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De civitate Dei (CCSL)

Caput XXX: Quam pudendis prosperitatibus afluere uelint, qui de Christianis temporibus Conqueruntur.

si Nasica ille Scipio uester quondam pontifex uiueret, quem sub terrore belli Punici in suscipiendis Phrygiis sacris, cum uir optimus quaereretur, uniuersus senatus elegit, cuius os fortasse non auderetis aspicere, ipse uos ab hac inpudentia cohiberet. cur enim adflicti rebus aduersis de temporibus querimini Christianis, nisi quia uestram luxuriam cupitis habere securam et perditissimis moribus remota omni molestiarum asperitate diffluere? neque enim propterea cupitis habere pacem et omni genere copiarum abundare, ut his bonis honeste utamini, hoc est modeste sobrie, temperanter pie, sed ut infinita uarietas uoluptatum insanis effusionibus exquiratur, secundisque rebus ea mala oriantur in moribus, quae saeuientibus peiora sunt hostibus. at ille Scipio pontifex maximus uester, ille iudicio totius senatus uir optimus, istam uobis metuens calamitatem nolebat aemulam tunc imperii Romani Carthaginem dirui et decernenti ut dirueretur contradicebat Catoni, timens infirmis animis hostem securitatem, et tamquam pupillis ciuibus idoneum tutorem necessarium uidens esse terrorem. nec eum sententia fefellit: re ipsa probatum est quam uerum diceret. deleta quippe Carthagine magno scilicet terrore Romanae reipublicae depulso et extincto tanta de rebus prosperis orta mala continuo subsecuta sunt, ut corrupta diruptaque concordia prius saeuis cruentisque seditionibus, deinde mox malarum conexione causarum bellis etiam ciuilibus tantae strages ederentur, tantus sanguis effunderetur, tanta cupiditate proscriptionum ac rapinarum ferueret inmanitas, ut Romani illi, qui uita integriore mala metuebant ab hostibus, perdita integritate uitae crudeliora paterentur a ciuibus; eaque ipsa libido dominandi, quae inter alia uitia generis humani meracior inerat uniuerso populo Romano, posteaquam in paucis potentioribus uicit, obtritos fatigatosque ceteros etiam iugo seruitutis obpressit.

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The City of God

Chapter 30.--That Those Who Complain of Christianity Really Desire to Live Without Restraint in Shameful Luxury.

If the famous Scipio Nasica were now alive, who was once your pontiff, and was unanimously chosen by the senate, when, in the panic created by the Punic war, they sought for the best citizen to entertain the Phrygian goddess, he would curb this shamelessness of yours, though you would perhaps scarcely dare to look upon the countenance of such a man. For why in your calamities do you complain of Christianity, unless because you desire to enjoy your luxurious license unrestrained, and to lead an abandoned and profligate life without the interruption of any uneasiness or disaster? For certainly your desire for peace, and prosperity, and plenty is not prompted by any purpose of using these blessings honestly, that is to say, with moderation, sobriety, temperance, and piety; for your purpose rather is to run riot in an endless variety of sottish pleasures, and thus to generate from your prosperity a moral pestilence which will prove a thousandfold more disastrous than the fiercest enemies. It was such a calamity as this that Scipio, your chief pontiff, your best man in the judgment of the whole senate, feared when he refused to agree to the destruction of Carthage, Rome's rival and opposed Cato, who advised its destruction. He feared security, that enemy of weak minds, and he perceived that a wholesome fear would be a fit guardian for the citizens. And he was not mistaken; the event proved how wisely he had spoken. For when Carthage was destroyed, and the Roman republic delivered from its great cause of anxiety, a crowd of disastrous evils forthwith resulted from the prosperous condition of things. First concord was weakened, and destroyed by fierce and bloody seditions; then followed, by a concatenation of baleful causes, civil wars, which brought in their train such massacres, such bloodshed, such lawless and cruel proscription and plunder, that those Romans who, in the days of their virtue, had expected injury only at the hands of their enemies, now that their virtue was lost, suffered greater cruelties at the hands of their fellow-citizens. The lust of rule, which with other vices existed among the Romans in more unmitigated intensity than among any other people, after it had taken possession of the more powerful few, subdued under its yoke the rest, worn and wearied.