Traduction Masquer
The City of God

Chapter 29.--An Exhortation to the Romans to Renounce Paganism.

This, rather, is the religion worthy of your desires, O admirable Roman race,--the progeny of your Scaevolas and Scipios, of Regulus, and of Fabricius. This rather covet, this distinguish from that foul vanity and crafty malice of the devils. If there is in your nature any eminent virtue, only by true piety is it purged and perfected, while by impiety it is wrecked and punished. Choose now what you will pursue, that your praise may be not in yourself, but in the true God, in whom is no error. For of popular glory you have had your share; but by the secret providence of God, the true religion was not offered to your choice. Awake, it is now day; as you have already awaked in the persons of some in whose perfect virtue and sufferings for the true faith we glory: for they, contending on all sides with hostile powers, and conquering them all by bravely dying, have purchased for us this country of ours with their blood; to which country we invite you, and exhort you to add yourselves to the number of the citizens of this city, which also has a sanctuary ¹ of its own in the true remission of sins. Do not listen to those degenerate sons of thine who slander Christ and Christians, and impute to them these disastrous times, though they desire times in which they may enjoy rather impunity for their wickedness than a peaceful life. Such has never been Rome's ambition even in regard to her earthly country. Lay hold now on the celestial country, which is easily won, and in which you will reign truly and for ever. For there shall thou find no vestal fire, no Capitoline stone, but the one true God.

"No date, no goal will here ordain:

But grant an endless, boundless reign." ²

No longer, then, follow after false and deceitful gods; abjure them rather, and despise them, bursting forth into true liberty. Gods they are not, but malignant spirits, to whom your eternal happiness will be a sore punishment. Juno, from whom you deduce your origin according to the flesh, did not so bitterly grudge Rome's citadels to the Trojans, as these devils whom yet ye repute gods, grudge an everlasting seat to the race of mankind. And thou thyself hast in no wavering voice passed judgment on them, when thou didst pacify them with games, and yet didst account as infamous the men by whom the plays were acted. Suffer us, then, to assert thy freedom against the unclean spirits who had imposed on thy neck the yoke of celebrating their own shame and filthiness. The actors of these divine crimes thou hast removed from offices of honor; supplicate the true God, that He may remove from thee those gods who delight in their crimes,--a most disgraceful thing if the crimes are really theirs, and a most malicious invention if the crimes are feigned. Well done, in that thou hast spontaneously banished from the number of your citizens all actors and players. Awake more fully: the majesty of God cannot be propitiated by that which defiles the dignity of man. How, then, can you believe that gods who take pleasure in such lewd plays, belong to the number of the holy powers of heaven, when the men by whom these plays are acted are by yourselves refused admission into the number of Roman citizens even of the lowest grade? Incomparably more glorious than Rome, is that heavenly city in which for victory you have truth; for dignity, holiness; for peace, felicity; for life, eternity. Much less does it admit into its society such gods, if thou dost blush to admit into thine such men. Wherefore, if thou wouldst attain to the blessed city, shun the society of devils. They who are propitiated by deeds of shame, are unworthy of the worship of right-hearted men. Let these, then, be obliterated from your worship by the cleansing of the Christian religion, as those men were blotted from your citizenship by the censor's mark.

But, so far as regards carnal benefits, which are the only blessings the wicked desire to enjoy, and carnal miseries, which alone they shrink from enduring, we will show in the following book that the demons have not the power they are supposed to have; and although they had it, we ought rather on that account to despise these blessings, than for the sake of them to worship those gods, and by worshipping them to miss the attainment of these blessings they grudge us. But that they have not even this power which is ascribed to them by those who worship them for the sake of temporal advantages, this, I say, I will prove in the following book; so let us here close the present argument.

Edition Masquer
De civitate Dei (CCSL)

Caput XXIX: De abiciendo cultu deorum cohortatio ad Romanos.

Haec potius concupisce, o indoles Romana laudabilis, o progenies Regulorum Scaeuolarum Scipionum Fabriciorum; haec potius concupisce, haec ab illa turpissima uanitate et fallacissima daemonum malignitate discerne. si quid in te laudabile naturaliter eminet, nonnisi uera pietate purgatur atque perficitur, inpietate autem disperditur et punitur. nunc iam elige quid sequaris, ut non in te, sed in deo uero sine ullo errore lauderis. tunc enim tibi gloria popularis adfuit, sed occulto diuinae prouidentiae iudicio uera religio quam eligeres defuit. expergiscere, dies est, sicut experrecta es in quibusdam, de quorum uirtute perfecta et pro fide uera etiam passionibus gloriamur, qui usquequaque aduersus potestates inimicissimas confligentes easque fortiter moriendo uincentes sanguine nobis hanc patriam peperere suo. ad quam patriam te inuitamus et exhortamur, ut eius adiciaris numero ciuium, cuius quodammodo asylum est uera remissio peccatorum. non audias degeneres tuos Christo Christianisue detrahentes et accusantes uelut tempora mala, cum quaerant tempora, quibus non sit quieta uita, sed potius secura nequitia. haec tibi numquam nec pro terrena patria placuerunt. nunc iam caelestem arripe, pro qua minimum laborabis, et in ea ueraciter semperque regnabis. illic enim tibi non Vestalis focus, non lapis Capitolinus, sed deus unus et uerus nec metas rerum nec tempora ponit, imperium sine fine dabit. noli deos falsos fallacesque requirere; abice potius atque contemne in ueram emicans libertatem. non sunt di, maligni sunt spiritus, quibus aeterna tua felicitas poena est. non tam Iuno Troianis, a quibus carnalem originem ducis, arces uidetur inuidisse Romanas, quam isti daemones, quos adhuc deos putas, omni genere hominum sedes inuident sempiternas. et tu ipsa non parua ex parte de talibus spiritibus iudicasti, quando ludis eos placasti et per quos homines eosdem ludos fecisti, infames esse uoluisti. patere adseri libertatem tuam aduersus inmundos spiritus, qui tuis ceruicibus inposuerant sacrandam sibi et celebrandam ignominiam suam. actores criminum diuinorum remouisti ab honoribus tuis: supplica deo uero, ut a te remoueat illos deos, qui delectantur criminibus suis, seu ueris, quod ignominiosissimum est, seu falsis, quod malitiosissimum. bene, quod tua sponte histrionibus et scaenicis societatem ciuitatis patere noluisti; euigila plenius. nullo modo his artibus placatur diuina maiestas, quibus humana dignitas inquinatur. quo igitur pacto deos, qui talibus delectantur obsequiis, haberi putas in numero sanctarum caelestium potestatum, cum homines, per quos eadem aguntur obsequia, non putasti habendos in numero qualiumcumque ciuium Romanorum? incomparabiliter superna est ciuitas clarior, ubi uictoria ueritas, ubi dignitas sanctitas, ubi pax felicitas, ubi uita aeternitas. multo minus habet in sua societate tales deos, si tu in tua tales homines habere erubuisti. proinde si ad beatam peruenire desideras ciuitatem, deuita daemonum societatem. indigne ab honestis coluntur, qui per turpes placantur. sic isti a tua pietate remoueantur purgatione Christiana, quomodo illi a tua dignitate remoti sunt notatione censoria. de bonis autem carnalibus, quibus solis mali perfrui uolunt, et de malis carnalibus, quae sola perpeti nolunt, quod neque in his habeant quam putantur habere isti daemones potestatem - quamquam si haberent, deberemus potius etiam ista contemnere, quam propter ista illos colere et eos colendo ad illa, quae nobis inuident, peruenire non posse -, tamen nec in istis eos hoc ualere, quod hi putant, qui propter haec eos coli oportere contendunt, deinceps uidebimus, ut hic sit huius uoluminis modus.