amore intellegibilis pulchritudinis non refrenant, melius saltem cupiditate humanae laudis et gloriae non quidem iam sancti, sed minus turpes sunt. etiam Tullius hinc dissimulare non potuit in eisdem libris quos de republica scripsit, ubi loquitur de instituendo principe ciuitatis quem dicit alendum esse gloria, et consequenter commemorat maiores suos multa mira atque praeclara gloriae cupiditate fecisse. huic igitur uitio non solum non resistebant, uerum etiam id excitandum et accendendum esse censebant, putantes hoc utile esse reipublicae. quamquam nec in ipsis philosophiae libris Tullius ab hac peste dissimulet, ubi eam luce clarius confitetur. cum enim de studiis talibus loqueretur, quae utique sectanda sunt fine ueri boni, non uentositate laudis humanae, hanc intulit uniuersalem generalemque sententiam: honos alit artes, omnesque accenduntur ad studia gloria iacentque ea semper, quae apud quosque inprobantur.