{"marius-victor-alethia/0.1":{"o":"Summe et sancte deus, cunctae uirtutis origo,\nomnipotens, quem nec subtili indagine rerum\nmentibus humanis sensu conprendere fas est\net nescire nefas; nam te ratione profunda\nin tribus esse deum, sed tres sic credimus unum,\nut proprias generis species substantia reddat\nindiscreta pio conseruans foedera nexu:\ntu sine principio, pariter sine fine perennis\nsolus semper idem nullique obnoxius aeuo,\ntu spatium rerum, mentis quocumque recessus\ntenditur, excedis spatio neque cingeris ullo;\nnec te qui capiat locus est cum rebus alumnis,\nnec magis ipse locus; nec fas contingere menti,\nquae sit imago tibi, quia fine coercita nullo\nforma fugit sensus, uel qui uirtute beata\nte uegetet motus, quia totus semper ubique es:\ntu mens et sacrae penitus substantia mentis,\ntu ratio et plenae prudens rationis origo,\ntu uirtus, uirtutis apex atque ipsa profecto\ntu uita et genitor uitae lucisque profundae,\ntu lux uera, deus, tu rerum causa uigorque.\na te principium traxit quodcumque repente\nex nihilo emicuit tantoque auctore repletum\nuel uim mentis habet uel formam in mente recepit.","t":"Highest and holy God, origin of all power,\nalmighty, whom human minds are not permitted\nto grasp in understanding by subtle inquiry into things,\nand whom it is wrong not to know; for by deep reason we believe you\nto be God in three, yet the three so to be one\nthat the undivided substance gives each its proper form of its kind,\nkeeping the covenant in a holy bond:\nyou, without beginning, likewise everlasting without end,\nalone always the same and subject to no age;\nyou surpass the extent of things, wherever the recess of the mind\nstretches, and are bounded by no extent;\nthere is no place, with the things it nurtures, that could contain you,\nnor are you yourself more a place; nor may the mind attain\nwhat your image is, since, restrained by no limit,\nyour form escapes the senses, nor what motion\nquickens you with blessed power, since you are always wholly everywhere:\nyou are mind, and the very substance of sacred mind,\nyou are reason and the prudent origin of full reason,\nyou are power, the summit of power, and assuredly\nyou are life itself and begetter of life and of deep light,\nyou are the true light, O God, you the cause and vigor of things.\nFrom you took its beginning whatever suddenly\nflashed forth from nothing and, filled by so great an author,\neither has the force of mind or has received its form in a mind.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 0.1 (CSEL 16:359lines 1–24–360; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/0-1)."},"marius-victor-alethia/0.117":{"o":"criminibus cunctis, quae feci, ignosce benignus;\net uires sensumque animis meritumque dedisti.\nquod si lege metri quicquam peccauerit ordo,\npeccarit sermo inproprius sensusque uacillans —\nincauto passim liceat decurrere uersu —,\nne fidei hinc ullum subeat mensura periclum,\nper legum Christum, qui filius unice tecum\nmaiestate uigens pariter qua spiritus almus\nindeprensa animis saeclorum saecula uiuit\net regnat, sollemne tibi quod consecrat Amen.","t":"Kindly forgive all the crimes I have committed;\nyou have given strength and sense to souls, and merit too.\nBut if the order should offend at all against the law of meter,\nif an improper word should offend, or a wavering sense\n(let it be permitted here and there to run on in careless verse),\nlet no danger to the faith arise from this measure,\nthrough Christ, who, your only Son, with you,\nflourishing in majesty equally with the kindly Spirit,\nlives, beyond the grasp of minds, for ages of ages,\nand reigns: which the solemn Amen consecrates to you.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 0.117 (CSEL 16:363lines 117–126–364; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/0-117)."},"marius-victor-alethia/0.25":{"o":"te dominum natura probat seruata caducis\npartibus et iussam seriem datus ordo fatetur:\ntu dociles numeros distinguens, pondera librans,\nmensuras uarians, modulos motumque gubernans\nalternas seruare uices iugemque recursum\nrerum stare iubes et mentis imagine plenum\naethere mota tibi iam saecula uoluere mundum.\ntu non contentus uno dotare creatum\nmunere, quicquid id est, quod per te uenit in usus:\net plus est aliquid factum melioraque cuncta\nqua sunt parte latent et per se grata placere\ninterior quoque causa facit: nonnulla uigorem\nex aliis acuere suum: contraria quaedam,\nsi certent, plus pacis habent. sic omnia diues\nconditor aduersis etiam cognata elementis\nnectis et a toto fusis uirtutibus imples.\net tamen haec cum sint in maiestate creandi,\nnil horum quae gignis eges mundique peracti\net per te stabili rerum conpage manentis\nnon tibi currit opus promptumque in munere nostro est.","t":"Nature, preserved in its perishable parts, proves you Lord,\nand the order given confesses the sequence you commanded:\nyou, distinguishing docile numbers, weighing weights,\nvarying measures, governing measures and motion,\nbid things keep their alternating turns and stand\nin perpetual recurrence, and bid the world, full of the image of mind,\nmoved by you in the ether, now roll on the ages.\nYou were not content to endow what you created with one\ngift, whatever it is that comes into use through you:\nsomething more has been made, and all things are better\nin the part where they lie hidden, and an inner cause too\nmakes them please, welcome in themselves; some sharpen\ntheir vigor from others; certain contraries,\nif they contend, have more of peace. So, rich\nCreator, you bind all things, making even opposing elements kin,\nand fill them with powers poured out from the whole.\nAnd yet, though these things are within the majesty of your creating,\nyou need none of the things you beget; and the work of the world,\ncompleted and remaining through you in the stable frame of things,\ndoes not run for your sake, and it is plain in your gift to us","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 0.25 (CSEL 16:360lines 25–44; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/0-25)."},"marius-victor-alethia/0.45":{"o":"omnia posse tuum: nec in hoc tua gloria tantum est,\nquod praestanda facis bonus auctor, sed quod et ipsa\nut possint praestare facis causasque secundas\ninuoluis primis, quod qui tua munera sentit\nmunus et ipse tuum est. liquida ratione probasti,\nquod tibi sola, deus, gigni qua cuncta iuberes,\ncausa fuit bonitas, cum iussis uiuere primum\nspiritibus mundoque frui, quem mente gerebas,\nesse datum rebus subitis et cedere late\nin caelum terrasque simul sedemque coruscam\nangelico praebere gregi. quis libera corda\narbitriumque sui largitus mente benigna,\nut fieret uirtutis opus meritisque piorum\nhoc quoque conferres, praestando ut debitor esses.\nnec quod de primis a te regnare creatis\nunus, dum lucis domino uitaeque suoque\ninuidet auctori titulumque hunc appetit, auctor\nmaluit esse mali mortemque inducere terris\ncum scelerum sociis celso deiectus Olympo,\nuirtuti quicquam sacrae praescribere fas est,\ncui satis est fecisse bonum: nec fas erat ulli\nmunus abesse dei laudisque hoc continet almae\nsumma, nec ingratis uitam sensumque negasse\nac proprium mentis per cuncta negotia regnum.\nnam quis fructus inest, genitis nisi libera mens est?","t":"that you can do all things: nor does your glory lie only in this,\nthat as a good author you make what is to be given, but that you make\nthe things themselves able to give, and you wrap secondary causes\nwithin the first, so that whoever feels your gifts\nis himself also your gift. You have shown by clear reason\nthat the only cause for you, O God, to bid all things be begotten\nwas goodness, when to spirits first bidden to live\nand to enjoy the world which you bore in your mind,\nit was given to things suddenly made to exist and to spread far and wide\ninto heaven and earth together, and to provide a glittering seat\nfor the angelic flock. To them with kindly mind you granted\nfree hearts and choice of their own,\nso that there might be a work of virtue, and so that you might confer this also\non the merits of the pious: that by giving you would become a debtor.\nNor, because one of the first beings you created to reign,\nwhile he envies the Lord of light and life and his own\nauthor and covets this title, preferred to be\nthe author of evil and to bring death upon the earth,\ncast down from high Olympus with his partners in crime,\nis it right to dictate anything to sacred power,\nfor which it is enough to have made what is good: nor was it right that anyone\nshould lack the gift of God, and this contains the sum\nof his kindly praise; nor was it right to deny life and sense to the ungrateful,\nand the mind's own rule over all its affairs.\nFor what fruit is there for creatures, unless the mind is free?","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 0.45 (CSEL 16:360lines 45–69–361; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/0-45)."},"marius-victor-alethia/0.70":{"o":"libera mens prorsus nulli est, nisi fas pereundi est.\nfas hoc esse datum nisi peccans nemo probasset.\nhuc addam, quod cuncta sui diuersa uicissim\nexamen conlata tenent atque inde perire\nposse datum cunctis, ut uiuere dulcius esset\nmutuaque alterni conpar mensura pericli\ncederet ad meritum, cum iudice digna seuero\npraemia sanctorum geminaret poena malorum\nuel quod — praefata fas sit dixisse trementi\npace tua, genitor — maius sit forsan apud te\nnon peccasse boni per lubrica tempora uitae\nquam miseris peccasse mali. sed uiderit ista\nmaiestas ut sese habeat censura futuri:\nhoc nobis satis est, quod per te nobile terrae\ninspirans rationis opus de puluere uili,\nut domino ingratum talis quoque uinceret hostem,\nerexisti hominem, quem saeui fraude ueneni\nin mortis laqueos et ad impia Tartara raptum\nsanguine mox proprio, dignatus sumere corpus,\nsedibus ex Erebi cura maiore petitum\nrestituis quam factus erat uitaeque perenni\nreddis et in caelum tecum uehis hoste subacto.","t":"No one at all has a free mind unless he may perish.\nThat this was granted no one would have proved except by sinning.\nTo this I add that all things, diverse, in turn hold\ntheir balance when compared, and that hence the power\nto perish was given to all, so that to live might be sweeter,\nand the equal measure of alternating peril on both sides\nmight go to merit, when, under a severe judge, the punishment of the wicked\nwould double the worthy rewards of the saints;\nor else that (may it be permitted to one trembling to say it,\nhaving first asked your leave, Father) perhaps it counts for more with you\nthat the good have not sinned through the slippery times of life\nthan that the wicked have sinned to their misery. But let your majesty\nsee to these things, and how the judgment of the future stands:\nthis is enough for us, that through you, breathing into earth\nthe noble work of reason from vile dust,\nso that such a creature might conquer the enemy ungrateful to his Lord,\nyou raised up man; and him, snatched by the deceit of savage venom\ninto the snares of death and to impious Tartarus,\nyou soon, deigning to take a body, with your own blood\nsought out from the seats of Erebus with greater care\nthan when he was made, and you restore him and give him back\nto everlasting life and carry him with you into heaven, the enemy subdued.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 0.70 (CSEL 16:361lines 70–91–362; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/0-70)."},"marius-victor-alethia/0.92":{"o":"iamiam nemo patrem temerarius arguat Adam,\nquod leue praescriptum uiolata lege resoluens\nad letum patefecit iter. poena illa parentis\nprima fuit tanti, quia plus est uincere mortem\nquam nescisse mori. patria nunc laetus ab aula\ndespicit aetherios axes et sidera calcat\ndispositosque uocat uentura in regna ministros,\nquos iterum formauit aquis docuitque renasci,\nquae totum genuit, patris sapientia uerbi.\nin quo te, deus alme, precor, qui numine prono\ndas sentire animis et uerum pectora cogis\nignaro quoque uate loqui, da nosse precanti,\ndum teneros formare animos et corda paramus\nad uerum uirtutis iter puerilibus annis,\ninclita legiferi quod pandunt scrinia Moysis,\nquae sit origo poli uel quae primordia mundi,\narcanamque fidem qui toto excusserit aucta\npestis et in mores penitus descenderit error,\nquaque iterum redeat uerum ritusque profanos\npellat et aeternae reseret sacra mystica uitae.\nda simul et mentem, da congrua tempora menti,\nda studium, tanto ne desit cura labori,\nsensumque bonum studii quodque omnia nota\niure supercurrit ualidoque includit amictu,\nne damnes, tantum quod tam reus audeo munus.","t":"Now let no one rashly accuse father Adam\nbecause, by breaking the light command and violating the law,\nhe opened the way to death. That punishment of our parent\nwas the beginning of so great a gain, because it is more to conquer death\nthan never to have known how to die. Now, glad, from his Father's hall\nhe looks down on the ethereal poles and treads the stars underfoot,\nand calls the ministers appointed for the kingdoms to come,\nwhom he formed again by water and taught to be reborn:\nhe, the Wisdom of the Father's Word, which begot the whole.\nIn him, kindly God, I pray you, who with favoring power\ngive minds to perceive and compel hearts to speak the truth\neven when the poet does not know it: grant me, as I pray, to know,\nwhile I prepare to form tender minds and hearts\nfor the true way of virtue in their boyish years,\nwhat the famous book-chests of lawgiving Moses unfold,\nwhat the origin of the sky is, or what the first beginnings of the world,\nand what plague, grown strong, shook the secret faith out of the whole world,\nand how error sank deep into morals,\nand by what way the truth returns again, drives out profane rites\nand unlocks the mystic rites of eternal life.\nGrant too a mind, grant fit times for the mind,\ngrant zeal, so that care may not be lacking for so great a labor,\nand a good sense for the study, and that which by right runs over\nall that is known and encloses it in a strong mantle,\nso that you may not condemn me because, guilty as I am, I dare so great a task.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 0.92 (CSEL 16:362lines 92–116–363; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/0-92)."},"marius-victor-alethia/1.1":{"o":"Ante polos caelique diem mundique tenebras,\nante operum formas uel res uel semina rerum,\naeternum sine fine retro sine fine futuri\nesse subest cui semper, erat deus unus, apud quem\nuiuebat genitus uerbum deus et simul almus\nspiritus, arcani uitalis summa uigoris.\nuna trium quo se uegetans substantia nexu\ningenita (sese) semper uirtute beabat\nregnabatque potens, in maiestate creandi\niam res et causas rerum casusque futuros\net facienda uidens gignendaque mente capaci\nsaecula dispiciens et quicquid tempora uoluunt\npraesens semper habens. inmensum mole beata\nregnum erat ipse suum, regni nec teste carebat,\nuirtus trina deus, qui primum semine nullo\ncorpora dans rebus, dum res existere cogit,\nut nostrum faceret munus, quod solus habebat,\nsolus norat opus, ditem absoluentia mundum\ncuncta simul genuit, sed partibus edita certo\nlimite distinguens speciali protulit ortu,\nmotus ut in seriem iam tempora conderet ordo.\nnam nec, sacrilegi sensit quod lingua furoris,\ncasus mentis inops, dum nescia semina uoluit,\ntam prudens contorsit opus, nec dicere natum\nante diem fas est, quia tempore nata mouentur\net nullum tunc tempus erat, neque credere retro\naeternum ac stabilem semper tenuisse uigorem;","t":"Before the poles and the daylight of heaven and the darkness of the world,\nbefore the forms of works, or things, or the seeds of things,\nthere was one God, to whom being always belongs,\neternal without end backward and without end in what is to come; with him\nlived God the begotten Word and at the same time the kindly\nSpirit, the sum of hidden, life-giving vigor.\nBy this bond the one substance of the three, quickening itself,\nunbegotten, always blessed itself by its power\nand reigned in might; in the majesty of creating\nseeing already things, and the causes of things, and future events,\nand what was to be made and begotten, surveying the ages\nwith capacious mind, and always holding as present\nwhatever the times roll on. Immense in blessed greatness,\nhe was his own kingdom, nor did he lack a witness of his kingdom,\nGod, threefold power, who first, from no seed,\ngiving bodies to things as he compels things to exist,\nso as to make our gift, which he alone possessed,\nalone knew the work: he begot all things at once,\ncompleting a rich world, but, distinguishing what he brought forth into parts\nby a fixed limit, brought them out each in its own origin,\nso that order might now set times in a sequence of motion.\nFor neither did chance, lacking mind, as the tongue of sacrilegious\nmadness thought, while it rolled unknowing seeds,\ntwist together so prudent a work, nor may one say that what was born\nexisted before the day, since things born in time are moved\nand then there was no time, nor believe that the world\nalways held, backward, an eternal and stable vigor;","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 1.1 (CSEL 16:365lines 1–27; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/1-1)."},"marius-victor-alethia/1.108":{"o":"quae iubar obducit radiis lucisque profundae\nquadam nocte tegit signataque limite certo\ntempora dissiciens, certa statione peracta\npraecipitisque poli numerosa uice redire,\nire semel iussum, reuolutum conficit annum\nartificemque sacrum mira compage fatetur.\nQuinta dies mouit spirantia corpora ponto,\nquae liquor ex facili genuit sparsitque profundo,\ndelicias pelagi, uario quas germine miris\nformauit natura modis, quae iussa creare\npro toto partes etiam sibi uiuere rerum\ncogit et in brutas animam dedit ire figuras,\nquaeque salis tumidi squalentia gurgite terga\nnullo fine leuent molli differta sagina,\nni uelox uastis praescribat terminus aeui.\ncorporibus fauet ipse liquor genitalis alumnis,\nqui terrae quoque germen alit cumulataque membra\ndissoluit potius, quae plus extenderat umor.\nhinc uolucres quoque, molle genus, traxere uigorem.\ndum liquidas conformat aquas inmissaque pontum\nuita subit, feruent iterum tumida aequora partu\nnon sibi feta suo, iamiamque emissa profundo\nsquamea turba salo summas dum surgit in undas,\nquae uolitabat aquis, sensim natat aere puro\net docet aetherios contingere posse recessus\nhoc animal, nitidis quod rursum nascitur undis.","t":"the moon, which veils the radiance with its rays and\ncovers it with a kind of night of deep light, and, dividing times\nmarked by a fixed limit, having completed its fixed station,\nbidden to return in the numbered turn of the headlong pole,\nto go its course once, completes the revolving year\nand confesses the sacred craftsman by the marvelous frame.\nThe fifth day set breathing bodies in motion in the sea,\nwhich the liquid readily begot and scattered in the deep,\nthe delights of the sea, which nature, bidden to create,\nformed from varied seed in wonderful ways;\nnature compels parts of things to live also for themselves\ninstead of for the whole, and gave the soul to pass into brute shapes,\ncreatures that would raise their scaly backs from the swelling salt flood\nwithout end, stuffed with soft fat,\nunless a swift limit of life were prescribed for the huge ones.\nThe begetting liquid itself favors the bodies of its nurslings,\nthe liquid that also nourishes the shoots of the earth, and rather dissolves\nlimbs heaped up, which the moisture had stretched further.\nFrom it the birds too, a soft race, drew their vigor.\nWhile life, sent in, shapes the liquid waters and enters the sea,\nthe swelling seas seethe again with offspring\nnot born for themselves, and now the scaly crowd, sent forth from the deep,\nwhile it rises from the salt into the topmost waves,\nthe creature that was flitting on the waters gradually swims in pure air,\nand teaches that this animal, which is born again from bright waves,\ncan reach the ethereal recesses.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 1.108 (CSEL 16:368lines 108–133–369; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/1-108)."},"marius-victor-alethia/1.134":{"o":"Iam bis terna dies claro radiabat Olympo\ntertia post calidi genitalia munera solis,\niamque tepens tellus grauidos laxauerat artus,\ncum maiora agitans iussit deus edere terram\nomne animal, ratio uegetat quod sola mouendi,\ncui seruire datum quo rerum postulat usus.\nnec mora: prorumpunt fetis uitalia terris\npignora, quaeque sui generis sortita figuras,\nindiga iam domini, quem propter cuncta parauit,\nqui solus potis est etiam facienda creare.\nHinc iam fas mihi sit quaedam praestringere, quaedam\nsollicito trepidum penitus transmittere cursu,\nmutata quaedam serie transmissa referre.\npostquam cuncta datus generatim protulit ordo,\nquae mandante deo tum plenus mente parentis\nfilius omnipotens faceret sanctusque probaret\nueris plena bonis et multa dote referta\nspiritus ac longam in seriem mansura foueret,\ncausa datur mundo propior, cui iusta uicissim\ncausa prior. iam mundus erat, iam sidera et ortus\naetheraque et uitreum pelagus terraeque uirentes:\nni spectator adest, quem tantae gloria molis\nimpleat atque oculis auidum per singula ducat,\nquid possint conferre deo? possessio nulla est,\nsi rerum possessor abest. tunc rector Olympi\n'stat data summa operi, bona sunt quaecumque creaui.","t":"Now the sixth day was shining on bright Olympus,\nthe third after the begetting gifts of the hot sun,\nand now the warm earth had relaxed her pregnant limbs,\nwhen God, intending greater things, bade the earth bring forth\nevery animal that the faculty of moving alone quickens,\nto which it was given to serve where the need of things requires.\nNo delay: from the pregnant lands burst forth living\noffspring, each allotted the shapes of its own kind,\nnow in need of a master, for whose sake he prepared all things,\nhe who alone can create even what is still to be made.\nFrom here let me be allowed to touch on some things briefly, to pass\nover some entirely in anxious, hurried course,\nand to tell some things I passed over in a changed order.\nAfter the given order had brought forth all things kind by kind,\nwhich, at God's command, the almighty Son, full of the Father's mind,\nwould make, and the holy Spirit would approve\nas full of true goods and filled with rich endowment,\nand would cherish to remain in a long succession,\na nearer cause is given to the world, which in its turn has a just\nprior cause. Now there was a world, now stars and risings,\nand ether and the glassy sea and green lands:\nunless a beholder is present whom the glory of so great a mass\nmay fill and lead, eager, through each thing with his eyes,\nwhat could they contribute to God? There is no possession\nif the possessor of things is absent. Then the ruler of Olympus:\n“The sum of the work is given; good are all the things I have created.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 1.134 (CSEL 16:369lines 134–159–370; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/1-134)."},"marius-victor-alethia/1.160":{"o":"nunc hominem faciamus' ait, 'qui regnet in orbe\net sit imago dei. similem decet esse creanti,\nliber ad arbitrium fruitur qui mente creatis.'\ndixerat haec et factus homo, seu corpore toto\nsine anima ac specie, forsan quo more futura,\nquo facienda facit, quo factum semper habebat\niam prope (prae)terito quod nondum accesserat aeuo.\net mox praepositum rebus cum coniuge iussit\ncrescere per subolem terrasque replere uacantes.\niam bene sic dicente deo natura creandi\ninposita est cunctis, quae per se uiua mouentur.\nSeptima lux magnum uidit cessasse parentem,\nsed generum numeros tantum desisse creare\net requiem tenuisse suam, meritoque sacrata est,\ndiuersum quae uidit opus; namque hoc quoque plenum est\nuirtutis cessasse deum, posuisse labores.\nformam progenitis, qua praemia digna pararent,\nbis ternis satis est dominum spectasse diebus:\nseptima lux docuit ueneranda exempla quietis,\nquam sperare iubet populos pro munere uitae\nsemper post operum tribuendam facta piorum.\nhaec quoque lux illa est, dira qua Tartara Christus\nsoluit et euicto reditum patefecit Auerno,\ndum requiescit humi patriam rediturus in aulam.","t":"Now let us make man,” he says, “to reign in the world\nand to be the image of God. It is fitting that he be like his Creator,\nwho, free in his choice, enjoys created things with a mind.”\nHe had said this, and man was made, whether in his whole body,\nwithout soul and shape, perhaps in the way in which he makes things to come,\nin which he makes things yet to be made, in which he always held what was made\nalready as almost past, though it had not yet come in time.\nAnd soon he bade him, set over things, with his wife,\nincrease through offspring and fill the empty lands.\nNow, as God spoke thus well, the nature of begetting\nwas placed in all things that move of themselves alive.\nThe seventh light saw the great Parent cease,\nbut cease only from creating the numbers of kinds,\nand keep his rest; and deservedly it was hallowed,\nsince it saw a different work; for this too is full\nof power, that God ceased and laid down his labors.\nThat it was enough for the Lord to have looked for twice three days\non the form of what he had begotten, by which they might prepare worthy rewards:\nthe seventh light taught a venerable example of rest,\nwhich he bids peoples hope for as the reward of life,\nalways to be given after the works of the pious.\nThis too is that light on which Christ loosed dread Tartarus\nand opened a way back from conquered Avernus,\nwhile he rests in the ground, about to return to his Father's hall.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 1.160 (CSEL 16:370lines 160–183; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/1-160)."},"marius-victor-alethia/1.184":{"o":"sic cessare deus, sic otia sumere nouit,\nplus ut agat cessans. pariter sine fine quiescens\nac sine fine operans seriemque et tempora miscens\ncessando consummat opus, quodcumque crearat,\nut faciat primumque hominem iam corpore donet,\nqui postremus erat — nam causas condere rerum\nnon quod membra dare est —, seu, cum sic septima currat,\nut maneat quoque sexta dies, quia sexta profecto\nhoc quod prima deo est, praesto omnia semper habenti,\nquae nobis fugiunt, post quaeuis tempora summus\nauctor adhuc hominem sexta sic luce figurat,\nsiue, ut nos merito rebus praestare creatis,\nquos facit ipse manu, doceat, manifestius edit\nnunc quod factus homo est solidoque hoc intimat orbi:\n'omnia quaeque mouent anima generata iubente,\nuos operante deo.' tanto quis digna parenti\nlaudis sacra ferat, qui mundum atque omnia raptim\nimperio explicuit dumque imperat esse peregit?\nnos facit esse mora, nos circum impendere sacri\ndignatur curam studii suadetque patrari\npaene laboris opus; facilem nam cedere limum\net flexum formamque sequi qua ducitur arte\narripit ac sacra qualem iam mente gerebat\nexplicat in speciem, flatuque inmissa uaporo\nuita rigauit humum. tellus mollita liquore\npartim facta caro est: sanguis, qui lubricus umor,\ndistendit molles per nota foramina uenas:","t":"So God knows how to cease, how to take leisure,\nso as to do more by ceasing. Resting alike without end\nand working without end, and mingling sequence and times,\nby ceasing he completes the work, whatever he had created,\nso as to make the first man and now to endow him with a body,\nhim who was last (for to found the causes of things\nis not the same as to give limbs); or, while the seventh day thus runs,\nso that the sixth day also remains, because the sixth is surely\nto God what the first is, to him who always has present\nall the things that escape us, after any amount of time the supreme\nAuthor still fashions man thus in the sixth light;\nor, to teach that we, whom he makes with his own hand,\ndeservedly surpass created things, he sets forth more plainly\nnow that man was made, and declares this to the whole world:\n“All things that move by a soul were brought forth at God's command;\nyou, by God's working.” Who could bring to so great a parent\nworthy offerings of praise, who unfolded the world and all things in a moment\nby command and, while he commands, accomplished their being?\nUs a delay makes to be; around us he deigns to spend\nthe care of sacred zeal, and he persuades himself to carry out\nalmost a work of labor; for he takes the easy clay\nthat yields and bends and follows the form to which it is led by art,\nand unfolds it into the shape that he already bore in his holy mind,\nand life, sent in by a warm breath,\nwatered the ground. The earth, softened by the moisture,\nbecame flesh in part: blood, which is a slippery fluid,\nfilled the soft veins through the known openings:","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 1.184 (CSEL 16:370lines 184–210–371; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/1-184)."},"marius-victor-alethia/1.211":{"o":"et mentis iam plenus homo est terraque repulsus\nexilit ac dominum prudens rationis adorat.\nnon aliter ruptis mandata resurgere bustis\ncorpora uera fides, cum caelo inlapsa patenti\nmaiestas grauidae reserat caua uiscera terrae.\nnam quod non habuit, cum sic e puluere summo\ninformante deo propriae uirtutis egena\nediderit, facile est, ut iudice reddat eodem\niussa quod accepit. sic totum forma futuri est\nquod prius est genitum, dumque ipse ita conditur Adam,\nut repetita sacrum geminet narratio munus,\nutile praeseritur populos quandoque renasci.\nquorum fonte dato iam tunc et origine summa,\nEoos aperit felix qua terra recessus,\neditiore globo nemoris paradisus amoeni\npangitur et teretis distinguitur ordine siluae.\nhic, ubi iam spatiis limes discernitur aequis\nsolis et aeternum paribus uer temperat horis,\nillic quaeque suis diues stat fructibus arbor\npomaque succiduis pelluntur mitia pomis,\nquae sunt blanda oculis et miri plena uigoris\nmembra animosque fouent pascuntque sapore et odore.","t":"and now man is full of mind, and, pushed off from the earth,\nhe leaps up and, wise, adores the Lord of reason.\nNot otherwise does true faith hold that bodies, at the command,\nwill rise again from broken tombs, when majesty, descending\nfrom the open heaven, unlocks the hollow womb of the pregnant earth.\nFor since, when God formed it thus from the surface of the dust,\nit brought forth what it did not have, lacking any power of its own,\nit is easy for it, with the same one as judge, to give back\nwhen commanded what it received. So all that was begotten first\nis a figure of what is to come, and while Adam himself is so made\nthat the narrative, repeated, doubles the sacred gift,\nit is usefully sown beforehand that peoples will one day be reborn.\nTheir source and highest origin being given already then,\nwhere the happy land opens its eastern recesses,\non a higher rise the paradise of a pleasant grove\nis planted and set out in the order of a rounded wood.\nHere, where the course of the sun is already divided into equal spaces\nand spring tempers eternity with equal hours,\nthere each tree stands rich with its own fruits,\nand ripe fruits are driven off by fruits that follow them,\nwhich are alluring to the eyes and full of wonderful vigor,\nand cherish and feed limbs and spirits with taste and smell.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 1.211 (CSEL 16:371lines 211–232–372; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/1-211)."},"marius-victor-alethia/1.233":{"o":"tellus sidereos uibrat distincta colores\nsemper flore nouo, quaeque arida tegmine sicco\niam fragiles soluunt calamos, animata uigore\nmuneris ambrosii spirantia cinnama fundunt,\nsed nec quod Medus redolet uel crine soluto\nfragrat Achaemenius, quod molli diues amomo\nAssyrius messisque rubens Mareotica nardo,\nquod Tartesiaci frutices, quod uirga Sabaei,\nquodque Palaestinus lacero flet uulnere ramus\naera diuerso cessant infundere sensu.\nnamque huc cuncta deus pariter, quae singula certis\naccepit natura locis, conferta regessit:\nmotaque dum leni uibrat nemus aura meatu,\nunum ex diuerso nectar permiscet odore\nfitque nouum munus, sibi nulla quod asserat arbor,\nquaque tremens blando sensim iactata fragore\ncommotis trepidat foliis, sonat arbore cuncta\nhymnum silua deo modulataque sibilat aura\ncarmina: nec uacuus uanum quatit aera motus,\nquippe apud auctorem, qui totum mole sub una\nres rebus nectens alterna lege retentat,\nnil uacat aut uanam species tenet ulla figuram.\natque ipsum fortasse nemus siluaeque coruscae\nargumenta operum sunt et plantaria rerum,\ninque hominum cultum nudo quod nomine uenit,\ncertum ibi corpus habet proprioque in stipite floret.","t":"The earth, adorned, flashes starry colors,\nalways with new flowers; and plants which, with a dry covering,\nnow release their fragile reeds, quickened by the vigor\nof an ambrosial gift pour out fragrant cinnamon;\nnor do the scent of the Mede, or of the Achaemenian\nwith his loosened hair, or of the Assyrian rich in soft amomum,\nand the Mareotic harvest red with nard,\nor the Tartessian shrubs, or the Sabaean twig,\nor what the Palestinian branch weeps from its torn wound,\nfail to pour into the air their differing savors.\nFor here God gathered together all the things which nature\nreceived one by one in fixed places, and heaped them in one:\nand while the grove, stirred, quivers in a gentle breeze's passage,\nit mingles one nectar out of diverse fragrances,\nand there arises a new gift, which no tree may claim as its own;\nand where, trembling, gradually tossed with a soft rustling,\nit quivers with stirred leaves, the wood sounds in every tree\na hymn to God, and the breeze whistles measured\nsongs: nor does an empty motion shake the air in vain,\nsince with the Author, who, binding things to things in one mass,\nholds them in by alternating law, nothing is idle,\nnor does any appearance hold an empty shape.\nAnd perhaps the grove itself and the glittering woods\nare tokens of works and seedbeds of things,\nand what comes into human use with a bare name\nhas there a definite body and flowers on its own stem.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 1.233 (CSEL 16:372lines 233–258–373; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/1-233)."},"marius-victor-alethia/1.259":{"o":"gloria simplicitas, studium uigilantia somnus\ncura, salus terror, facundia gratia, motus\naffectusque animae stimuli, custodia uirtus,\net totum quod mundus habet, quia nascitur illic,\nhic uiget ac mentes agitat sensusque ministrat.\nsed satis hoc fidei est, laeto quod semine surgens\nhinc arbor uitae celsis petat aera pomis,\nillinc diuerso nocitura peritia fructu\nexamen rerum suspenderit arbore legis.\nat gremium sacri nemoris, quod silua coronat,\nfons rigat et diti prolem uirtute maritat,\nquadrifido tumidum laetus caput amne resoluens,\nditior oceano; iugi nam gurgite promptus\nhic proprios donat latices, ille accipit omnes\net non sentit aquas. minor est qui crescere tantis\nfluctibus infusis quam qui decrescere nescit\namnibus effusis. primo sed flumine Fison\nprosilit exultans, pars fontis quarta beati,\nedens natura quas dat prudentia dotes,\nGangetisque replet populos ac regna Euilantum\ndistendit limo terrasque et semina uoluens\nquae facit arua serit. nudis qua squalet harenis,\naurea fulgentis inter ramenta metalli\nfulmineo rutilans carbunculus igne coruscat\nac uiridi radiat fulgescens luce smaragdus.","t":"glory, simplicity, zeal, vigilance, sleep,\ncare, salvation, terror, eloquence, grace, the motions\nand passions of the soul, its goads, watchfulness, virtue,\nand all that the world has: because it is born there,\nit flourishes here and stirs minds and serves the senses.\nBut this is enough for faith: that, rising from a glad seed,\non this side the tree of life seeks the air with lofty fruits,\non that side knowledge, harmful with its different fruit,\nhas hung the testing of things on the tree of the law.\nBut the bosom of the holy grove, which the forest crowns,\na spring waters, and weds its offspring with rich power,\ngladly releasing its swelling head in a fourfold river,\nricher than the ocean; for, ready with its unceasing flood,\nthe spring gives its own waters, the ocean receives all\nand does not feel the waters. Less is he who cannot grow\nwhen such floods are poured in than he who cannot diminish\nwhen rivers are poured out. But in the first stream Pishon\nleaps forth exulting, the fourth part of the blessed spring,\nbringing the gifts that nature bestows as prudence,\nand fills the peoples of the Ganges and swells the kingdoms of Havilah\nwith its mud, and, rolling lands and seeds,\nsows the fields that it makes. Where it lies rough with bare sands,\namong the golden flakes of gleaming metal\nthe carbuncle flashes, glowing with lightning fire,\nand the emerald shines, gleaming with green light.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 1.259 (CSEL 16:373lines 259–283–374; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/1-259)."},"marius-victor-alethia/1.28":{"o":"nam quod corporibus constat coepisse fatendum est.\ncorpus enim, quod plaga terit, quod tempora soluunt\natque abolent ipso, qui tendit in ultima, fine,\nprincipium ostendit, quod quae sortita probantur\naut facta credi par est aut nata putari.\nnam quae nascuntur cum tempore mota ferantur,\ntempora post mundi molem currentia nasci\nquod prius est. et corporibus constare necesse est\nnon potuisse probant, fieri potuisse fatentur.\nfactum igitur constat mundum, quod quisque subactus\nannuit et uero conuictus dogmate credit;\nconcessit fecisse deum, qui numine uerbi\net uirtute potens quicquid natura putatur\ndisposuit, iussit, monuit munusque creatum\nsucciduis uicibus semper fugitiua reformans\nsustinet ac uolucrem retrahens circumrotat orbem.\net si maluerit totum dissoluere raptim,\nesse adimat rebus nec solum hoc esse, sed ipsum\npraeteritis tollat qua scit ratione fuisse.\npro uis quanta patris, pro quanta est gloria uerbi!\nQuis modus in toto, quae summa in munere, cuius\nexcelsi conuexa poli terraeque iacentes\npars prima est operis? sed terras texerat aequor\naeraque in medio sordenti nube madentem\numbra poli densis urguebat caeca tenebris.","t":"for what consists of bodies must be confessed to have begun.\nFor a body, which a blow wears down, which times dissolve\nand abolish by the very end that tends toward the last things,\nshows a beginning, since things shown to have received their lot\nmust fittingly be believed either made or born.\nFor since things that are born are carried along in motion with time,\nand times that run after the mass of the world are born,\nwhat is prior, and what must consist of bodies,\nthey prove could not have been eternal, and confess could have been made.\nIt is agreed, then, that the world was made, to which everyone, compelled,\nassents, and, convinced by true doctrine, believes;\nhe has granted that God made it, who, powerful by the might of the Word\nand by his power, arranged, commanded and directed whatever is thought\nto be nature, and sustains his created gift, always re-forming\nfleeting things in successive turns,\nand, drawing it back, rolls round the swift globe.\nAnd if he should wish to dissolve the whole in a moment,\nhe could take existence from things, and not only this existence,\nbut take from past things the very ground by which he knows that they were.\nO how great the power of the Father, O how great the glory of the Word!\nWhat measure is there in the whole, what sum in the gift, of which\nthe vaults of the high pole and the lands that lie below\nare the first part of the work? But the sea had covered the lands,\nand the blind shadow of the pole pressed with dense darkness\nthe air between, wet with filthy cloud,","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 1.28 (CSEL 16:365lines 28–52–366; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/1-28)."},"marius-victor-alethia/1.284":{"o":"nec minor inde Geon, placidis sed mitior undis\nNiliacas attollit aquas arsuraque late\ndiluuio tegit arua pio caeloque repugnans\ntemperat Aethiopum stagnis refluentibus auras.\ntertius hinc rapido procurrens gurgite Tigris\nit comes Euphrati, iuncta quos mole ruentes\ntellus uicta cauo sorbet patefacta barathro,\ndonec in Armeniae saltus ac Medica pascua\nquos non sustinuit nec iam capit euomat amnes.\nsed Tigris nigro tamquam indignatus Auerno\nprosilit aetherias motu maiore sub auras\net rursum spelaea subit mersusque cauernis\nintus agit fremitus et fortior obice factus\nmultiplicatur aquis artoque citatior antro\nexit et Assyrios celeri secat agmine campos.\niustior Euphrates, diti qui gurgite largus\ninrigat arentes subiectae Persidis agros\nmollibus elicitus riuis atque omnibus aeque\nseruit et humanos totum se praebet in usus,\ndonec siccus aquis nomen quoque prodigus ipsum\nconsumat terris, pelagi quod debuit undis.","t":"Nor less is the Gihon, which follows, but milder with calm waves,\nit raises the waters of the Nile and covers with a kindly flood\nthe fields that would otherwise burn far and wide, and, resisting the sky,\ntempers the air of the Ethiopians with its refluent pools.\nThird from there, running forth with rapid flood, the Tigris\ngoes as companion to the Euphrates; these, rushing in one joined mass,\nthe conquered earth, opening, swallows in a hollow chasm,\nuntil into the glades of Armenia and the Median pastures\nit vomits out the rivers it could not hold and no longer contains.\nBut the Tigris, as if indignant at black Avernus,\nleaps forth with greater motion under the breezes of the sky\nand again goes beneath caverns, and, sunk in hollows,\nroars within and, made stronger by the barrier,\nis multiplied in its waters, and, faster from the narrow cave,\ncomes out and cuts the Assyrian plains with swift column.\nMore just is the Euphrates, which, generous with rich flood,\nwaters the dry fields of Persia below,\ndrawn out in soft streams, and serves all equally,\nand offers itself wholly to human uses,\nuntil, dry of waters, prodigal, it spends even its very name\nin the lands, which it owed to the waves of the sea.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 1.284 (CSEL 16:374lines 284–304–375; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/1-284)."},"marius-victor-alethia/1.305":{"o":"Haec igitur cuncto naturae ditia fetu\nregna, tot et tanta uirtutum dote refertae\ndeliciae prima est hominis possessio primi,\nin quam deductus uita exultare perenni\naccola iussus erat: iamque inter munera prima,\ndum fit dignus adhuc discitque labore mereri,\nquo potitur, plenae fructum uirtutis adeptus\nexpers curarum uotique ignarus agebat.\ntantum apud auctorem est meriti pro nomine summi\nnondum aliquid meruisse mali. quantumne putamus\nsoluere posse patrem rediturae in tempora uitae,\ncuius apud famulos iam tunc largitio prima,\nnon merces paradisus erat? quodque illa seuerae\nlegis scita tulit libertatemque repressit,\nspondet adhuc maiora bonis et praemia seruat,\nqui causam meritis statuit, cum 'uescere' dixit\n'arboribus cunctis: hanc tantum horrere memento,\nquae diuersarum gestans examina rerum\ntunc uos scisse bonum, morsu cum laesa profano,\nnosse malum faciet, mortis quod poena sequatur.'\ntali lege data ratio docet alta parentis,\nquod non mortalem fieri, sed uiuere dignum\nesse hominem uoluit, dignum obseruantia parua\nquem faceret. pro quanta dei indulgentia magni est!","t":"These kingdoms, then, rich with every offspring of nature,\ndelights filled with so many and so great endowments of virtues,\nare the first possession of the first man,\ninto which he had been led and bidden to exult\nas a dweller in everlasting life: and now, among the first gifts,\nwhile he becomes still worthy and learns by labor to deserve\nwhat he possesses, having obtained the fruit of full virtue,\nhe lived free of cares and not knowing what it was to wish.\nSo great is the merit with the Author, instead of the highest title,\nnot yet to have deserved any evil. How much, then, do we think\nthe Father can pay for the life that will return in the times to come,\nwith whom, already then, paradise was for his servants\na first largess, not a wage? And in that he brought in the decrees\nof a severe law and restrained their freedom,\nhe still pledges greater things to the good and keeps rewards in store,\nhe who established the ground for merits when he said: “Eat\nof all the trees: remember only to dread this one,\nwhich, bearing the testing of diverse things,\nwill make you, who then knew good, know evil\nwhen it is wounded by a profane bite, and the penalty of death will follow.”\nBy giving such a law, the deep reasoning of the Father teaches\nthat he willed man not to be made mortal but to be worthy\nto live, and that a slight observance would make him worthy.\nO how great is the kindness of the great God!","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 1.305 (CSEL 16:375lines 305–328–376; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/1-305)."},"marius-victor-alethia/1.329":{"o":"nostrae laudis opus fieri, quod sponte benigna\nlargitur famulis, nostri cupit esse laboris\net se quod donat mauult debere uideri.\nat tu, quem sacri nectit custodia iuris,\nne querere, angustis quod clausa licentia metis\nparte sit orba sui: nihil hac tibi lege recisum est.\nante potestatem tantum terraeque marisque\nnanctus eras, nunc iam regni uitaeque perennis,\nnunc et mortis habes. tunc ut sibi cuncta parentem\nindulsisse pium rudis incola crederet orbis,\nomne animal, quod adhuc tellus dare iussa creauit\net tacito, uernans in corpore, semine fudit,\niussit adesse deus proprioque obedire tyranno,\nsummaque post generum uocitamina dicere, partis\nnomina ceu famulis rebus quo figeret, Adam:\nammonitu domini tanta inter munera uitae\nqui dedit et nomen proprium. nec fit mora: sistit\nomne genus natura deo, quacumque creatum est\nmundi parte noui. coeunt tam dissona motu\ntemporis unius spatio, quae fortia nisu,\nmolli lenta gradu, rapido promptissima cursu\nimpete praecipiti uel prona per aera labi\nuel subnixa fretis et pondere lubrica ferri\ninstruxit genitor, diuerso munere donans,\narmauitque manu cornu pede dente ueneno","t":"He desires that what he bestows on his servants of his own kindly will\nshould become the work of our praise; he desires it to be the fruit of our labor,\nand prefers that what he gives should seem owed by him.\nBut you, whom the custody of the sacred law binds,\ndo not complain that your liberty, shut within narrow bounds,\nis robbed of a part of itself: nothing is cut off from you by this law.\nBefore, you had obtained power only over earth and sea;\nnow you have power over the kingdom and everlasting life,\nand now over death as well. Then, so that the inexperienced inhabitant of the world\nmight believe that the kindly Parent had granted him all things,\nGod bade every animal which the earth, bidden to give, had so far created\nand poured out by silent seed, springing up in body,\nto come and obey its own ruler,\nand Adam, after the highest names of the kinds, to speak the names\nof the parts, by which to fix them on things as on servants:\nhe who, at the Lord's prompting, among such great gifts of life,\ngave each its own name as well. No delay: nature sets before God\nevery kind, from whatever part of the new world\nit was created. Creatures so different in motion gather\nwithin one moment of time: those the Father had equipped,\nstrong in effort, or slow with soft step, or most ready in rapid course,\nto glide with headlong onrush through the air,\nor, supported on the seas, to be carried slippery by their weight,\nendowing them with different gifts,\nand armed them with hand, horn, foot, tooth, venom,","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 1.329 (CSEL 16:376lines 329–353–377; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/1-329)."},"marius-victor-alethia/1.354":{"o":"atque aliis, quibus artis inops animique minoris\nconcretum muniuit opus. sed nemo animantum\naequa homini specie uultuque habituque uigebat\net prope conlatus maiorem addebat honorem,\ntotque inter duplici uitam inlustrantia sexu\ninpar solus erat, dudum qui coniugis aptam\nin se materiem gignendae ignarus habebat.\nergo opus adgreditur notum deus ictaque raptim\ncorda uiri tanto dissoluit languida somno,\nmentis ut experti pollens subducere costam,\ndum surgit caro iussa sequi pellisque recedens\nos simul et medium non intermiscet hiatum,\ninlaesis raperet membris et corpore sano.\nquae pandens, uarios mox et digesta per artus\naccepit formam calidaque animata medulla\ntraxit opus uitae, sexu iam grata secundo,\nac permissa suo uocitata est Eua marito.\nhoc nunc turba loco stolidissima desine tandem\nantistare sacro quicquam censere parenti:\ncur sic quippe uiri formata est femina membris\nprima sui, posset molli cum puluere fingi,\nposset et ex nihilo. causa est haec uera profecto,\nne naturalis potius sibi sumeret ordo\nuel quod homo ex homine est liquidoque patisceret orbi\nomnia facta simul tunc, ut cognatio quaedam\nalternum curae propriae misceret amorem, *\nsemet in alterius cogens agnoscere membris.","t":"and others, whose compact frame, lacking art and of lesser spirit,\nhe fortified. But none of the living creatures\nflourished with appearance, face and bearing equal to man,\nand, set beside him, each rather added to his honor;\nand among so many creatures that brighten life with a double sex\nhe alone was unmatched, he who for a long while, unaware,\nheld in himself the fit material for begetting a wife.\nSo God undertakes the work he knew, and, swiftly striking\nthe man's heart, loosens it, languid, in so deep a sleep\nthat he might, in his might, take away a rib from one bereft of mind,\nwhile the flesh rises, bidden to follow, and the skin, drawing back,\ndoes not let the bone mingle with the gap between,\nand might take it with the limbs unharmed and the body sound.\nThe rib, unfolding, soon distributed through various limbs,\nreceived form and, animated by warm marrow,\ndrew on the work of life, now pleasing in the second sex,\nand, given to her husband, was called Eve.\nHere now, most stupid crowd, stop at last\njudging anything to take precedence over the sacred Parent:\nwhy indeed was the first woman formed thus from the limbs\nof her man, when she could have been fashioned from soft dust,\nand could have been made from nothing? This is surely the true cause:\nlest the natural order should rather claim this for itself,\nor because man is from man and it should be clear to the world\nthat all things were then made at once, so that a certain kinship\nmight mingle mutual love with care for one's own, *\ncompelling each to recognize himself in the limbs of the other.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 1.354 (CSEL 16:377lines 354–380–378; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/1-354)."},"marius-victor-alethia/1.381":{"o":"hinc est, ignarus partem quod senserit Adam\nse recepisse sui: tetigit noua gratia mentem\naffectusque oculis in uiscera nota receptus\nirruit et tanto penetrauit in ossa calore,\nut iam scire daret, quod nomen coniugis uxor,\nquod dulces nati postponendique parentes\nconiugibus. quid? iam una duos in carne manere\naeternam pariter uitam ducentibus esset —\nnam dum terrarum uitiis et labe carerent,\ndiuinis uiguere animis, nullius egeni\nquas dabat orbis opes: non quippe obnoxia morbis\ncorpora gestabant cupidi nec uentris alumna;\ntantum in deliciis cibus et quod postulat usus\nnondum erat auxilium uitae propriumque uigebat\ninmortale animae —, ni serpens dira ueneno\nmaioris stimulata mali dissoluere legem\ntalibus incautam suasisset fraudibus Euam:\n'o uitae melioris inops rerumque bonarum\ngens ignara homines! nam qui dinoscere nescit\nquo distent diuersa bonis, hic nec bona nouit.\natque ideo augustos homini fas carpere fructus\nnoluit esse deus, ne mentis nube remota\ndent animis oculos et quae sint optima, rerum\naltera pars per cuncta docens arcana peritos\ndis faciat similes.' hic nunc excurrere paulum\nfas fuat et turpes ueterum deflere ruinas.","t":"Hence it is that Adam, unknowing, felt\nthat he had received back part of himself: a new grace touched his mind,\nand affection, received through his eyes, rushed into his own inmost parts\nand penetrated his bones with such warmth\nthat it now gave him to know that a wife has the name of spouse,\nthat sweet children and parents are to be put after\none's spouse. What then? Now the two would remain in one flesh,\nleading together an eternal life\n(for while they lacked the vices and stain of the earth,\nthey flourished with divine minds, needing none\nof the riches the world gave: for they did not bear bodies\nsubject to diseases, or the nurslings of a greedy belly;\nfood was only among their delights, and what need demands\nwas not yet a support of life, and the soul's own\nimmortality flourished), had not the dire serpent, goaded by the venom\nof a greater evil, persuaded the incautious Eve with such deceits\nto break the law:\n“O race of men, lacking the better life and ignorant\nof good things! For he who cannot distinguish\nhow diverse things differ from good ones does not know good things either.\nAnd therefore God did not wish it lawful for man to pluck\nthe august fruits, lest, the cloud removed from the mind,\nthey should give eyes to souls, and the other part of things, teaching\nwhat is best, should make those who are expert in all secrets\nlike gods.” Here now let it be right to digress a little\nand lament the shameful ruins of the ancients.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 1.381 (CSEL 16:378lines 381–406–379; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/1-381)."},"marius-victor-alethia/1.407":{"o":"a nimium miseri gentiles, quos furor egit\nin uarios ritus! patet, in qua morte profani\nfunditus occiderint. nomen plurale deorum\nserpentis primum sonuit uox impia diri,\nqui mortis tunc causa fuit. nam credula postquam\nrupit sacrilegis praescriptum morsibus Eua,\nexperti iam docta mali, solacia culpae\nquaerit et in crimen facilem tractura maritum,\nqua periit prior, arte petit. sic hoste subactus\na gemino cedit sceleri miserabilis Adam\npomaque libauit sacro blandissima suco.\nsed quia legis in his suberant praescripta seuerae\nplus quam uipereo mortem allatura ueneno,\nut primum inlicito uiolarunt membra sapore,\nconfestim sensere nefas facinusque peractum\ncreuit et ignaro percussit pectora sensu.\nhinc timor, inde pudor: quippe antea degere nudis\net nescire datum, siue almi plena uigoris\ncorda rudes homines celsarum conscia rerum\net caelo tantum mundoque intenta ferentes\npectora ad excelsum semper conuersa parentem,\ndum secretorum miracula diuinorum\npaene incorporeae mentis splendore notarent,\nnondum contigerat membrorum cura suorum\namentes meliore anima, seu corpora nulla\nin senium soluenda mora penetrare nequibat\nmotus, qui sciri faceret quodcumque necesse est.","t":"Ah, too wretched Gentiles, whom madness drove\ninto various rites! It is plain in what death the profane\nperished utterly. The plural name of gods\nthe impious voice of the dire serpent first sounded,\nhe who was then the cause of death. For after credulous Eve\nbroke the command with sacrilegious bites,\nnow taught by the experience of evil, she seeks consolation for her guilt\nand, to drag her compliant husband into the crime,\nattacks him by the art by which she herself had perished first. So, overcome by the enemy,\nwretched Adam yields to a twin crime\nand tasted the fruits, most alluring with sacred juice.\nBut since beneath them lay the decrees of a severe law,\nbound to bring death more surely than a viper's venom,\nas soon as they had violated their limbs with the forbidden taste,\nat once they felt the wickedness, and the crime they had done\ngrew and struck their breasts with an unknown sense.\nHence fear, thence shame: for before it had been given them\nto live naked and not know it; whether because, untaught men,\nwith hearts full of kindly vigor, aware of lofty things,\nbearing breasts intent only on heaven and the world,\nalways turned toward the exalted Father,\nwhile they observed the marvels of the divine secrets\nwith the splendor of an almost bodiless mind,\nthey had not yet come to care for their own limbs,\nunaware of them through a better soul; or because the motion\nthat would make them know whatever is needful could not penetrate\nbodies that were not to be dissolved into old age by any delay.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 1.407 (CSEL 16:379lines 407–433; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/1-407)."},"marius-victor-alethia/1.434":{"o":"postquam deseruit uitae uigor ille perennis\niam mortale animal, demum frigusque calorque\naeriae subiere uices ac uestis egenos\nen se senserunt homines sexuque latenter\nerubuere suo. tacitis miserabile questi\nfletibus umbrosae foliis noua tegmina fici\ntexunt consertis, post culpam mente receptum\ncorpore uelato denudatura pudorem.\nnec satis hoc trepidis. quid agant, qua crimen inustum\nseque ipsos fugiant? cuperent, si forte paterent,\ncondere se terris: adeo contermina poenae\nculpa suae est, ut iam miseros mortale pauentes\nmortis imago iuuet. siluas umbrosaque lustra\nobtendunt, uanae solacia falsa latebrae.\nnam quo te timidum fas est subducere corpus,\nte, te, inquam, qui mox primus retrahendus es, Adam?\nuirtus uiua patris mundi occultissima praesens\nimplet et inmensos exit diffusa recessus.\nsed uerum nefas est pauidos fraudare latebra.\nille potest dominum fugiens euadere summum,\nqui fugit ad dominum, sola quem mente relinquens\nquam uastis iaceas et non celere tenebris.\nuoce uocans ubi sis pariter testatur utrumque.","t":"After that everlasting vigor of life had deserted\nthe now mortal creature, at last cold and heat,\nthe changes of the air, came upon them, and the human pair felt\nthemselves in need of clothing and secretly blushed at their own sex.\nLamenting pitiably with silent tears,\nthey weave new coverings from the leaves of the shady fig,\njoined together, to strip away by covering the body\nthe shame that their mind had taken on after the guilt.\nNor is this enough for the trembling pair. What are they to do, how flee the branded crime\nand themselves? They would wish, if perhaps it opened,\nto hide themselves in the earth: so close to its punishment\nis guilt, that now, as the wretches fear what is mortal,\nthe very image of death pleases them. They draw woods and shady haunts\nover themselves, the false comfort of an empty hiding place.\nFor where may you, timid one, withdraw your body,\nyou, you, I say, Adam, who are soon to be dragged back first?\nThe living power of the Father, most hidden, present,\nfills the world and, spread abroad, goes out beyond its immense recesses.\nBut truly it is wrong for the fearful to be cheated by a hiding place.\nOnly he can escape the highest Lord in fleeing\nwho flees to the Lord; leaving him in mind alone,\nin how vast a darkness you lie, and still you cannot hide!\nCalling with his voice, 'Where are you?', he testifies to both together.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 1.434 (CSEL 16:380lines 434–456; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/1-434)."},"marius-victor-alethia/1.457":{"o":"nam cur te cernens quaerit deus et, cui praesens\nsemper eris, cui te proprio subducere furto\nnec mors ipsa potest, fragili quam mente subisti,\ncur ubi sis quaerit, nisi quod te more doloris\nlapsum sponte tua secum non esse fatetur\net caelo cecidisse sacro? sed sancta parentis\ndesperare uetat pietas, clementia cuius —\nfas dixisse mihi, fas sit quoque dicta probasse —\niustitiam excedit. nec tam me uoce seuera\ncorripiens ubi sis, trepido quid pectore uoluas,\ntenet quam recreat, quod adhuc post crimina lapsum\ninmersumque metu latebris ac paene sepultum\neuocat et reuocat. ne longa exempla petantur:\nipsa probat dominum mitem donatio culpae.\nPostquam excussa reos distinxit quaestio summos,\nincipit omnipotens — caelum, mare, terra loquenti\nintremit et uastos pandit concussa recessus,\ndumque reos punit sententia, Tartara fecit —:\n'quandoquidem nostris tutum decedere iussis\nduxistis, serie sceleris qua culpa cucurrit,\nhac mihi iusta nouos feriet censura nocentes.\ninter cuncta, frui toto quae iussimus orbe,\ntu maledictus eris et peior, quam tegis intus,\ninuida mens, coluber, qui caelum intrare creatos\ndeiecisti homines uetitasque attingere fruges\nfraude tua inpulsis praedurae mortis origo es.","t":"For why does God, seeing you, seek you, and why does he,\nto whom you will always be present, from whom not even death itself,\nwhich you underwent through a frail mind, can steal you away,\nask where you are, unless because he declares that you,\nfallen of your own will in the manner of grief, are not with him\nand have fallen from sacred heaven? But the holy kindness\nof the Father forbids despair, whose clemency\n(let it be right for me to have said it, right also to have proved what I said)\nexceeds his justice. Nor does he, rebuking me with severe voice,\n“Where are you, what are you turning over in your trembling breast?”,\nso much frighten me as restore me, because, after the crimes,\nhe still calls out and calls back one who has fallen,\nsunk in fear in hiding places and almost buried. Lest long examples be sought:\nthe very pardoning of the guilt proves the Lord gentle.\nAfter the questioning, sifting the matter, had picked out the chief culprits,\nthe Almighty begins (heaven, sea and earth tremble at the speaker,\nand, shaken, lay open their vast recesses,\nand while the sentence punishes the guilty, it created Tartarus):\n“Since you have thought it safe to depart from our commands,\nin the same order in which the guilt ran through the sequence of the crime,\nin that order a just sentence of mine will strike the new offenders.\nAmong all the creatures which we bade enjoy the whole world,\nyou will be cursed and worse than what you hide within,\nenvious mind, serpent, who cast down men created\nto enter heaven, and, for those whom your fraud drove to touch\nthe forbidden fruits, are the origin of a very hard death.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 1.457 (CSEL 16:380lines 457–482–381; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/1-457)."},"marius-victor-alethia/1.483":{"o":"ut condigna nefas poenae mensura sequatur —\ninmersisti homines terrae: et tu stratus iniquo\nmembra solo duram sulcabis pectore terram;\nfecisti peccare cibis: pro talibus ausis\net tu semper edes squalentia uiscera terrae.\net quia te dignum placuit tibi, primus ut esses\ninuentor mortis, poena moriere cruenta\nhumanique odium generis specialiter armans\nin genus omne tuum saeuis inbute uenenis,\nut perimare magis, semper timeare iubebo.\natque huius, prima gaudes quam fraude subactam,\ninferior pedibus degens et pectore pronus\nextremis tantum sic insidiabere plantis,\nut capiti trepidans etiam uestigia figat.'\ndixit et exanguem sic est exorsus in Euam:\n'at tu quae minimum solam te perdere fructum\nesse putans sceleris, misero iam mente nocendi\ninsidiata uiro dominataque crimine tanto es,\npraebebis famulare iugum subiectaque duri\narbitrium sensura uiri patiere labores\ncasibus assiduis, ut, coeptum quae prior ausa es\nmultiplicare nefas, multis uersere periclis,\net pariens crebris adeo torquebere natis,\nut quos mortales faciet tua culpa creari,\nmortis nonnumquam lacerae sint causa parenti.'","t":"so that a measure of punishment worthy of the wickedness may follow:\nyou plunged men into the earth: you too, your limbs stretched\non the hostile ground, will furrow the hard earth with your breast;\nyou made them sin through food: for such daring\nyou too will always eat the squalid inward parts of the earth.\nAnd because it pleased you, as worthy of you, to be the first\ninventor of death, you will die by a bloody punishment,\nand, arming the hatred of the human race\nespecially against all your kind, steeped in cruel venoms,\nI will make you always feared, so that you may be killed the more.\nAnd of this woman, whom you rejoice to have overcome by your first fraud,\nliving lower than her feet and prone on your breast,\nyou will lie in wait only for the very soles,\nso that she, trembling, may set her footprints even on your head.”\nHe spoke, and thus began upon the pale Eve:\n“But you, who thought it the least of crimes to destroy yourself alone\nby the fruit, and, in your wretched mind, then lay in wait\nto harm your husband and gained the mastery by so great a crime,\nwill bear a servant's yoke, and, subject, you will feel the will\nof a harsh husband and suffer labors\nin constant mishaps, so that you who first dared to multiply\nthe wickedness once begun may be tossed about in many perils,\nand in childbearing you will be so tortured by frequent children\nthat those whom your guilt will cause to be born mortal\nwill sometimes be the cause of death to their torn mother.”","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 1.483 (CSEL 16:381lines 483–507–382; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/1-483)."},"marius-victor-alethia/1.508":{"o":"'tu quoque, cui monitus nostros et prima salutis\nuincula femineis postponere fraudibus auso\nsponte mori placuit, talem reus excipe sortem:\ncriminibus tellus, quam tu sulcabis aratro,\nsit maledicta tuis. spinas tribulosque minaces\nculta ferat fallatque tuum spes improba uotum. tu mihi desisti mente inseruire fideli:\nnec tibi terra fidem seruet. tu uiuere laetus\nhis in deliciis et cunctis uiuere saeclis\nsponte recusasti: duro nunc uiue labore,\nuiue in miseriis, donec te lenta senectus,\nterram, quod magis es, faciat terraeque refundat.'\ndixit et ignaros caelum defendere membris\nueste tegit pecudum miserans uitamque tueri\nedocet. at ne iterum facinus, quod mente gerebat,\nauderet mortis formidine percitus Adam,\nsi rerum ignarus, primi quod iuris habebat,\narbore uitali post causae extrema superbum\nauxilium repetens, nulla patris arte redemptus\nuiueret et mundo iam mysticus ordo labaret\nac miseros semperque reos grauiora manerent,\ncontinuo sacris iussos decedere lucis\nexpediunt uenti, nemoris quos silua profundi\nconcitat — ast illos libranti turbine nexos\ncontinet aura uehens et spiritus aera totum\nnatura uergente rapit — terrisque relatos,\nunde datum corpus, mollito flamine ponunt\nexpertes tanti spatii expertesque pericli,\nsed non expertes, agitat qui corda, doloris.","t":"“You too, who dared to put our warnings and the first bonds\nof salvation after a woman's deceits,\nand chose of your own will to die, guilty, receive such a lot:\nlet the earth which you will furrow with the plough\nbe cursed for your crimes. Tilled, let it bear thorns\nand threatening thistles, and let wicked hope cheat your wish.\nYou ceased to serve me with a faithful mind:\nlet the earth not keep faith with you either. You of your own will\nrefused to live glad in these delights and to live\nthrough all ages: now live in hard labor,\nlive in miseries, until slow old age makes you\nearth, which you rather are, and pours you back to the earth.”\nHe spoke, and in pity covered with the skins of beasts\nthe limbs that could not defend themselves against the sky,\nand taught them to protect their life. But lest Adam, driven by fear of death,\nshould again dare the crime that he bore in mind,\nif, ignorant of things, after the extremity of his cause, he should seek again\nthe proud help of the tree of life, which he had by first right,\nand should live redeemed by no art of the Father,\nand the mystic order should now totter for the world,\nand heavier punishments should await the wretched and ever guilty:\nat once the winds, which the forest of the deep grove stirs,\ncarry them off, bidden to depart from the sacred groves\n(but a breeze, carrying them, holds them bound in a balancing whirlwind,\nand the wind seizes the whole air as nature inclines),\nand, bringing them back to the lands from which their body was given,\nsets them down with softened blast,\nwithout feeling so great a distance and without feeling danger,\nbut not without the grief that agitates the heart.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 1.508 (CSEL 16:382lines 508–536–383; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/1-508)."},"marius-victor-alethia/1.53":{"o":"et sacer extensis impendens spiritus undis.\naltrices animabat aquas ac semina rerum\nnondum compositis fundenda ad germina terris\ninsinuanda dabat, cum lux inmissa superne\nemicuit cogente deo discretaque nigrum\numbra peplum retrahens summo discessit Olympo!\net medias obiecit aquas fugiensque sequentis\nmox post terga fuit. nomen sic meta diei\ninposuit lucis spatiis mundoque refusam\nnoctem intercisae parilem fecere tenebrae.\nRursum mane nouum: primo iam uespere pulso\nreddita lux nituit, cum se firmissima moles\nfluctibus a mediis concreto corpore tendens\nextulit et duro late solidata rigore\ndiuisas suspendit aquas gelidumque profundum\naxibus obiecit calidis seque aequore saepto\nnixa superfudit rebus, quas circite uasto\nclausit et antiquum spoliauit nomine caelum.\nforsitan hic aliquis sic secum errore perito\ndisserat: aetheriis ne desint pabula flammis\net nimius calor ima petens alimenta sequendo\nexurat mortale genus caelumque coruscum\nnon possint terrena pati, subiecta deorsum est,\nmachina firma poli, quae, dum nos protegit umbra,\net uelatur aquis. tales sed quaerere causas\nmens fuge nostra procul: plus sit tibi credere semper\nposse deum quicquid fieri non posse putatur.","t":"and the holy Spirit hovering over the outstretched waves.\nHe was quickening the nourishing waters, and was giving the seeds of things\nto be instilled, to be poured out into shoots when the lands were\nnot yet ordered, when light sent from above\nflashed forth at God's compelling, and the shadow, separated,\ndrawing back its black robe, departed from highest Olympus,\nset the waters between, and, fleeing the light that followed,\nwas soon behind its back. So the limit of day\nset a name on the spaces of light, and the darkness, cut off,\nmade night, poured back over the world, equal to it.\nAgain a new morning: the first evening now driven off,\nlight returned and shone, when a most firm mass,\nstretching itself out from the midst of the waves with solid body,\nrose up and, made solid far and wide with hard rigidity,\nhung the divided waters and set the cold deep\nagainst the hot axes, and, resting on the enclosed water,\nspread itself over the things which it closed in a vast circuit,\nand stripped the ancient sky of its name.\nPerhaps someone here may argue with himself\nin skilled error: so that fuel may not be lacking to the ethereal flames,\nand too great a heat, seeking the lowest depths in pursuit of nourishment,\nmay not burn up the mortal race, and the earthly things\nmay not be unable to bear the glittering sky, the firm frame of the pole\nhas been set beneath, which, while it protects us with shade,\nis also veiled with waters. But, my mind, flee far\nfrom seeking such causes: let it count more with you always to believe\nthat God can do whatever is thought impossible.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 1.53 (CSEL 16:366lines 53–79–367; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/1-53)."},"marius-victor-alethia/1.537":{"o":"quo ruerint, quid perdiderint, quae uita sequatur,\nquae fuerit, tristis mentem conlatio uexat,\nquae diuersa magis cumulat, secumque uolutant,\nquanto aliud iam sint, quanto mutatus uterque\nse quaerat, dubii culpae hoc adscribere primae\net poenae, uim nosse mali quod conpulit error,\nan hoc esse mori, uel, si grauiora supersunt,\nan detur reditus miseris, an fine perenni\nperdant quod superest, an, cum uia mortis amarae\nper lignum ingruerit mundo populisque futuris,\npossit adhuc aliquod per lignum uita redire.","t":"where they had fallen, what they had lost, what life would follow,\nwhat it had been: the sad comparison torments the mind,\nwhich heaps up the differences all the more, and they turn over within themselves\nhow far they are now other, how far each of them, changed,\nseeks himself, uncertain whether to ascribe this to the first guilt\nand punishment, whether error forced them to know the power of evil,\nor whether this is what it is to die, or, if heavier things remain,\nwhether a return is granted to the wretched, or whether by an everlasting end\nthey lose what remains, or whether, since the way of bitter death\nhas fallen upon the world and future peoples through a tree,\nsome life may yet return through a tree.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 1.537 (CSEL 16:383lines 537–547–384; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/1-537)."},"marius-victor-alethia/1.80":{"o":"et magnum pelagus super astra et sidera ferri\nipsorum ratione proba, qui credere nolunt\net mundum pendere uolunt, quem conditor ipse\ninconprensibili semper ratione gubernans\ngestet et inmenso constantem pondere uoluat.\nTertia lux tumidos stupuit discedere fluctus,\ncum deus inpulsis reliqui iam gurgitis undis\naeriis magnum spatiis patefecit inane.\narida tunc primum mundi pars ima retectam\nostendit faciem tremefactaque numine uerbi\ncaerula nudatas cinxerunt aequora terras.\nquas uario raptim iussas uirescere fetu\nluxuriosa nouo texerunt germina limo\net rudis e tenero prorumpens caespite laetis\niactauit se silua comis ac frugibus ipsis,\nquaeque ferens proprium semen, testata satorem est.\nIam tribus exactis motu succensa citato\nin flammas ignisque globum se cogere iussa est\nsolis prima dies fundataque semina lucis\npuniceos roseo sparserunt fomite crines,\nlunaque, noctis honor, proprio seu lumine fulsit\nseu ueniente globo radios percussa refudit,\ninferiore uia soli subiecta pependit,\nastraque distinctis mundum pingentia zonis\nfloribus aetheriis uarios uibrare colores\net magis ornatis caelum splendere tenebris\ncaerula nox stupuit, rutilis dum spicula flammis\nfusa micant urguentque alacres noua sidera iactus.","t":"and prove that the great sea is carried above the stars and constellations\nby the reasoning of those very people who refuse to believe it\nand would have the world hang, which the Creator himself, governing it always\nby incomprehensible reason,\ncarries, and rolls round, steady in its immense weight.\nThe third light was astonished to see the swelling waves depart,\nwhen God, driving back the waters of the remaining flood,\nopened a great void in the spaces of the air.\nThen first the dry land, the lowest part of the world, showed its face\nuncovered, and the blue seas, made to tremble by the power of the Word,\nencircled the bared lands.\nThese, bidden to grow green at once with varied offspring,\nluxuriant shoots covered from the new mud,\nand the raw forest, bursting from the tender turf,\ntossed itself with glad foliage and with its very fruits,\nand each, bearing its own seed, bore witness to its sower.\nNow, three days completed, the first day of the sun,\nkindled with rapid motion, was bidden to gather itself into flames\nand a globe of fire, and the seeds of light, founded,\nscattered crimson tresses from a rosy tinder,\nand the moon, the glory of the night, whether she shone with her own light\nor, struck by the oncoming globe, poured back its rays,\nhung beneath the sun on a lower path;\nand the blue night was astonished that the stars, painting the world\nin distinct zones, flashed varied colors with heavenly flowers,\nand that the sky shone the more with darkness adorned,\nwhile the darts poured out in ruddy flames flash\nand the new stars press on in their eager throws.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 1.80 (CSEL 16:367lines 80–107–368; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/1-80)."},"marius-victor-alethia/2.1":{"o":"Hactenus arcanam seriem, primordia mundi,\nut sincera fides patuit, sine fraude cucurri,\ndum dignis leto uitiis terrena carerent.\nnunc hominum mores et iam mortalia uersu\ningressum fas sit ueris miscere poetam.\npostquam sacratis decedere iussus uterque\nsedibus ac regnis genitalia contigit arua\net propria stetit exul humo, miserabile, quali\nore rudes stupeant tum barbara rura coloni,\nquae non frugifero distincta stipite uernant.\nnec species iuuat ulla soli, sed bruta coacto\npondere congeries nec lecta mole locata est.\nardua caute rigent, siluis depressa laborant,\nplana latent herbis, horrescunt edita dumis.\nheu quibus haec spectant oculis, quo pectore cernunt,\nquorum animis paradisus inest! neque causa doloris\nuna subest, quod cunctorum iam plena malorum\nse pandit facies, sed, quod meminere bonorum.\nnunc honor ille sacri nemoris maiore sereno\ninradiat, nunc diuitias cumulatior edit\nsilua beata suas, nunc pomis dulcior usus\nnectareusque sapor, uiuis nunc floribus halat\ntellus et absenti tristes perstringit odore.\no quam non eadem meritis, paradise, rependis!","t":"So far I have run without deceit through the hidden sequence, the beginnings of the world,\nas sincere faith has made them plain,\nwhile earthly things were still free of the vices that deserve death.\nNow let the poet, having entered upon the ways of men\nand upon mortal things, be permitted to mingle them with truth in verse.\nAfter both, bidden to depart from the hallowed\nseats and kingdoms, reached the fields of their birth\nand stood as exiles on their own soil (pitiable!), with what\nlooks the inexperienced settlers then stare at the wild countryside,\nwhich does not bloom, set off with fruitful trees.\nNo beauty of the soil delights them, but brute heaps of compacted weight\nlie there, set in no chosen order.\nThe heights are stiff with rock, the hollows labor under woods,\nthe plains lie hidden in grass, the uplands bristle with brambles.\nAlas, with what eyes they look on these things, with what heart they see them,\nthey in whose minds paradise lives! Nor is there only one\ncause of grief, that the face of all evils now lies open\nin its fullness, but that they remember the good.\nNow that glory of the sacred grove shines with greater\nbrightness, now the blessed wood brings forth its riches\nmore abundantly, now the enjoyment of its fruits is sweeter\nand their taste like nectar, now the earth breathes with living flowers\nand touches the sad pair with a fragrance that is absent.\nO paradise, how unlike their deserts is what you now repay them!","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 2.1 (CSEL 16:385lines 1–24; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/2-1)."},"marius-victor-alethia/2.120":{"o":"terra rudis pandit generosa ad munera uenas\net, cum iam cuncto fuerit siccata liquore,\nincipit ipsa liquor fieri riuisque metalla\nfundere quaeque suis. fuluo torrente coruscat\nauri summus honor, candenti lacte renidens\neffluit argentum, rigor aeris lubricus errat\net coit in mollem resoluto corpore massam\nliuida glaeba chalyps. ruptis sic Aetna caminis\negerit inmixtis stridentia sulphura flammis,\nlubrica dum feruent; at cum spirabilis aurae\ntemperiem sensere, rigent raptimque coruscam\nuertitur in glaebam siccus liquor igne gelato\net fit corpus iners. uarios ita sistere cursus\nmirantur latices, quos, dum qua deficit ardor,\niam cupidis spectant oculis blandumque colorem\naccipiunt membris et quod timuere secuntur.\nauxilium sensere dei gaudentque reorum\net primas nulla culpam uirtute secuta\nad uotum cessisse preces summoque parenti\nacceptum referunt et quod dedit ignis et ignem\net mentem, cui quo sit opus patefecit. utrumque\ncertum habeo, munus sacrum explorasse parentes\ncuncta alacres oculis permensos, sed prius auro\nadmouisse manus diti, quod fulmine mentes\niam ferit et cari subigit fulgore ueneni","t":"the raw earth opens its veins for noble gifts\nand, when it has been dried of all its moisture,\nitself begins to become liquid and to pour out metals\nin streams, each its own. With tawny torrent flashes\ngold, the highest glory; gleaming like white milk\nsilver flows out; the stiffness of copper wanders, slippery,\nand gathers, its body melted, into a soft mass,\nand iron, a livid clod. So Etna, its furnaces burst open,\nbelches out hissing sulphur mingled with flames,\nwhile they seethe, slippery; but when they feel the coolness\nof breathable air, they stiffen, and swiftly the dry liquid,\nits fire frozen, is turned into a gleaming clod\nand becomes an inert body. So they marvel to see the various streams\nstop their courses, which, where the heat fails,\nthey now watch with eager eyes, and they take the alluring color\ninto their hands and pursue what they had feared.\nThey felt God's help and rejoice that the first prayers of the guilty,\nthough no virtue had followed their guilt, had been granted,\nand they give thanks to the highest Parent both for what the fire gave and for the fire,\nand for the mind to which he revealed what use there was. Both things\nI hold certain: that our parents explored the sacred gift,\neagerly measuring all with their eyes, but that first they put their hands\nto the rich gold, which already strikes minds like lightning\nand subdues them with the gleam of a precious poison,","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 2.120 (CSEL 16:388lines 120–144–389; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/2-120)."},"marius-victor-alethia/2.145":{"o":"nec satiat, donec mirantes pondere multo\nuincat et elapsum durae ceu murice cautis\nuulneret ac facilem uitiato corpore plagam\nposse pati doceat. subiit noua cura repente\nattonitos acuitque animos casumque magistrum\nadmonet arte sequi. duri tunc pondere saxi\nalternis caedunt uicibus flectuntque trahuntque\nin uarias species cedentem ad uerbera massam.\nquam nullus formare labor, sed uicta figuram\nocius hinc perdit, magnis quod nisibus inpar\nmateries recipit studium, sed decipit usum.\ndurius ergo aliud quaerunt; sed et hinc placet aurum,\nutile quod rigidum docuit magis esse metallum.\ninde, cui propior decor est et uena secunda,\nitur in argentum, blando quod firmius auro\nofficium magis est patiens. sed fortius aes est,\nid quod conspicuum minus est. mox aere magistro\nin rigidum chalybem translatus substitit usus.\nForsitan et cunctos quos fingit opinio casus\nartifices summos operum percurrere uersu\npossit nostra chelys, tacito patefacta calore\nut se decoctis tellus pinguissima glaebis\nmouerit in fetus uarios, quos imbre marito\nparturiens putri dissoluerit arua meatu,\nquo tumidi crepuere sinus elataque messis\nextitit et motis undans trepidauit aristis,\ndisceret ut speciem segetis nouus accola cultae:","t":"and does not satisfy them, until it overcomes them as they marvel at its great weight,\nand, slipping from their hands, wounds them as if with the edge of a hard rock,\nand teaches that it can easily take a blow and its body be marred.\nA new concern suddenly came upon the astonished pair\nand sharpened their minds, and admonished them to follow by art\nwhat chance had taught. Then with the weight of a hard stone\nthey strike in turn and bend and draw out\ninto various shapes the mass that yields to the blows.\nNo labor shaped it lastingly, but, overcome, it quickly lost\nits shape, because the material, unequal to great efforts,\nreceives their zeal but disappoints their use.\nSo they look for something harder; but even so gold pleases,\nsince it taught that a rigid metal is more useful.\nThen they pass to silver, whose beauty is next and whose vein is second,\nwhich, firmer than alluring gold,\nbears service better. But copper is stronger,\nthough it is less conspicuous. Soon, with copper as teacher,\ntheir use passed to rigid iron and settled there.\nPerhaps our lyre could also run through in verse all the chances\nwhich opinion imagines as the supreme craftsmen of works:\nhow, opened by silent heat,\nthe richest earth, its clods baked, moved\ninto varied offspring, which, giving birth with the rain as husband,\nit loosed through the fields in a crumbling course,\nby which the swelling furrows crackled and the harvest rose\nand stood up, and, surging, trembled with waving ears of grain,\nso that the new settler might learn what a cultivated crop looks like:","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 2.145 (CSEL 16:389lines 145–171–390; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/2-145)."},"marius-victor-alethia/2.172":{"o":"utque auidum ad tantam decurrens undi(que) praedam\nalituum pecudumque genus turbaeque minoris\nnigra cohors, maiora suis in pabula trudens\nsemina corporibus, uitae inculcarit amicos\nmateria propiore cibos atque omne secutum\nofficium, docilis studii quod cura recepit.\nsemper ab exemplis meditatio sumpta magistris\nfecerit artis opus: sed falsis nota reclamat\ngloria larga patris: nil hinc sibi uindicet usus,\nnil casus uirtutis inops: ego nosse creatis\nquae bona sunt cum luce dedi mundoque minori\nquicquid maior habet sacro notescere sensu\nmeque per haec uolui.' atque utinam inlibata maneret,\nut data mens homini est, nullique obnoxia culpae:\nnon illam species, non illam corpora rerum,\nnon modus astrorum numerus nec molis harenae\nfalleret. at quantis cum magno terra profundo\ntendatur spatiis, quae sit mensura peractae\nmolis, quid resonet motu septemplicis axis\nharmoniae uocale melos, nunc discitur usu\nassiduisque datur studiis artisque putatur\nquod manet ingenitum. nec sentit nube malorum\nfactus hebes, quod, si quae primum agnoscere credit,\nquisque recognoscit. summo ergo hoc limite ueri\nhaereat. augustis quom pulsus sedibus Adam,\nnullum aliud prius officium quam coniuge dignum\negit et ignotos natis impendit amores.","t":"and how, running down eagerly from all sides to so rich a prey,\nthe race of birds and of cattle and the black cohort\nof the smaller throng, thrusting the larger seeds\ninto their bodies as food, taught them foods friendly to life\nfrom nearer material, and all the work that followed,\nwhich the care of teachable study took up.\nMeditation, always drawn from examples as teachers,\nwould then have made the work of art. But the generous glory of the Father,\nwell known, cries out against such falsehoods: let use claim nothing for itself in this,\nnor chance, lacking power: “I gave created beings, with the light,\nto know what things are good, and willed that whatever the greater world has\nshould become known to the lesser by a holy sense,\nand that I should be known through these things.” And would that the mind\nhad remained unimpaired as it was given to man, and liable to no guilt:\nneither the appearance nor the bodies of things,\nnor the measure of the stars, nor the number of the grains of sand\nwould have deceived it. But by what great spaces the earth\nis stretched together with the great deep, what is the measure of the finished\nmass, what melodious harmony sounds from the motion of the sevenfold axis,\nthese are now learned by practice and gained by constant study,\nand what remains inborn is thought to come from art. Nor does the mind,\nmade dull by the cloud of evils, perceive that whatever each one\nbelieves he first comes to know, he is recognizing again. So let it cleave\nto this highest limit of truth. When Adam was driven from the august seats,\nhe did no other duty before that which was worthy of a husband,\nand he spent loves he had not known before upon his children.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 2.172 (CSEL 16:390lines 172–198–391; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/2-172)."},"marius-victor-alethia/2.199":{"o":"inter tot curas placuit cui dulce creare,\nuiuere dulce fuit. qui uiuere dulce probabat,\nuiuebat rectore deo: nec derat alumnis\nquod uitam instrueret, quod rerum accingeret usu.\nEt natis iam plena domus solacia mira\nattulerat rudibus blandoque in corde parentum\nmultiplicata graues releuabat cura labores,\net spes iam suberat propriis gaudere ministris\nruris in officiis, quorum qui maximus aeuo\narua Cain duris uertebat pinguia rastris;\nat uiuo gaudere lucro dignissimus Abel\ncollibus aut nudis aut sicci germine campi\ninnocuas pascebat oues et lacte parentes.\npostquam expectati satiarunt gaudia fructus\net stupuere sacro cingi sua uota fauore,\nammonuit mentes operum libamina iustum\nprima dicare deo. sacras prior impedit aras\nfrugibus ille nouis, niueo magis hic litat agno,\nprima sacerdotum species, mox hostia fratris\nimpia, sed signo iam tunc imbuta futurae\nindicioque piae. namque ut suscepta notauit\nfratris sacra Cain, sibi nulla in fruge litanti\nannutum, seu quod uotas praelegerit ante\npollueritque dapes seu totum tempore in uno\ncernenti reus est praesens quandoque futurus\nmente nocens, illo (dirum) de fonte uenenum,\nquo serpens materque, bibit fratremque cauendi\nignarum saeua mactatum caede trucidat.","t":"To one who, amid so many cares, was pleased to beget, it was sweet\nto live. He who found living sweet\nlived with God as guide: nor did the nurslings lack\nwhat would furnish life and equip them with the use of things.\nAnd the house, now full of children, had brought wonderful comfort\nto the inexperienced pair, and care, multiplied in the tender heart of the parents,\nrelieved their heavy labors,\nand there was hope already of rejoicing in their own helpers\nin the work of the countryside; of these the eldest,\nCain, was turning the rich fields with hard hoes;\nbut Abel, most worthy to rejoice in a living gain,\non bare hills or on the growth of the dry plain\npastured innocent sheep, and his parents with their milk.\nAfter the joys of the awaited produce had satisfied them,\nand they were amazed that their hopes were crowned with sacred favor,\njustice reminded their minds to dedicate the first offerings of their works\nto God. The one loads the sacred altars first\nwith new fruits, the other sacrifices more acceptably with a snowy lamb,\nthe first image of priests, soon the impious victim\nof his brother, but already then imbued with a sign of what was to come\nand a token of piety. For when Cain noticed that his brother's\nsacrifice had been received, and that no approval was given to him\nwhen he sacrificed with fruits, whether because he had tasted beforehand\nthe dedicated food and polluted it, or because, to One who sees all in one time,\nhe who will one day be guilty in mind is guilty now,\nhe drank (dread!) the poison from the spring\nfrom which the serpent and his mother drank, and slaughters in savage murder\nhis brother, who did not know he needed to beware.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 2.199 (CSEL 16:391lines 199–226–392; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/2-199)."},"marius-victor-alethia/2.227":{"o":"Heu facinus! quid non miseros furiosa libido,\nquid non ira recens, odium uetus, improba cogant\nquae uexant gentes scelerum certamina, tantum\nsi facinus fecit, qui sic, quod sanctior ipso\nfrater erat, doluit. nulla est iam culpa parentum.\net ne aliquam saltim uel de serpente querellam\nquod morimur quisquam superesse existimet, ante\ncoepimus occidi. pro quantum prima propago\ncriminis adiecit! mortem pro nomine poenae\ninductam mundo uix dignum est dicere: fecit\nimpietas scelus esse nouum. peccata parentes\ntantum morte luent: tu poenas morte solutas\net pro morte dabis, peior serpente nefando.\nille etenim letum suasit, non intulit: at tu\nauctor primus eris caedis. te publicus hostis,\nte latro priuatus sequitur, tibi crimina plectent\narma(ti) telis, gladiis et uindice ferro.\nmilitia scelus omne tua est populique futuri\nquod minus interitu iusso quam caede peribunt\nad te summa redit. nec prorsus displicet istud\nmoribus exemplum, quod fratris sanguine primum\nhumanus fundi coepit cruor, ut facinus par\nsentiat admissum, tali quem crimine constat\nfraternum renouasse nefas, ratione docente\nomne hominis letum non prima sorte perempti","t":"Alas the crime! What would raging lust, what fresh anger, old hatred,\nwhat the wicked contests of crimes that vex the nations not drive\nthe wretched to, if he committed so great a crime who grieved\nonly because his brother was holier than he? Now the parents' guilt is nothing.\nAnd lest anyone think that at least some complaint\nremains against the serpent because we die, we began\nto be killed before that. O how much the first offspring\nadded to crime! It is hardly fitting to say that death was brought\ninto the world under the name of punishment: impiety made it\na new crime. The parents will pay for their sins\nonly by death: you will pay penalties from which death is no release,\nand in place of death, worse than the unspeakable serpent.\nFor he urged death, he did not inflict it: but you\nwill be the first author of slaughter. You the public enemy,\nyou the private robber follow, for you the armed will punish crimes\nwith spears, with swords and avenging steel.\nAll crime is your soldiery, and that future peoples\nwill perish less by the death that was decreed than by slaughter\nreturns in the end to you. Nor is this example\nwholly unfitting for morals, that human blood\nfirst began to be shed in a brother's blood, so that whoever commits\nan equal crime should feel that it is such, since it is agreed that whoever\nby such a crime has renewed the fratricidal wickedness, reason teaching\nthat every death of a human being, slain not by the first sentence,","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 2.227 (CSEL 16:392lines 227–251–393; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/2-227)."},"marius-victor-alethia/2.25":{"o":"te magis extollit conlatio deteriorum\net peiora facis, miseris quae sola supersunt.\nhic uitae perit almus amor, penuria rerum\ninsinuat iam dulce mori, ni maior egestas\nsuccurrat grauiore malo; nam uiscera edendi\nincendens rabie per cunctas ducit edaces,\nquas sterilis dat silua, dapes cogitque malignis\nherbarum dubias passim radicibus escas\nexplorare cibis uitamque euadere talem\nipsa fames non posse facit, quae uelle coegit.\ntandem cunctarum, quibus indiget usus, egenos\natque inopes rerum docuit res ultima summi\nauxilium sperare patris: prostratus uterque\nmembra solo lacrimis tantum mutique doloris,\ndum pudor iniustis subducit uerba querellis,\ninmoritur senio. sed postquam reddita mens est,\nadsurgens tandem tali prece supplicat Adam:\nomnipotens auctor mundi rerumque creator,\nuae mihi labe mali! felix dum uita maneret\net celeres animos uisu super astra daretur\nposse sequi, late circum perque omnia fusum\nsemper et ingesto uisus splendore tegentem\nhis oculis — ceu mentis erant arcana tuentes —,\nquod dictu proprium est, uidi non posse uideri.","t":"The comparison with worse things exalts you the more,\nand you make worse the things that alone remain to the wretched.\nHere the kindly love of life perishes; the lack of all things\nalready whispers that it is sweet to die, unless a greater want\ncomes to the rescue with a heavier evil; for, kindling their bowels\nwith the madness of eating, hunger leads them through all the voracious\nfeasts that the barren forest gives, and forces them to try\nhere and there doubtful foods among the harmful\nroots of plants, and hunger itself, which made them wish it,\nmakes them unable to escape such a life.\nAt last the final extremity taught them, in need of everything\nthat use requires and destitute of all things,\nto hope for the help of the highest Father: both lay prostrate,\ntheir limbs on the ground, capable only of tears and mute grief,\nwhile shame withdraws words from unjust complaints,\nand they waste away in torpor. But after his mind returned,\nAdam, rising at last, prays with this petition:\n“Almighty author of the world and creator of things,\nwoe is me for the stain of evil! While happy life remained\nand it was given to follow with swift spirit above the stars by sight,\nI saw with these eyes (as though they beheld the secrets of the mind)\nyou, spread far around and through all things\nalways, and veiling sight with the splendor poured upon it:\nto say it properly, I saw that you cannot be seen.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 2.25 (CSEL 16:385lines 25–48–386; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/2-25)."},"marius-victor-alethia/2.252":{"o":"esse necem fratris. tali tunc caede madentem\nnon aspernatur — tanta est clementia — dignum\naffatu censere deus facinusque negantem\narguit et tanto leuiter pro crimine punit\nmensuram poenae facti de parte petendo,\nut, quia praemonitus facinus conmittere dirum\nnon timuit, tremeret: meritum quod noluit esse\nsupplicium fieret: quod mens haurire recusans\nduxisset leue, membra graue exagitata probarent,\npercussoque animo, quo se tortore profundo\nuindicat omne nefas, corpus quoque frangeret horror\ncriminis ac totos uehemens exiret in artus\nmotaque praecipiti raperentur membra rotatu,\nut labris saepti latices cum luce recussa\nexceptos frangunt radios, subit atria fulgor\nlubricus et totum perlustrans nusquam et ubique est;\ncumque tremit, sensim sublustri intexta corusco\nlinea caeruleae sine fine intermicat umbrae.\nnon erat is motus, quem neruis frigidus umor\nincutit adstrictis, media cum morte repletos\nsic rigat, ut totam nequeant amittere uitam:\nsed qualem ciet ira dei, cum conscia mentem\nuis domat et sano torquentur corda furore.","t":"was a brother's murder. Then, as he was wet with such slaughter,\nGod (so great is his clemency) does not disdain to count him\nworthy of address, and convicts him as he denies the crime,\nand punishes him lightly for so great a crime,\ntaking the measure of the punishment from a part of the deed,\nso that, because, though forewarned, he did not fear to commit\nthe dire crime, he should tremble: what he had refused to see as his desert\nshould become his punishment; what his mind, refusing to take it in,\nhad thought light, his violently shaken limbs would prove heavy;\nand, his mind struck (that deep torturer by which every wickedness\navenges itself), the horror of the crime would break his body too\nand rush violently out into all his limbs,\nand his shaken limbs would be swept in headlong whirling,\nas when water enclosed by a rim catches the rays\nand breaks them, throwing back the light; a slippery gleam enters the halls,\nand, ranging through the whole, is nowhere and everywhere;\nand when it trembles, a line of dark blue shadow,\nwoven in with the dim gleam, flickers without end.\nIt was not the motion that cold moisture strikes into\ntightened nerves, when it so stiffens those filled with half a death\nthat they cannot lose life entirely:\nbut such as the wrath of God stirs, when a conscious force\nmasters the mind and hearts are tortured with a sane madness.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 2.252 (CSEL 16:393lines 252–274–394; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/2-252)."},"marius-victor-alethia/2.275":{"o":"t quid tamen et quotiens talis sententia ? totum est\nultio (iam) facinus caesi, iustissima saeui\npoena rei, terror genti populoque futuro\npropositum exemplum, praesens purgatio culpae\net quod promisit signum custodia uitae:\nne quisquam perimat ferroque abolere laboret\nquem poenas soluisse uidet. nec sufficit istud\nsupplicium blandis naro admiscere seuera:\namandat longe uastasque relegat in oras.\nhoc quoque munus habet, ne polluat arua piorum,\nne scelus hoc populis fieri potuisse creandis\ntestis poena probet, ne se permisceat umquam,\nammoueat maestis ne se parentibus umquam\ngens damnata, bonis ne luctus semper acerbos\ningerat et fratrum dispar ne causa dolore\ntorqueat orbatos, illum quod lumina quaerant,\nistum quod uideant, in quo lugere necesse est\nhoc quoque, quod superest. summum est in funere nati\nqualiscumque malum: set tanto in crimine tali\nsupplicio affecti quouis sub iudice peius\nperduntur uiui. quid quod mage conuenit ipsi\na patriis longe damnato excedere terris,\ncui secreta placent, grauiorque est poena uideri\ninter felices et pura mente beatos?","t":"… yet what, and how often, does such a sentence do? The whole of it is\nvengeance (now) for the crime against the murdered man, the most just punishment\nof the savage culprit, a terror to the race, an example set\nbefore future peoples, a present purging of guilt,\nand, as the sign promised, a protection of his life:\nso that no one should kill him and labor to destroy with iron\none whom he sees to have paid the penalty. Nor is it enough\n… to mix severity with mildness in this punishment:\nhe sends him far away and banishes him to vast regions.\nThis too serves a purpose: that he may not pollute the fields of the pious;\nthat his punishment may not stand as a witness proving to peoples yet to be born\nthat such a crime could be done; that the condemned race may never\nmingle with the rest, may never come near\nthe grieving parents; that it may not forever heap bitter griefs\non the good, and that the unequal case of the brothers may not\ntorture the bereaved with grief, as their eyes look for the one\nand see the other, in whom they must mourn\neven this, that he remains. The greatest evil is in the death of a son,\nof whatever kind he is; but in so great a crime, those afflicted with such\na punishment are destroyed alive, worse than under any judge.\nAnd is it not more fitting for the condemned man himself\nto go far away from his father's lands,\none who likes hidden places, and for whom the heavier punishment is to be seen\namong the happy and the blessed of pure mind?","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 2.275 (CSEL 16:394lines 275–298–395; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/2-275)."},"marius-victor-alethia/2.299":{"o":"uicturo post supplicium factique pudorem\nparcitur exilio. iam quod comes additur uxor\nfida reo, nec damnatis absistere munus\nspes fit certa dei. datur en quae pectoris aegri\nmolliret curas, moto quae corpore fractum\nsisteret amplexu nullique obnoxia culpae\nsola deum precibus et pura mente colendo\neliceret quicquid posset satis esse duobus.\no bona maiestas, quid non sperare queamus!\nipse uias ueniae tacitas causamque ministras,\nqua ualeas prodesse reo, quem prole sequenti\naugens multiplicas per nomina mille nepotum\net proprii regem populi mox de patre summo\nconstituis. primus nam cingere moenibus urbes\nerudiit, quod nemo potest nisi plebe coacta.\nconfessusque metu meritum de gente suorum\nultorem admonuit Syrum docuitque perire,\ndum timet occidi, qua forsan caede piatus\ndiluit admissum, simili quod morte rependit;\net mors ipsa lucrum est, quod criminis ultio facta est.\nInterea maesto rusum grauis Eua marito\npensarat primum sancto iam pignere damnum\nreddideratque iterum curas et uota parenti.","t":"To one who was to live on after punishment and shame for his deed,\nexile is a mercy. And that a faithful wife is given as companion\nto the guilty man, and that God's gift does not abandon the condemned,\nbecomes a sure hope. Look, one is given who would soften the cares\nof his sick heart, who with her body would steady the broken man\nin her embrace, and, liable to no guilt,\nalone, by prayers and by worshipping God with a pure mind,\nwould draw down whatever might be enough for two.\nO good Majesty, what may we not hope for!\nYou yourself provide silent ways of pardon and a reason\nby which you may benefit the guilty man, whom, increasing him\nwith offspring that follow, you multiply through a thousand names of descendants,\nand soon make him king of his own people,\nfrom the highest father. For he first taught how to gird cities\nwith walls, which no one can do unless a people is gathered.\nAnd, confessing in fear what he deserved from his own race,\nhe warned the Syrian avenger, and taught him to perish\nwhile he fears to be killed; by which slaughter, perhaps expiated,\nhe washed away his deed, since he paid it back by a like death;\nand death itself is gain, since it became vengeance for the crime.\nMeanwhile Eve, pregnant again, had made up to her sad husband\nfor the first loss with a holy pledge,\nand had again restored cares and hopes to the father.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 2.299 (CSEL 16:395lines 299–321–396; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/2-299)."},"marius-victor-alethia/2.322":{"o":"Seth puero cognomen erat, quem numine prono\nadiutis supplere locum uirtutibus Abel\nomnipotens tribuit, quod munus gaudia laeti\nnon tacuere patris seriesque adiecta probauit.\nhuius quippe uiri de semine proditus Enos,\nqui primus tacita lectus uirtute sacerdos\nposse ciere piis precibus et nomine uero\nsperauit meruitque deum populumque secutum\nimbuit aeterni cultum seruare parentis\nauxilioque sacro, qua uita exposceret, uti,\nconfessa omnipotens quod maiestate ferebat,\net mentem meritumque dabat multosque per annos\ncriminis antiqui poenam differre sinebat,\nusque adeo ut cunctis pollens uirtutibus Enoc\nhorum de serie, quos continet alma propago,\nredditus in sedes patrias orbemque beatum\nuiuat adhuc uitaeque habeat iam regna futurae.\nquippe nouo mundi cultu usque carenti\npost ter centenos triplices qui duceret annos\nmille replens numeros, decimi conpendia uersus,\nuiuentum certamen erat. sed crimina postquam\ninfecere animos et nata in stirpe sequenti est\nculpa patrum peiorque suo maiore propago\nadiecit semper uitiis quod uinceret heres,\nsuccurrit uitae breuitas, quando hic modus unus\naugendi sceleris lucis qui terminus esset.","t":"The boy's name was Seth, whom the Almighty with favoring will\ngranted to fill Abel's place, his virtues aided; and that gift\nthe joy of the glad father did not keep silent, and the line that followed proved it.\nFor from the seed of this man Enosh was born,\nwho, first chosen as priest for his quiet virtue,\nhoped and deserved to be able to call upon God with pious prayers\nand by his true name, and taught the people who followed\nto keep the worship of the eternal Parent\nand to use his sacred help as life required,\nconfessing what the Almighty bestowed by his majesty;\nand he gave them mind and merit, and for many years\nallowed the punishment of the ancient crime to be put off,\nso much so that Enoch, strong in all virtues,\nfrom the line of those whom this kindly lineage contains,\nwas brought back to his father's seats and to the blessed world\nand lives still and already holds the kingdoms of the life to come.\nIndeed, for a world as yet wholly without the new worship,\nthere was a contest among the living, who should prolong his years\nbeyond thrice three hundred, filling out the number of a thousand,\nthe sum of the tenth reckoning. But after crimes\ninfected minds, and the guilt of the fathers was born in the stock that followed,\nand the offspring, worse than its elder, always added to vices\nsomething in which the heir might surpass him,\nthe shortness of life came to the rescue, since the one way\nto set a limit to the growth of crime was to set a limit to life.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 2.322 (CSEL 16:396lines 322–347–397; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/2-322)."},"marius-victor-alethia/2.348":{"o":"namque Cainigenum cum se coniuncta profanis\ndamnasset thalamis, melior cui uena, iuuentus,\nin uarium facinus sacro deserta fauore\nconcidit atque hostem insidiis patefacta recepit\ntalia fante deo: 'non semper noster in istis\nspiritus insistet populis nec differet ultra\nbis senos decies leti data tempora seri\nuita nocens annos, quoniam terrena secuti\nplus carnis quam mentis habent.' siue ergo seuera\nnaturam fregit sententia iudicis almi,\nut sic quemque reum brutae plus matris habere\nargueret, qua natus erat, seu, munere primo\nquam dederat famulis sacra uirtute creandis,\nlarga facultatis diuinae gratia quo se\na toto ad solum corpus transisse probaret\npeccatis traducta patrum, generata repente\nmonstra hominum, celsa membrorum mole gigantes,\nmente feri tumida. quantum per corpora diris\nposse subest animis et quantum uelle necesse est\nseruitio oppressis tam magnae molis iniquo,\nnon illis quicquam inliciti temerasse profanum\naut licitum cordi: uetitis succensa libido\nacrius et rebus pretium non forma petendis,\nsed scelus imposuit. nullae sine sanguine noctes\naut sine caede dies, lacrimis sumpsisse propinqui","t":"For when the young men of the better line, joined in profane\nmarriages with the daughters of Cain's race, had condemned themselves,\nthey fell into every kind of crime, deserted by sacred favor,\nand, laid open, let the enemy in by his ambushes,\nas God spoke thus: “Our Spirit will not always\nremain in these peoples, nor will guilty life put off any longer\nthan twice six tens of years the times given for late death,\nsince, following earthly things,\nthey have more of flesh than of mind.” Whether, then, the severe\nsentence of the kindly Judge broke their nature,\nso as to convict each guilty one of having more of the brute mother\nfrom whom he was born, or whether, so that the generous grace\nof divine power, which in the first gift he had given to the servants\nhe created with sacred power, might show\nthat it had passed from the whole to the body alone,\ndrawn down by the sins of the fathers, suddenly there were born\nmonsters of men, giants of towering bulk of limb,\nfierce and swollen in mind. How much power dire souls\nhave through their bodies, and how much they are bound to will,\noppressed by the unjust servitude of so great a bulk!\nNothing unlawful was profane to them to violate,\nnor anything lawful to their liking: their lust was kindled\nthe more fiercely by forbidden things, and not beauty but crime\nset the price on things to be sought. No nights without blood,\nno days without slaughter; it was sweet to take food\namid a kinsman's tears,","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 2.348 (CSEL 16:397lines 348–372–398; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/2-348)."},"marius-victor-alethia/2.373":{"o":"dulce cibos ipsosque cibis uiolasse propinquos,\ninmemores socii iuris hominumque suique\naffectusque sacri matrumque patrumque suorum\nauctorisque poli, tantumque in crimina summa\nprocessum est, ut cuncta deum informasse pigeret,\nquis uitam lucemque dedit, causaque nocentum\ncriminis expertes animas conuoluere mallet\nquam non praecipiti terras submergere ponto\nrursus in antiquam mundo redeunte (figuram).\n......\n, . , . , , , ,. fidelis\niam per quingentos inmunem criminis annos\nduxerat et posita degentem lege probarat.\ncui sic sancta deus pandens arcana reuelat:\nterrarum uitiis hominumque ad crimina pronis\nabiecta uirtute malis succurrere rerum\nfine parans statui quando, omnes plectere culpas\nsaeuum prospiciens leuiusque abolere nocentes,\ninducto rursum terras submergere ponto,\nut, dum cuncta ruens operit iussusque residit,\ngurgite praecipiti pollutum diluat orbem\ninplicitosque homines et quicquid uiuere iussi\ncausa hominum tumidi conuoluat labe profundi.","t":"and to violate kinsmen themselves for food,\nunmindful of the law of fellowship, of humanity and of themselves,\nof sacred affection and of their own mothers and fathers\nand of the Author of the sky; and they advanced so far into the worst crimes\nthat it grieved God to have formed all those\nto whom he had given life and light, and, because of the guilty,\nhe preferred to overwhelm souls free of crime\nrather than not to sink the lands in a headlong sea,\nthe world returning again to its ancient (shape).\n…\n… faithful\nhad now spent five hundred years free of crime,\nand he had proved him living under the law laid down.\nTo him God, opening his holy secrets, reveals them thus:\nsince the lands were full of vices and men prone to crimes,\nvirtue cast aside, he was preparing to remedy the evils\nby an end of things; since he foresaw that it would be cruel\nto punish every fault one by one, and lighter to blot out the guilty,\nhe had resolved to sink the lands again by bringing in the sea,\nso that, as it rushes in and covers all and then, at his command, subsides,\nit may wash the polluted world with headlong flood\nand engulf in the ruin of the swelling deep the men\nand whatever had been bidden to live for men's sake.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 2.373 (CSEL 16:398lines 373–393–399; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/2-373)."},"marius-victor-alethia/2.394":{"o":"sed quia tu solus, cui cordi est nostra uoluntas,\ndeuotum sacris ducens sub legibus aeuum\nsemper in hoc tantum merito meliore repugnas,\nsic decretorum moderabor iura meorum,\nut, cum iusta mali luerint, tunc dignius a te\nincipiat mortale genus summumque parentem\nte numerent populi, nostra qui luce fruentur.\nquadratis igitur trabibus contexta paretur\narca tibi, quae ter centum tendatur in ulnas\nperque decem quinas pateat, consurgat in altum\nter denis tantum; per ...\n.......... consummetur in unam\ndesuper. at lateri seruetur ianua, qua se\ncollecta oblico fastiget machina tecto.\ntunc calidum bibula spirans conpage bitumen\nexploret tenues et uestiat undique rimas\nfusum more cutis. labor hinc te maximus intro\nauocet: inmensis latus adnectatur utrimque\npostibus et caueae fundentur membra peractae:\ncumque triplex spatium discreuerit area duplex,\nsic discernantur propriis animantia nidis,\nne uiolent permixta genus conmissaque pugnent\nconfundantque cibos, quorum te condere par est\ntantum materiem; nam dispensata receptis\nne desit, praestare meum est.' haec mente fideli\naccipiens — namque ipse animum sensusque ministrans\nuelle et posse dabat famulo quodcumque iubebat —\nadgreditur densas natis populoque coactae\nplebis in hoc genitas ferro prosternere siluas.","t":"“But since you alone, to whom our will is dear,\nspending your life devoted under sacred laws,\nalways resist this evil with better merit,\nI will so moderate the rights of my decrees\nthat, when the wicked have paid what is just, then the mortal race\nmay begin more worthily from you, and the peoples who will enjoy our light\nmay count you their highest parent.\nSo let an ark be prepared for you, built of squared beams,\nto stretch three hundred cubits\nand open fifty in breadth, and rise in height\nonly thirty; through …\n… let it be finished into one\nfrom above. But let a door be kept in the side, where\nthe gathered structure rises to a peak with its slanting roof.\nThen let hot bitumen, breathing into the absorbent joints,\nsearch out and clothe on every side the thin cracks,\npoured on like a skin. Then let the greatest labor call you\nwithin: let the side be joined on either side with immense\nposts, and the frames of the finished stalls be laid down:\nand when a double floor has divided a threefold space,\nlet the animals be kept apart in their own nests,\nlest, mixed together, they harm their kinds and, put together, fight\nand confuse their foods; of these it is fitting for you to store\nonly the material; for that what is given out to those you take in\nshould not fail, it is mine to provide.” These things he received\nwith faithful mind (for God himself, supplying mind and senses,\ngave his servant both to will and to be able to do whatever he commanded),\nand sets about felling with iron the dense forests,\ngrown for this purpose, with his sons and a gathered crowd of people.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 2.394 (CSEL 16:399lines 394–421–400; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/2-394)."},"marius-victor-alethia/2.422":{"o":"ammittunt luci radios umbrisque leuatur\ncampus et aequaeuo spoliantur robore ualles\nac nemora speciem mundi inplicitura minoris.\nsed cum tam multo fuerit properata labore\nsumma operis coepti, centum differtur in annos,\nut pigeat sceleris populos iraeque repugnent.\no nimium miseri, tam iustae quos mora poenae\nplus facit esse reos: iam non pro crimine tantum\nplectentur, ueniae quis copia larga petendae est,\nsed quod plectentur, quot Tartara dira subibunt\ntemporis indulti spatio, cum parcere cunctis\ntestetur se malle deus. iam mole peracta\ncontextum stabat laterum conpage capaci\nauxilium, quod supremum pater ipse pararat\nnaufragiis, natura, tuis, causamque ciebat,\ncum deus e celso famulum dignatur Olympo\nuoce monere Noen summum iam tempus adesse\ncondere se latebris matrem natosque nurusque\neripere instanti exitio mortisque tenebris\ncarcere uitali secumque animantia cuncta,\nquae sua tellus alit, quae non sua sustinet aer,\nper sexum septena, deus quae munda probauit,\nbina pari, immundi generis sed singula sexu.","t":"The groves let in the sun's rays, the plain is relieved of shade,\nand the valleys are stripped of oaks as old as themselves,\nand the forests that will enclose the image of a lesser world.\nBut when the whole of the work begun had been hastened with so much labor,\nit is put off for a hundred years,\nso that the peoples might repent of their crime and wrath be held back.\nO too wretched, whom the delay of so just a punishment\nmakes more guilty! Now they will be punished not only for their crime,\nthey who have abundant opportunity to seek pardon,\nbut because they will be punished, as many as will enter dire Tartarus\nin the space of time granted, when God bears witness\nthat he prefers to spare all. Now, the mass completed,\nthere stood, framed with its capacious sides,\nthe help which the Father himself had prepared as the last resort\nfor your shipwrecks, Nature, and was calling up the cause,\nwhen God from high Olympus deigns to warn his servant Noah\nby his voice that the last moment is at hand\nto hide himself in his refuge, to snatch his wife, sons and daughters-in-law\nfrom imminent destruction and the darkness of death\ninto a life-giving prison, and with himself all the animals\nwhich the earth nourishes as its own, which the air bears though they are not its own:\nseven of each sex, those which God approved as clean,\nin pairs, but of the unclean kind one of each sex.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 2.422 (CSEL 16:400lines 422–444–401; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/2-422)."},"marius-victor-alethia/2.445":{"o":"nec mora fit: quicquid conuexo cardine caeli\nnascitur ignotum diuersis partibus orbis,\nquod stupet Eous, quod pallidus horret Hiberus,\naustralis Libyae calidis quod saeuit harenis,\nscindit Hyperboreas miro quod lumine noctes,\nuna ruit trepidans et apertae inmergitur arcae.\ndiluuium sensisse putes; nam cum deus auctor\ndet brutis sensum, quo se testetur alumnis,\nplus pecudes rationis habent, quae numine motae\nnil de se sapiunt. ergo omni semine uitae\npraegrauidam ut primum claudi deus imperat arcam,\nnox ruit et subitae caelum obduxere tenebrae\neffusoque cadens terras ferit aere nimbus\npraeceps, more breuis, seruaturusque tenorem\nsic furit et toto pariter desaeuit in orbe\ntam, quam in parte solet, rapido cum turbine mota\ntempestas sequitur saeuos aut nuntiat ignes\nfulminis et tonitru caelum terraeque reclamant.\nnec satis excidio est qui nubibus effluit imber:\nantiquae laxantur aquae iamque aethere aperto\nin nubes uacuas caelum pluit, intima terrae\nhalitus extendens, qui flumina sufficit, implet\natque nouos pandit fontes torrentibus aequos.","t":"No delay: whatever is born under the curving vault of heaven,\nunknown in the various parts of the world,\nwhat the East marvels at, what the pale Iberian shudders at,\nwhat rages in the hot sands of southern Libya,\nwhat cleaves the Hyperborean nights with wondrous light,\nrushes together trembling and plunges into the open ark.\nYou would think they had sensed the flood; for since God the Author\ngives sense to brutes by which to bear witness to himself among his creatures,\nthe beasts, moved by his will, have more reason,\nthough they know nothing of themselves. So, as soon as God commands\nthe ark, heavy with every seed of life, to be closed,\nnight rushes in and sudden darkness covered the sky,\nand a storm, falling with the air poured out, strikes the lands\nheadlong, like a brief one, but about to keep its course,\nand it rages and storms over the whole world alike\nas it usually does in one place, when a tempest, moved by a rapid whirlwind,\nfollows or announces the savage fires\nof lightning, and heaven and earth cry back with thunder.\nNor is the rain that flows from the clouds enough for the destruction:\nthe ancient waters are loosed, and now, the heavens opened,\nthe sky rains into empty clouds; the inmost parts of the earth,\nstretching out the breath that supplies the rivers, fill\nand open new springs equal to torrents.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 2.445 (CSEL 16:401lines 445–467–402; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/2-445)."},"marius-victor-alethia/2.468":{"o":"dumque uno inmixtum raptim se gurgite iungit\nquod caelum, quod terra uomit, quod nubila fundunt,\ninuoluit mersos mixtis cultoribus agros\nimplicitosque greges stabulis, cum ciuibus urbes\nobruit: inter aquas populi periere ruinis.\nnulla manet rerum facies, tegit omnia fluctus\ncrescendoque suum perdunt et flumina nomen,\nmox etiam cursum. nullis satiabilis umquam\namnibus oceanus tam magna mole ruentes\niam persentit aquas, aucto quas gurgite maior\npellit et in cumulum redeuntes surgere cogit,\ndonec contractis aestum attollente profundo\nundique litoribus summo se circite iungat\nfluctus et oppressis concurrant aequora terris.\net iam ter quinis super omnia celsior ulnis\narca ferebatur; namque haec mensura supremos\nexcessit. montes, cum quadraginta diebus\nullius pluuiae furor et nox una fuisset.\nter quinquagenis post solibus aere sudo\ncum similis ponti modus et mensura maneret,\nclausorum omnipotens miserans decedere magnum\npaulatim iussit pelagus, seu parcere cunctis,\nquas poterat fugiens raptim subuertere, terris\nseu clausis uoluit, sensim quos unda relabens\ntutius in sedem stabilem subducta locaret.","t":"And while all that the sky, that the earth vomits out, that the clouds pour down,\nmingled, swiftly joins in one flood,\nit engulfs the submerged fields together with their tillers\nand the flocks caught in their stalls; it overwhelms cities with their citizens:\namid the waters peoples perished in ruins.\nNo face of things remains, the wave covers all,\nand the rivers, as they grow, lose their names,\nsoon their courses too. The ocean, never satisfied\nby any rivers, now feels the waters rushing in such a mass,\nand, greater with its increased flood, drives them back\nand forces them, returning, to rise into a heap,\nuntil, as the deep raises its tide and the shores are contracted\non every side, the wave joins itself in one highest circle\nand the seas meet over the overwhelmed lands.\nAnd now the ark was carried fifteen cubits higher\nabove all things; for this measure exceeded the highest\nmountains, when the fury of the rain had lasted forty days\nand a single night. After thrice fifty suns, the air now clear,\nwhen the level and measure of the sea remained the same,\nthe Almighty, pitying those shut in, commanded the great\nsea to recede little by little, whether he wished to spare all the lands,\nwhich it could have overturned in a rapid flight,\nor those shut in, whom the wave, sliding back gently,\nwould set down more safely on firm ground as it withdrew.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 2.468 (CSEL 16:402lines 468–492–403; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/2-468)."},"marius-victor-alethia/2.49":{"o":"nunc quoque post culpam spoliatis lumine sacro,\nquamuis mens melior per totum libera ferri\nfugerit et clausis terreni carceris antro\nnil ueri praeter mortalia nosse supersit,\nomnia plena tui tantum sentire remansit.\natque ideo omnipotens, qui semper totus ubique es,\nad te confugimus trepidanti mente precantes:\nexaudi miseros, quos semper cernis et audis,\nsi, cum me parti damnatae adnectere uellet\nille, caput scelerum, mundi reus et suus hostis,\nnil per se solum, ne uictus cederet, ausus,\nserpentis miseram, cui mens incauta, per artem\nmeque per affectum, quem sexus sentit uterque,\nartificis scelerum fraus inprouisa subegit\net, cum damnarer iusta pro crimine poena,\nsic piguit culpae, tanto mens icta dolore\nindignata sibi est, ut te, mitissime iudex,\ntunc mihi uindictam de me praestare putarem.\nidcirco et gemitus causae lacrimasque negaui,\nindignum uenia quia me reus ipse probabam,\namplexusque animo solacia dulcia poenae\nhoc ipsum post haec sacra inter munera ponens\npro uenia sceleris, quod sum damnatus, habebo.","t":"Now too, after the guilt, robbed of sacred light,\nthough the better mind, free to range through the whole, has fled,\nand, in the closed cave of the earthly prison,\nnothing of truth remains to know except mortal things,\nthis alone remains: to feel that all things are full of you.\nAnd therefore, Almighty, who are always wholly everywhere,\nwe flee to you, praying with trembling mind:\nhear the wretched, whom you always see and hear.\nWhen he wished to bind me to the condemned side,\nhe, the head of crimes, guilty before the world and his own enemy,\ndared nothing by himself alone, lest he be defeated and yield;\nthe unforeseen fraud of the craftsman of crimes subdued\nthe wretched woman, whose mind was incautious, by the serpent's art,\nand me by the affection which both sexes feel;\nand when I was condemned with just punishment for the crime,\nI so repented of the guilt, my mind, struck with such grief,\nwas so indignant with itself, that I thought that you, most gentle judge,\nwere then granting me vengeance on myself.\nTherefore I denied myself groans and tears in my cause,\nbecause I, the guilty one, judged myself unworthy of pardon;\nand, embracing in my mind the sweet consolations of punishment,\nplacing this very thing hereafter among your sacred gifts,\nI will count it as pardon for my crime that I was condemned.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 2.49 (CSEL 16:386lines 49–71; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/2-49)."},"marius-victor-alethia/2.493":{"o":"denique mons t aer diffuso uertice planus\nuecturus suscepit onus. iam summa uideri\nposse iuga ac planos scopulis distinguere fluctus\ncumque residenti sensim prorumpere siluae\naequore et occulti paulatim surgere colles.\niamque niger patula speculator missus ab arca\naera prodiderat placidum praedaque reperta\ndetentus; sed adhuc cella claustrisque morandum\nfessa columba refert, quae rursum missa reportat\npaciferae frugis paruum libamen oliuae.\ntantus ad indicium magni cum laude parentis\nclausorum fletus, quo se quoque laeta reuelant,\nexoritur, quantus, muris cum uictor acerbus\ninsultat, subitum obsessis si forte feratur\nauxilium: quantus, cum iudice missa modesto\naddictos rursum uitae sententia reddit:\nquantus, in ambiguum funus cum uita recurrit\ninter lugentum lacrimas et gaudia, fletus.\npostquam ter missa speculatrix arua patere\nnuntiat hoc ipso, terris quod capta receptis\nnon rediit, taedet pigras perferre latebras,\nquo spes est propior caelo spirare patenti\natque animam aetherio laxatam pascere sensu.","t":"At last a mountain … level with its spreading summit,\nreceived the burden it was to carry. Now the highest ridges could be seen,\nand crags could mark off the level waves,\nand, as the sea subsided, the forest gradually broke forth\nand the hidden hills little by little rose.\nAnd now the black scout, sent from the wide ark,\nhad betrayed that the air was calm, and, finding prey,\nwas held back; but that they must still stay in the cell and enclosure\nthe tired dove reports, which, sent again, brings back\na small offering of the peace-bearing fruit of the olive.\nAt this sign, with praise of the great Parent,\nthere arises such weeping among those shut in (joy too shows itself in tears)\nas when a bitter victor\ninsults the walls, if by chance sudden help\nis brought to the besieged; as when a sentence sent by a merciful judge\nrestores the condemned to life again;\nas the weeping when life returns to one thought dead\namid the tears and joys of the mourners.\nAfter the scout, sent a third time, announces that the fields lie open\nby the very fact that, captivated by the recovered lands,\nshe did not return, they grow weary of enduring their idle hiding place,\nthe nearer their hope is to breathe beneath the open sky\nand feed their freed souls with the sense of heaven.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 2.493 (CSEL 16:403lines 493–515–404; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/2-493)."},"marius-victor-alethia/2.516":{"o":"sed fas haud ulli est exire in luminis oras,\nut uetitum nasci caelumque diemque subire\nnon uocitante deo, propria qui uoce trementem\niussa Noen monuit sacris excedere claustris\nconiuge cum fida natis nuribusque pudicis\net noua deductis iterum dare rura colonis\ncunctaque quae pariter proli seruata futurae\nhumanos pollens opifex formauit in usus.\nquae, postquam data porta, ruunt: pars aera pennis,\npars saltus siluasque petunt, pars mersa cauernis\ninfoditur patulis terrae, pars libera campis\nexultat siccis et prato uernat aperto.\nat dominus, mundi sortitus regna secundi,\ncuncta Noe gaudens oculis ac mente capaci\naccipit atque animum nequit exsaturare replendo\net cupido raptim perlustrans omnia uisu\nut noua miratur. noto fulgentior ortu\net mage sol rutilus, ridet maiore sereno\nlaeta poli facies et desperata uirescunt\nfetibus arua nouis. sed adhuc uersatur imago\nante oculos tantae semper memoranda ruinae,\ninter aquas quid pertulerint, quid munere sacro\net non pertulerint, fremeret cum uerbere saeuo\npontus et inlisas contemneret arca procellas:","t":"But no one may go out into the shores of light,\nas no one may be born and come under sky and day,\nunless God calls; and he with his own voice commanded\nthe trembling Noah to leave the sacred enclosure\nwith his faithful wife, his sons and his chaste daughters-in-law,\nand to give new fields again to the settlers he led out,\nand all the creatures preserved together for future offspring,\nwhich the mighty Craftsman formed for human use.\nThese, when the door is opened, rush out: some seek the air on wings,\nsome the glades and woods, some, sinking into caverns,\nburrow into the open earth, some, free on the dry plains,\nexult and flourish in the open meadow.\nBut their lord, allotted the kingdom of a second world,\nNoah, takes in all with rejoicing eyes and capacious mind,\nand cannot sate his spirit with filling it,\nand, quickly surveying all with eager gaze,\nmarvels at them as new. The sun is brighter than at its familiar\nrising, and redder, the glad face of the sky smiles\nwith greater serenity, and the fields once despaired of grow green\nwith new offspring. But still the image of so great a ruin,\never to be remembered, turns before his eyes:\nwhat they endured amid the waters, what by sacred gift\nthey did not endure, when the sea roared with savage blows\nand the ark scorned the storms dashed against it:","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 2.516 (CSEL 16:404lines 516–539–405; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/2-516)."},"marius-victor-alethia/2.540":{"o":"cumque suis reputat, quam late sancta parentis\nse circum summi fundens largitio constet,\net docet attonitos uerumque addiscere promptos,\nunde cibus tantis toto suffecerit anno,\nquis potus; namque hoc constat, si cetera uitae\nsuppeterent, clausos, dum fluctuat arca, necari\ninter aquas potuisse siti, nisi rector Olympi\ndepositos penitus nec iam ulla extrema timentes\nsustinuisset eo, quo condidit omnia, nutu.\nille animas longae perituras carcere noctis\naffectu lucis spolians uirtute repleuit:\nille, ut tam segnem possent perferre quietem,\ninfudit pigri placidum torporis amorem,\nille potens, cui, si placuit, uirtute seuera\npraegelido raptim sub gurgite cogere fas est\ninmersos ardere malos flammisque futuris\ninuectos algere bonos, qui tempore paruo,\nut nunc edocuit populos sic posse necari,\nipse docebit aquis populos sic posse renasci.","t":"and with his family he reckons how widely the holy bounty\nof the highest Parent is shown, pouring itself around them,\nand he teaches them, astonished and ready to learn the truth,\nhow food sufficed for so many through a whole year,\nand what drink; for this is certain: even if the other needs of life\nwere supplied, those shut in could have died of thirst\namid the waters while the ark floated, unless the ruler of Olympus\nhad sustained them, laid low as they were and no longer fearing any extremity,\nby the same nod by which he founded all things.\nHe, taking from souls that would have perished in the prison of the long night\nthe longing for light, filled them with strength:\nhe, so that they could endure such sluggish rest,\npoured in a calm love of sluggish torpor;\nhe the Mighty One, who, if he pleases, by his severe power may\nswiftly make the wicked, plunged under an icy flood, burn,\nand the good, carried into the flames to come, feel cold;\nhe who, as he has now taught the peoples that they can be killed in this way,\nwill himself in a short time teach the peoples that they can be reborn by water.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 2.540 (CSEL 16:405lines 540–558; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/2-540)."},"marius-victor-alethia/2.72":{"o":"non igitur dirum est. at maiestate serena\nexaudire uelis nil contra iussa precantes\nnec iam poscentes lacrimis, quod sponte benigna\npraestabis famulis, ut se censura resoluat,\ntota sed ut plenas teneat sententia uires.\niussisti mota uictum me quaerere glaeba:\ndamnatis igitur campis sunt arma mouendi\ndanda — agros dumos steriles spinasque tenaces\npro fructu dare: pura mihi prius ergo serenda est,\nut fallat mea uota seges quaesita labore —\nherbarum assiduo contexere semine panem:\nda menti, quae sint herbae, quae forma laboris,\nda, pater, auxilium miserans atque imbue sensus.\ntunc erit, ut rerum compos et certa salutis\nseruiat Eua mihi saeuumque experta creandi\nsupplicium pariat populos, qui crimine nostro\nplectantur, purgetque patrum peccata nepotum\nmortibus aeternam faciens successio poenam.'\nTalibus orantes falsi serpentis imago\nindice uisa metu tacito se tramite ferre\nleniter ad molles tractus uibrantibus herbis\nin se conuertit trepidos pigrique doloris\nexcussos senio cognatas traxit in iras.","t":"It is not, then, dire. But may you, with serene majesty,\nbe willing to hear those who pray for nothing against your commands\nand who no longer ask with tears that, of your kindly will,\nyou grant your servants that the sentence be relaxed,\nbut that the whole sentence keep its full force.\nYou commanded me to seek my food by moving the clod:\nso tools must be given for moving the condemned fields\n(they are to give barren brambles and clinging thorns\ninstead of fruit: so pure seed must first be sown by me,\nso that the crop sought with labor may cheat my hopes);\nI must weave bread from the constant seed of plants:\ngrant my mind to know which are the plants, what the form of labor,\ngrant help, Father, in your pity, and instruct our senses.\nThen it will be that Eve, mistress of things and sure of salvation,\nwill serve me and, having endured the cruel punishment\nof begetting, bear peoples who will be punished for our crime,\nand the succession of descendants, by their deaths, will purge the sins of the fathers,\nmaking the punishment eternal.”\nAs they prayed thus, the image of the false serpent,\nseen (fear was the informer) carrying itself by a silent path\ngently toward soft tracts with quivering grass,\nturned the frightened pair toward itself and, roused from the torpor\nof sluggish grief, drew them into a rage against their kin.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 2.72 (CSEL 16:386lines 72–94–387; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/2-72)."},"marius-victor-alethia/2.95":{"o":"et prior Eua uiro: 'si te suprema malorum\ncausa mouet, rape saxa manu; datur ecce facultas\nauctorem leti leto dare. prima docere\nsuppliciis debet propriis et morte cruenta,\nquam sit triste mori, quae me male perdidit et te.'\ndixit et elapsam cursu telisque secuntur\nmissilibus cautesque rotant, quarum una reducto\naltius ad nisum facilem dare certa lacerto\nobsequitur uotis oculosque animamque secuta\net nudum in silicem media serpente resultat\nscintillamque ciet, sicco quae fomite pasta\nac mox flamma fuit crinita incendia late\nextendens siccoque floret iam candida fumo.\nhorruerant latebrasque gradu trepidante petebant,\nsed pauidos stupor ipse tenet curamque sagacem\nhumani pandit uitii, quod cernere rursum\net timidi metuenda uolunt paulumque remoti\ntelluris dorso sterilis mirantur opacas\nprocubuisse comas nemorum, sordere fauillis\nfuscarique diem, totas splendescere terras\net lucem sub sole nouam. nec mente quieta\naccipiunt crepitus stridentibus undique siluis\nundantesque globos flammarum in sidera ferri,\ndum se radices demersus tendit ad imas\nignis edax penitus, sumpto quo uicta calore","t":"And Eve first, to her husband: “If the supreme cause of our evils\nmoves you, seize stones in your hand; look, the chance is given\nto give the author of death to death. She ought first to teach,\nby her own punishment and a bloody death,\nhow sad it is to die, she who ruined me, and you, so badly.”\nShe spoke, and as it slips away they pursue it at a run with missile\nweapons and hurl rocks, one of which, the arm drawn back\nhigher for the effort, sure to give an easy throw,\nobeys their wishes, following their eyes and their will,\nand, with the serpent between, bounces onto bare flint\nand strikes a spark, which, fed on dry tinder,\nsoon was flame, spreading its burning tresses far and wide,\nand now blooms, bright, with dry smoke.\nThey shuddered and sought hiding places with trembling step,\nbut stupor itself holds the frightened pair and reveals the inquisitive\ncare of human weakness, that, though timid, they wish\nto see again what is to be feared, and, a little withdrawn\non the ridge of the barren earth, they marvel that the shady\nfoliage of the groves has fallen, that it is foul with ashes,\nthat the day is darkened, that all the lands are shining\nand that there is a new light under the sun. Nor do they hear with a quiet mind\nthe crackling as the woods hiss everywhere\nand the surging globes of flame are carried to the stars,\nwhile the devouring fire, sunk deep, stretches itself\ndown to the lowest roots, and, overcome by the heat it has taken in,","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 2.95 (CSEL 16:387lines 95–119–388; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/2-95)."},"marius-victor-alethia/3.1":{"o":"Talia mente gerens uenturaque saecula cernens\nnon prius officii quicquam mortalis inire\nprisca Noe quam sacra deo gratesque rependat\nconstituit. niueo surgunt altaria saxo:\nnulla quibus saeptis cum se circumdaret aedes,\nundique diffusi conuexo tramite caeli\ntemplum mundus erat. septenis hostia praeceps\naffluit e gregibus, mollis quos sustinet aer,\nquos generat terrae .........\n......... sternuntur Eois\naut Arabum siluis. ignis demissus Olympo\nlibat odoratos quos crine exedit honores\nambrosiumque deo fragrant holocausta uaporem.\nqui mitis semperque bonus pro munere nostro\naccipiens quicquid recipit gaudensque piorum\nofficiis hominum, quorum non indiget usu,\nsed quis nos redimat, placido sic numine fatur:\netsi parua fuit tanto pro nomine poenae\nultio uindicibus pluuiis et gurgite molli\ntot scelerum damnasse reos sedemque nocentum\nterras diffuso potius renouasse profundo,\nnon tamen offensi feriemus uerbere tali\nulterius mortale genus, quamuis ruituras\nper uarium facinus, per crimina pristina rursus\nhumanas mentes uideam gentesque profanas.","t":"Bearing such things in mind and discerning the ages to come,\nancient Noah resolved to undertake no mortal task\nuntil he had paid sacred rites and thanks to God.\nAltars of snowy stone rise up:\nsince no temple surrounded them with its walls,\nthe world, with the curving path of heaven spread out on every side,\nwas the temple. Victims stream headlong from the sevenfold\nflocks, those whom the soft air sustains,\nthose whom the earth begets …\n… are strewn, from the East\nor from the woods of the Arabs. Fire, sent down from Olympus,\ntastes the fragrant honors which it devours with its tresses,\nand the burnt offerings breathe an ambrosial vapor to God.\nHe, gentle and always good, accepting whatever he receives\nas our gift, and rejoicing in the services of pious men,\nof which he has no need,\nbut by which he may redeem us, speaks thus with calm will:\n“Although it was a small vengeance for the name of so great a punishment\nto have condemned the guilty of so many crimes with avenging rains\nand a gentle flood, and rather to have renewed the lands, the seat of the guilty,\nwith the deep poured out over them,\nyet we will not strike the mortal race again with such a blow,\nhowever offended, though I see human minds and profane nations\nabout to rush again through every kind of wickedness and the old crimes.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 3.1 (CSEL 16:407lines 1–24; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/3-1)."},"marius-victor-alethia/3.121":{"o":"siue dedit mundo, quem quidam errore caduco\ncorporeum dixere deum, quod solus habebat\nconditor omnipotens sparsitque per omnia membra\nrerum signa mouens uenturi nuntia saecli,\nut se per totam molem testetur alumnis\nsemper et auctorem fateatur mentis imago\nsitque palam rebus positum, regnator abundans\nquid praestare queat populis, quid tollere possit,\nquid quandoque suos, caeli quis regna parantur,\nscire uetet famulos, quod uerum testis achates,\nPyrri gemma, probat, Musis et Apolline clauso\nedita cum mundo — quid non per cuncta putemus\nsignificasse deum, quando et mendacia mundi\nprodidit anticipans et post fingenda notauit:\nseu simplex potius mundi fert omnia motus:\nseu grauis inuentor leti cessare capacem\nfraudis materiam non passus cuncta maligno\nsubdidit arbitrio, quo fatum induceret orbi.\nnam dum dinumerat cursus uariosque recursus\nastrorum et miro fruitur discrimine caeli,\ntempora sic dubii posuit sibi certa fauoris\natque facultatem pronam metasque nocendi\neffectu uario uariis conuentibus edens,\nspargat (ut) inuidiam stellis et crimina sacro\nadleget caelo mundumque ornantibus astris,\ncum fingat populis quicquid facit ipse futurum.","t":"whether the almighty Founder gave to the world (which some, in a fallen error,\nhave called a bodily god) what he alone possessed,\nand scattered through all the members of things\nsigns that move as messengers of the age to come,\nso that he may always bear witness to himself to his creatures through the whole mass,\nand the image of mind may confess its author,\nand it may be set plainly in things what the bountiful Ruler\ncan grant to peoples, what he can take away,\nwhat he sometimes forbids his servants, for whom the kingdoms of heaven are prepared,\nto know; which the agate, Pyrrhus's gem, proves true as a witness,\nshowing the Muses and Apollo enclosed within it,\nbrought forth with the world (what should we not think\nGod signified through all things, since he even betrayed the lies of the world\nin advance and marked what would later be feigned?);\nor whether rather the simple motion of the world brings all things;\nor whether the grievous inventor of death, not suffering matter\nthat could serve fraud to lie idle, subjected all things\nto his malignant will, so as to bring fate upon the world.\nFor while he counts the courses and the various returns\nof the stars and enjoys the wondrous diversity of the sky,\nhe has set for himself fixed times of uncertain favor,\nand, producing a ready faculty and set bounds for harming\nwith varied effect in varied conjunctions,\n(so as to) spread odium on the stars and lay crimes\nto the charge of sacred heaven and of the stars that adorn the world,\nsince he feigns to the peoples as fated whatever he himself does.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 3.121 (CSEL 16:410lines 121–146–411; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/3-121)."},"marius-victor-alethia/3.147":{"o":"hinc ars est, quod fibra tremit, quod pinna coruscat,\nnubibus elisis quod fulmina nuntia signant.\nnam quia praecipites motus cunctosque sagaci\namplexus casus studio, qui publicus hostis\nprae .... is reddat, meminit, diuina putare\npersuasit populis falsi commenta ueneni.\nhaud secus Aethiopum canibus, (quis) regna, tyrannis\nlibertas regitur: cum rebus congrua certis\ncorporis ignari petitur sententia motu\net casum praecepta putant. nec signa minora\nhaec pro se ualido praesumit opinio sensu;\nnam gemmam Pyrri Galbae Fortuna refutat:\nqui potuit quippe statuam tot fingere lustris,\net lapidem simulare potest. his fraudibus usus\ninlusit captis noscendi ardore futuri\nuincendique dehinc fati stimulante timore\nsollicitis studio magicae scelus intulit artis,\nqua semet potius colerent arisque dicatis\nimpia tura darent, cum prodita turba parente.\nmoxque parum sano genitus de stemmate Nembrod,\nmole et mente gigans, Babylonis praeditus aulae,\nPersarum capiens animos uenator iniquus\na ueri sacris domini transduxit ad ignem.","t":"From this comes the art of what the entrails' fibers tremble at, what the bird's wing flashes,\nwhat the lightning, as messenger, signals when the clouds are struck.\nFor because the public enemy, having embraced with shrewd zeal\nall sudden motions and chances, remembers … to render,\nhe persuaded the peoples to think the inventions of false poison divine.\nNot otherwise among the Ethiopians, (who) have dogs as kings,\nfreedom is ruled by tyrants: when a judgment suited to definite matters\nis sought from the motion of an unknowing body,\nand they take chance for command. Nor does opinion,\nwith strong conviction, presume these signs to be less on its own behalf;\nfor Galba's Fortune refutes Pyrrhus's gem:\nshe who could fashion a statue over so many years\ncan also counterfeit a stone. Using these frauds\nhe mocked those caught by the passion to know the future,\nand then, as the fear of overcoming fate goaded them,\nhe brought on the anxious the crime of the magic art through their zeal,\nby which they would rather worship him and offer impious incense\non dedicated altars, when the crowd had been betrayed by its parent.\nAnd soon Nimrod, born from an unsound stock,\na giant in bulk and mind, master of the court of Babylon,\nan unjust hunter who captivated the minds of the Persians,\nled them away from the rites of the true Lord to the worship of fire.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 3.147 (CSEL 16:411lines 147–169–412; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/3-147)."},"marius-victor-alethia/3.170":{"o":"Nec tantum cupidis nimium sic arte sagaci\nille, caput scelerum, mundi reus et suus hostis\ninlusit curis hominum, sed mentibus ipsis\ninruit et sensus penitus descendit in omnes,\nmox et in affectus. nam cum patris unica proles\nspem generis leto secum traxisset acerbo,\ninfelix genitor, lacrimis noctesque diesque\ncontinuans hebetique trahens plangore querellas\ndum furit et raptum quaerit per singula natum\nexuuiasque tenet dulces puerilibus annis\naut trans fata pius solatur imagine luctum,\nsic desideriis accensum pauit amorem,\nut totam Pario statuens de marmore formam\ncrediderit demens incluso uiuere sensu\net questus audire suos arisque dicatis\nauctoris summi cultum transferret ad umbras.\nomnibus iste reis grauior transcendit et illum\ndoctorem scelerum, magicas qui condidit artes.\nille palam furiis reus est et mente profana,\nhic pietate nocens. facinus plus inquinat istud,\nquod speciem uirtutis habet; nam protinus omnes\namplexae gentes scelus hoc sine fine litantes\nmanibus inferias, uti nunc testantur Alani,\npro dis quaeque suis caros habuere parentes,\npost etiam reges, quorum sub nomine mendax","t":"Nor did he, the head of crimes, guilty before the world and his own enemy,\nmock the cares of men, too eager, only by such shrewd art,\nbut he rushed upon their minds themselves\nand went down deep into all their senses,\nand soon into their affections too. For when a father's only child\nhad dragged with him into bitter death the hope of the family,\nthe unhappy father, spending nights and days in tears\nand drawing out his complaints in dull lamentation,\nwhile he rages and seeks his snatched-away son in everything,\nand holds the relics, sweet in boyish years,\nor, dutiful beyond death, consoles his grief with an image,\nso fed his love, inflamed by longing,\nthat, setting up the whole form in Parian marble,\nhe believed, mad, that it lived with sense shut up inside it\nand heard his complaints, and with dedicated altars\ntransferred the worship of the supreme Author to shades.\nThis man surpassed all the guilty in gravity, even that\nteacher of crimes who founded the magic arts.\nThe one is guilty openly, by madness and a profane mind;\nthe other does harm by piety. This crime defiles the more\nbecause it has the appearance of virtue; for at once all\nnations embraced this crime, endlessly sacrificing\nofferings to the shades, as the Alans now bear witness;\neach held their dear parents as their gods,\nand later their kings as well, under whose name lying","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 3.170 (CSEL 16:412lines 170–194–413; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/3-170)."},"marius-victor-alethia/3.195":{"o":"Graecia, dum ueris falsa insinuare laborat,\naddidit obscuras uanis rationibus umbras,\nexcusans tumulos et condita nomina bustis,\ndonec per species etiam dementia cunctas\ntenderet et rebus minimis membrisque pudendis\nfingeret esse deos: quippe assistebat in oris\ntalibus erroresque fouens responsa ciebat\ninuentor leti miris in partibus orbis,\nusus ad insidias aut igni aut fonte calenti\naut antris. uentos terra spirante loquaces\nlusit et ante Themis, populis post falsus Apollo\ninposuit sedesque dehinc mutare coactus\nLeucorum factus medicus nunc Gallica rura\ntransmittens profugus Germanas fraude nocenti\nsollicitat gentes et barbara (pectora) fallit.\nSed redeo ad summam, qua sum degressus, ad istam\nmaiorum seriem. cum multiplicata creando\ncuncta Noe suboles terras implesset Eoas\net Senaar artos decrescere cerneret agros,\nper uarias orbis partes spargenda iuuentus\nrupit in haec maestas tristissima uerba querellas:","t":"Greece, while it labors to work falsehoods in among truths,\nadded obscure shades with vain reasonings,\nexcusing tombs and the names buried in graves,\nuntil madness stretched even through all kinds of things\nand imagined that there were gods in the smallest things and in shameful members:\nfor the inventor of death stood by in such places\nand, fostering errors, called forth oracles\nin wondrous parts of the world,\nusing for his snares fire, or a hot spring,\nor caves. First Themis mocked the peoples with talkative winds\nas the earth breathed them out; afterwards false Apollo\ndeceived the peoples, and then, forced to change his seats,\nhe became the physician of the Leuci, and now, crossing the Gallic countryside\nas a fugitive, he troubles the German nations with harmful fraud\nand deceives barbarian (hearts).\nBut I return to the main thread from which I digressed, to that\nline of ancestors. When Noah's offspring, multiplied by begetting,\nhad filled all the eastern lands\nand saw the fields of Shinar grow too narrow,\nthe young people, who were to be scattered through various parts of the world,\nbroke out into these most sad words of complaint:","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 3.195 (CSEL 16:413lines 195–215–414; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/3-195)."},"marius-victor-alethia/3.216":{"o":"'heu quam non certus uitae status ordine coepto\nfert homines factamque fidem sic prospera fallunt\nper uarios cursus, ut uoti summa petiti\ntendat in aduersum. iam nos, si dicere fas est,\nquod sperata patrum precibus numerosa nepotum\ncreuit turba, piget; spargenda est quippe per orbem\nexilio generata manus: peritura propinquis\net pariter perdens, quod sit magis acre dolori,\nuiua morte suos referat, quod funere tristi\ndamnamur miseri, quod festinante senecta\ndenos centenos, quos prisca excesserat aetas,\nuix ter centenos iam fessi accedimus annos,\nne patria extorres nuda et sine nomine membra\nignotis demus passim tumulanda sepulcris.\nquare agite, o iuuenes, dum uires turba ministrat,\nquae uobis superesse queat finemque seuerum\nnesciat, aeternam factis extendite famam.\nurbem condamus, cuius sub nomine turrem\ntanto attollamus, donec pingentia mundum\nsidera et excelsi conuexa inrumpat Olympi,\nut nos posteritas, terras quom liquimus istas,\nin caelum migrasse putet.' sic mota iuuentus\ncontemnit cautes et quicquid monte reciso\ncaeditur: edomitae fictos de uiscere terrae\nconstringunt igni lateres operisque futuri\nmateriam proprio malunt debere labori.","t":"“Alas, how uncertain is the state of life that carries men along\nin the order begun, and how prosperity deceives the trust it created\nthrough changing courses, so that the sum of what we wished for\nturns to the opposite. Now, if it is right to say it,\nwe are sorry that the numerous crowd of descendants, hoped for\nby our fathers' prayers, has grown; for the band we begot must be scattered\nthrough the world in exile: lost to its kin\nand losing them in turn, and, what is sharper grief,\nit will bring its own people a living death; and we wretched ones\nare condemned to a sad death, because, as old age hastens on,\nthough the ancient age had gone beyond ten hundred years,\nwe, already weary, scarcely reach three hundred,\nso that, exiled from our fatherland, we must give our bare and nameless limbs\nto unknown graves here and there for burial.\nSo come, young men, while the crowd supplies strength\nthat may survive you and not know a stern end,\nextend an eternal fame by deeds.\nLet us found a city, and in its name raise a tower\nso high that it breaks into the stars that paint the world\nand the vault of high Olympus,\nso that posterity, when we have left these lands,\nmay think that we have moved to heaven.” So moved, the young men\nscorn rocks and whatever is cut from a cloven mountain:\nthey bind with fire bricks shaped from the inward parts of the subdued earth,\nand prefer to owe the material of the future work to their own labor.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 3.216 (CSEL 16:414lines 216–241–415; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/3-216)."},"marius-victor-alethia/3.242":{"o":"hanc interstratum sic uincit utrimque bitumen;\nut solidas simulent circumdata moenia cautes.\niam turris properata subit, iam uertice nubes\ntransilit et fruitur caeli propiore sereno,\ncum pater haec propriis regni consortibus infit:\n'en terrena phalanx quid non furiosa resignet,\nmortali quae structa manu contingere celsos\ncredat posse polos et ad aethera ducere nostrum.\nnullus terreno uestitus corpore caelum\nascendit, nisi qui caelo descenderit alto.\nsed quia — gens una est, eadem quoque forma loquendi —\nadsensu cupido suadentes praua secuta est\nturba nec excussit, quid fas permitteret, audens\nardua, quae fieri per se natura uetaret,\ninpunita ferant tam uani damna laboris.\nut tamen et uetitum norint, quod posse negatum est,\niam descendamus tumefactaque corda superbo\nconsensu uarii turbemus uocibus oris,\nut quod peccauit concors in crimina uulgus,\nconfusae damnet melior discordia linguae.'\ndixit et intentos operi molemque leuantes\nmentibus attonitis obliuio subdita primum\nintrat et ignotae subiit perfectio linguae.","t":"Bitumen, spread between, binds the bricks on both sides,\nso that the walls built around imitate solid rock.\nNow the tower, hurried on, rises, now with its top it leaps over the clouds\nand enjoys the nearer calm of heaven,\nwhen the Father speaks thus to the partners of his kingdom:\n“Look, what would this earthly phalanx in its madness not break open,\nwhich believes that a structure built by mortal hand can touch\nthe lofty heavens and lead to the ether that is ours.\nNo one clothed in an earthly body has ascended\nto heaven except he who descended from high heaven.\nBut since (they are one people, with one form of speech too)\nthe crowd followed the wicked persuaders with eager assent\nand did not consider what right would allow, daring\nlofty things which nature by itself forbade to be done,\nlet them bear, with no further punishment, the loss of so vain a labor.\nYet so that they may know that what was denied as impossible is also forbidden,\nlet us now go down and confound hearts swollen with proud\nagreement with the voices of varied speech,\nso that what the crowd, united in crime, sinned,\nthe better discord of confused tongues may condemn.”\nHe spoke, and upon those intent on the work and raising the mass\nforgetfulness, slipped beneath, first enters their astonished minds,\nand there came upon them the full command of an unknown tongue.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 3.242 (CSEL 16:415lines 242–264–416; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/3-242)."},"marius-victor-alethia/3.25":{"o":"nam quia mortales plectenda ammittere numquam\ncessabunt, meritis semper condigna referre\nnos cessare decet. laeti uos crescite alumni,\ncrescite securi fecundaque prole replete\narua nouosque greges cunctis distendite terris.\nseruabunt elementa uices cunctisque diebus\nseminibus propriis reddetur debita messis.\ncurret opus mundi conpar discordibus horis:\naestati certabit hiemps ac tempora librans\nueris et autumni fugiens replicabitur annus.\nuosque, quibus regnum solidi permisimus orbis,\nquos tremit et dominos sentit genus omne animantum,\nhoc legis seruare loco iurisque seueri\npraescriptis uinctos semper meminisse iubemus:\ninter tot species rerum, quas sponte mouentes\nmembra animis uestros bis iam largimur in usus,\nlurida ne quisquam permixto sanguine turpes\nmembra cibos faciat, quod crimen non secus acris\nolim iudicii plectet sententia quam si\nhauriat humanum quisquam ferus ense cruorem,\nquem semper repetam uindex adeoque requiram,\nut mihi non solus pendat rationis abundans\nsupplicium, sed bruta quoque: cruor omnibus aeque\nsit sacer humanus, nostra quae luce fruuntur.","t":"For since mortals will never cease to commit what deserves punishment,\nit befits us to cease from always repaying them as they deserve.\nGrow, my glad nurslings, grow\nsecure, and fill the fields with fruitful offspring\nand spread new flocks over all lands.\nThe elements will keep their turns, and on all days\nthe due harvest will be returned to its own seeds.\nThe work of the world will run on, balanced in its discordant seasons:\nwinter will contend with summer, and, balancing the seasons\nof spring and autumn, the fleeing year will turn round again.\nAnd you, to whom we have entrusted the kingdom of the solid world,\nbefore whom every kind of living creature trembles and knows you as lords,\nwe bid you keep this point of law and always remember\nthat you are bound by the precepts of a severe right:\namong so many kinds of creatures, which, moving their limbs freely\nwith their souls, we now grant for your use a second time,\nlet no one make livid limbs, with the blood mixed in,\ninto foul food; this crime the sentence of a sharp judgment\nwill one day punish no less than if\nsome savage drains human blood with the sword,\nblood which I will always require as avenger, and require so strictly\nthat not only the creature rich in reason shall pay me\nthe penalty, but brute beasts as well: let human blood be equally\nsacred to all who enjoy our light.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 3.25 (CSEL 16:407lines 25–48–408; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/3-25)."},"marius-victor-alethia/3.265":{"o":"increpitant operis studio cessante magistri\ncunctantes socios: sed uocem nemo remittit\nnon intellectis, et si quis temptat hiare,\nsibilat aut rupti fremitu sermonis anhelat\naut stridit gemituque minas imitatur acuto.\nsic uanum praua susceptum mente laborem\ndestituit frustrata manus: iam nemo propinquum,\nnemo patrem sequitur: quem quisque intellegit (aptat)\nadglomeratque sibi: periit cognatio tota,\ngentem lingua facit: sparguntur classibus aequis\ndiductasque petunt uario sub sidere terras.\nhaut aliter uolucres campi per mollia plana,\nquas gregibus mixtis errare et quaerere uictum\npersuasit secura dies, cum nocte propinqua\nfrondea tecta petunt, extemplo congrege turba\nuulgus quaeque suum sequitur rapidoque uolatu\nmiscentur, similis qua duxerit aut color aut uox:\nsic tunc in partes populus se dissicit unus,\net species fit quaeque genus longeque remotis\nconsidunt terris atque orbem gentibus implent.","t":"The master builders, as zeal for the work fails, rebuke\ntheir lingering fellows: but no one answers\nwords he does not understand, and if anyone tries to open his mouth,\nhe hisses, or pants with the roar of broken speech,\nor shrieks and mimics threats with a sharp groan.\nSo the baffled band abandons the vain labor\nundertaken with a perverse mind: now no one follows his kinsman,\nno one his father: each (joins) to himself the one he understands\nand gathers him to his side: all kinship perished,\nlanguage makes the nation: they are scattered in equal bands\nand seek lands set apart under various stars.\nNot otherwise the birds on the soft plains of the field,\nwhich the carefree day persuaded to wander in mixed flocks\nand look for food, when night draws near\nand they seek their leafy roofs, at once each crowd\nfollows its own kind, and they gather in rapid flight\nwhere like color or like voice has led them:\nso then the one people split into parts,\neach kind became a race, and in lands far apart\nthey settle and fill the world with nations.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 3.265 (CSEL 16:416lines 265–284; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/3-265)."},"marius-victor-alethia/3.285":{"o":"nec tamen hoc sacri, cum sit sua poena nocentum,\nmuneris est uacuum; nam quamuis ultio iusta\nhaec fuit, ut quos non tetigit reuerentia caeli,\nquae sedes propria est mundi rerumque parenti,\nnec se cognoscant, plus est quod praestat alumnis\ntalis poena reis: ne quod persuasio culpae\npaucorum intulerit rursum contaminet omnes\net faciat commune nefas, ne bella cruenta\net rabido populis mors arcessenda furore\nsit semper, ciues et alumnis linquere pulsis\ncognatos graue sit. nam ne desideret umquam\nexul turba suos opus est et ut oderit ultro:\natque ideo hoc uaria procurat lingua, suorum\nne quisquam meminisse uelit. mansit tamen oris\nHebraei sonitus et sermo antiquus in illis,\nqui culpae expertes pars non iniusta fuerunt,\nnatorum, quos Sem genuit, quos sacra parentis\ncura iuuat tangit(que dei) reuerentia ueri.\nsed postquam toto dementia percita mundo,\nut taceam magici scelus intestabile monstri,\nin truncos et saxa etiam durique metalli\narte cauas species et cassas luce figuras\ninpegit mortale genus mentesque superna\nspectantes fregit terraeque addixit inerti,\nhos quoque conuoluit foedae contagio labis.","t":"Yet this, though it is the punishment proper to the guilty, is not\nempty of a sacred gift; for although it was just vengeance\nthat those whom reverence for heaven, which is the proper seat\nof the Parent of the world and of things, did not touch\nshould not understand one another, such a punishment does more good\nto the guilty creatures: that what the persuasion to guilt\nof a few had brought in might not again infect all\nand make the wickedness common; that bloody wars\nand death, summoned by peoples in rabid fury,\nmight not be forever; and that citizens, driven out, might find it grievous\nto leave their kin. For it is needful that the exiled crowd\nnever long for its own, and even that it hate them:\nand therefore the variety of tongues sees to it that no one\nwishes to remember his own people. Yet the sound of the Hebrew\nspeech and the ancient language remained among those\nwho, free of the guilt, were a part not unjust,\nthe sons whom Shem begot, whom the sacred care of the Parent\nhelps (and) reverence for the true (God) touches.\nBut after madness, stirred up through the whole world\n(to say nothing of the abominable crime of the magic monster),\ndrove the mortal race to tree trunks and stones, and to hollow shapes\nof hard metal made by art, and figures void of light,\nand broke minds that looked to things above\nand bound them to the inert earth,\nthe contagion of the foul stain engulfed these too.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 3.285 (CSEL 16:417lines 285–309–418; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/3-285)."},"marius-victor-alethia/3.310":{"o":"non secus Aethiopum feruentibus excita terris\nnubila morborum corrupto tramite caeli\nimplicuere auida uictoris peste lacunas,\ncum quisquis celeri percussum fulmine leti\ningemuit, simul ipse ruit, quicumque cadentem\nconspexit, cecidit, congestaque funera passim\ndira lues strauit campis bellumque peregit:\nsic tunc praecipiti complexus mole furoris\net quos praeteriit repetens conprenderat error,\ndonec succiduis gradibus decursa propago,\nfons et origo cui Sem clarum praestitit ortum,\nin Tharan exiret, summa qui sede relicta\nChaldaei generis cuncta cum stirpe suorum\nurbem aliam moresque nouos sedemque requirens\nmansit in Assyriis demum nouus accola Carris.\net cum quinque super bis centum exegerat annos,\nlapsus more patrum est. huius set filius Abram,\nuir dignus caelo, iam primo a limine uitae\nuerum mente deum uenerans gentilia sacra\nauersatus erat. quem postquam morte parentis\niussa sequi iam posse dei sine fraude licebat,\nhis dominus famulum monitis dignatus adire est:","t":"Not otherwise do clouds of disease, stirred up from the burning lands\nof the Ethiopians along a corrupted path of the sky,\nenvelop the marshes with a greedy, conquering plague,\nwhen whoever groaned, struck by the swift lightning of death,\nfell himself at once, and whoever saw another falling\nfell too, and the dire pestilence strewed heaped corpses everywhere\non the plains and carried through a war:\nso then error, embracing all in the headlong mass of madness\nand going back for those it had passed over, had seized them,\nuntil the line, descending by successive steps,\nto which Shem had given its source and origin and its noble birth,\ncame to Terah, who, leaving the chief seat\nof the Chaldean race with the whole stock of his kin,\nseeking another city and new ways and a new home,\nremained at last as a new settler in Assyrian Carrhae.\nAnd when he had completed five years beyond twice a hundred,\nhe passed away in the manner of the fathers. But his son Abram,\na man worthy of heaven, already from the very threshold of life\nworshipping the true God in his mind, had turned away\nfrom the rites of the Gentiles. After his father's death,\nwhen he was now free to follow God's commands without offense,\nthe Lord deigned to approach his servant with these admonitions:","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 3.310 (CSEL 16:418lines 310–331; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/3-310)."},"marius-victor-alethia/3.332":{"o":"'quandoquidem toto te solum inuenimus orbe,\nquem sincera fides iuuat et reuerentia nostri,\nlinque procul sedes patrias terrasque nocentes\npollutamque domum: cognatio tota profana est\net fugienda tibi. terrae melioris in agros\nme duce peruenies, ne sis pars gentis iniquae,\nqui sanctae caput esse potes. tunc sacra dicabo,\nquae maneant, benedicte, tibi, nomenque per omnes\nmagnificum reddam populos bona cuncta rependens\naut mala pro meritis, quorum diuersa uoluntas\nte circum fuerit, per quem benedictio fusa\nspargetur tribubus cunctis aeuoque renato.'\nDixit et imperiis mentem qua seruiat indit\npromissisque piis credat. mora nulla retentat:\ncum gregibus uarii generis famulisque paternis,\nconiuge cum fida, cari cum pignere fratris,\ncui Loth nomen erat, digressus limite recto\nignotum sibi carpit iter. mollissima laetas\npraebent arua uias blandumque fauentibus austris\nadridens nullis turbatur motibus aer,\nin Chanaas donec populorum, quos genuit Cham,\nintraret terras et rura uberrima Sichae.\nquae postquam concessa sibi prolique futurae\naudit uoce dei, deuotas excitat aras\net ueteres reuocans cultor nouus auget honores.","t":"“Since we have found you alone in the whole world\nwho delight in sincere faith and reverence for us,\nleave far behind your ancestral seats and the guilty lands\nand your polluted house: your whole kindred is profane\nand you must flee it. To the fields of a better land\nyou will come with me as guide, lest you be part of an unjust race,\nyou who can be the head of a holy one. Then I will establish sacred things\nwhich will remain for you, blessed one, and make your name\ngreat among all peoples, repaying all good things,\nor evil, as they deserve, to those whose will toward you\nhas been different; through you blessing will be poured out\nand spread to all tribes and to the age reborn.”\nHe spoke, and gives him a mind to serve his commands\nand to believe the gracious promises. No delay holds him back:\nwith flocks of various kinds and his father's servants,\nwith his faithful wife, with the dear child of his brother,\nwhose name was Lot, departing by a straight path\nhe sets out on a way unknown to him. Very soft fields\noffer glad paths, and the air, smiling sweetly\nwith favoring south winds, is troubled by no storms,\nuntil he entered Canaan, the lands of the peoples whom Ham begot,\nand the most fertile countryside of Shechem.\nAfter he hears from God's voice that these are granted to him\nand to his future offspring, he raises devoted altars\nand, a new worshipper, renewing the old honors, increases them.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 3.332 (CSEL 16:418lines 332–356–419; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/3-332)."},"marius-victor-alethia/3.357":{"o":"inde petit Bethlem, sedes quae lecta beati\nhospitiis sacrata uiri est cunctasque superbis\nexcessit meritis terras, quandoque, secundo\npost iam conmemoranda loco cum sede superna,\ndignior ista, dei quae pignus lege salutis\nemissum mundo tantum mirante paratum\nexciperet, uisa est, hominemque remitteret astris.\nhic quoque sollemnes Abram pater excitat aras\net linquenda nouis habitacula ponit in aruis.\nnamque fame rursum sedem mutare coactus\ncastra mouet totamque domum famulosque gregesque\nsecum agit et rebus conmercia iusta rependens\nintrat in Aegyptum. sed nomine pulchra sororis\nprotegitur coniunx, ne barbara pectora sancti\nhospitis in caedem stimulet furiosa libido.\ndenique mox Pharao radiantis imagine formae\nductus inardescit thalamosque et foedera certa\nlege parat; sed tota pauor formidine mersa\ningruit et subito quatit improba corda tumultu\nexterretque animos niger horror et implicat artus,\nut rex sacrilegae gentis tam tristia uota\nsentiret damnasse deum, qui tale profecto\nconsilium infudit famulis, ut barbarus hostis\ntutius esse uirum Sarae tum nosceret Abram,\ncum foret expertus, quam non inpune profano\nappeteret ferro, quem nec uiduare liceret.","t":"From there he goes to Bethlehem, a place chosen and hallowed\nby the hospitality of the blessed man, which surpassed all lands\nin its proud merits, since one day (to be named second only\nafter the heavenly seat) it was seen to be more worthy\nto receive the pledge of God, sent into the world by the law of salvation,\nprepared to the world's great wonder,\nand to send man back to the stars.\nHere too father Abram raises solemn altars\nand sets up dwellings in the new fields that he must soon leave.\nFor, forced by famine to change his home again,\nhe moves camp and drives with him his whole house, servants and flocks,\nand, paying fair prices in trade for goods,\nenters Egypt. But his beautiful wife is protected\nby the name of sister, lest raging lust spur barbarian hearts\nto the murder of their holy guest.\nAt last Pharaoh, soon drawn by the image of her radiant beauty,\nburns with desire and prepares marriage and fixed covenants\nby law; but dread, sunk wholly in terror,\nfalls on him and suddenly shakes his wicked heart with turmoil,\nand black horror terrifies his mind and binds his limbs,\nso that the king of a sacrilegious people might perceive\nthat God had condemned such sad wishes, God who indeed\nhad inspired such counsel in his servants, so that the barbarian enemy\nmight know that Abram was then safer as Sarah's husband,\nwhen he had learned by experience that he could not with impunity\nattack with profane iron one whom he might not even widow.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 3.357 (CSEL 16:419lines 357–382–420; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/3-357)."},"marius-victor-alethia/3.383":{"o":"sponte igitur nulla uiolatam labe marito\nrestituit culpamque refert tutumque frequenti\ncustode et multa cumulatum fruge remittit\nin Sichem Bethlemque suam: laetique receptos\nexercent campos et pinguia pascua late\ninmixtis carpunt gregibus. sed iurgia crebra\ninter pastores; nullo nam limite cuiquam\ndiscretus pandebat ager. plenissimus ergo\nuenturi, iuris set seruantissimus aequi,\nut dirimat lites et iurgia tollat auara,\nAbram, qui senior, concessos diuidit agros.\niunior elegit, qua dulcibus undique fusis\nrura maritat aquis ripisque umbrantibus amnes\nlabitur et teretes saltus Iordanis amoenat.\nhis capitur patruique domum iustumque rigorem\ndeclinans Sodomae iunctos Loth migrat in agros,\ncum deus hac Abram maesti spe pectora firmans\n'ne carparis' ait, 'fratris quod prole relictus\ndamna patris tuleris sancti. innumerabile uulgus\ntu mihi solus eris, populi qui regna tenebis,\nquae primo cum sole uides, quae uersus in arcton\nprospicis et tepido quae subdita respicis austro\nac maris effusi circumdata litore claudi.\nhaec tibimet prolique tuae populisque tuorum\nconcedam aeternum semper uiuentibus aeuum.","t":"So of his own accord he restores her, unstained, to her husband,\nconfesses his fault, and sends him back safe with a large\nescort and laden with much produce\nto Shechem and his Bethlehem: and gladly they work the fields\nthey have regained and graze the rich pastures far and wide\nwith their flocks mingled. But there were frequent quarrels\nbetween the shepherds; for the land lay open, divided\nby no boundary for anyone. So Abram, the elder,\nfull of foresight but most observant of equal right,\nto settle the disputes and remove greedy quarrels,\ndivides the fields granted to them.\nThe younger chose the part where, with sweet waters poured out on every side,\nthe Jordan weds the countryside, glides with shady banks\nand makes its rounded glades pleasant.\nCaptivated by these, Lot, turning from his uncle's house and its just strictness,\nmoves to the fields bordering Sodom,\nwhen God, strengthening the heart of saddened Abram with this hope,\nsaid: “Do not be troubled that, left by your brother's son,\nyou have borne the loss of your holy father. You alone will be to me\na countless people, you who will hold the kingdoms\nwhich you see toward the rising sun, which you look out on turned toward the North,\nand which you look back on lying under the warm south wind,\nand enclosed by the shore of the spreading sea.\nThese I will grant to you and to your offspring and to the peoples of your line,\nliving forever, for an eternal age.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 3.383 (CSEL 16:420lines 383–407–421; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/3-383)."},"marius-victor-alethia/3.408":{"o":"quis tu ut iam terris longe lateque fruaris,\nsurge et quid pateant gressu prius hospite lustra.'\nSic ait: ille libens paret sedemque relinquens\nemigrat Chebronque subit subque ilicis atrae\ndispensata comis figit tentoria Mambrae\nauxiliumque nouis ductor catus addere castris\nhic quoque sollemnes domino struit, ut colat, aras.\nInterea, magno circum turbante tumultu\nhostis adest auidus, uaria quem dote referta\nsollicitat tellus: campis inlisa resultat\nungula et effusis errat populator habenis.\nLoth cum rege simul portis erumpit apertis\net uicina manus regum socia arma ferentum:\nsecum equites peditesque trahunt, distenditur agmen,\nconfligunt acies, pariter sternuntque caduntque.\nhis satis auxilii est, quod bellum inferre parantes\npraecepere animis casuros clade repente:\nistos sola tenet causae melioris imago.\nsed turpi Sodomae luxu emollita iuuentus,\nut rursum exarsit repetitus clamor in iras,\nuertunt terga metu: rapido pars moenia cursu,\npars montes siluasque petunt, pars saepta cateruis\nporrigit ignauas ad tristia uincula palmas.","t":"so that you may now enjoy these lands far and wide,\nrise and survey first, as a stranger on foot, the wild lands that lie open.”\nSo he spoke: Abram gladly obeys and, leaving his home,\nmoves on and comes to Hebron, and under the spreading foliage\nof the dark oak of Mamre pitches his tents,\nand, a shrewd leader, adds strength to his new camp:\nhere too he builds solemn altars to the Lord, to worship him.\nMeanwhile, as great tumult spreads all around,\na greedy enemy is at hand, whom the land, full of all kinds of wealth,\nprovokes: hooves pound the plains and rebound,\nand the plunderer roams with loosened reins.\nLot bursts out with the king through the opened gates,\nand a neighboring band of kings bearing allied arms:\nthey bring cavalry and infantry with them, the column extends,\nthe lines clash, they strike down and fall alike.\nThe invaders have help enough in this, that as they prepared to make war\nthey had already foreseen in their minds their enemies falling in sudden defeat;\nthe defenders are held up only by the appearance of the better cause.\nBut the youth of Sodom, softened by shameful luxury,\nwhen the renewed war-cry blazed up again into fury,\nturn their backs in fear: some seek the walls at a run,\nsome the mountains and woods, some, hemmed in by troops,\nstretch out cowardly hands to sad chains.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 3.408 (CSEL 16:421lines 408–430–422; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/3-408)."},"marius-victor-alethia/3.431":{"o":"Loth captum patruus ut primum conperit Abram,\nnon fletu — quid enim fletus conferret inanis? —,\nsed ratione pius, ter centum deligit omni\nde grege bisque nouem famulos, quos instruit armis,\net sensim sequitur, qua tendere prodidit hostem\nlentum praeda grauis, curatque ut prima quietis\nnocte superueniat, cum iam languentia corda\ninrigat et fessos dulcis sopor alligat artus.\nsic, cum ieiuni rabies uaesana leonis\nin pecudum saltu penetrauit saepta uolucri,\ncunctas dente, pede exanimat cupidamque uorandi\ndiffert ira famem clauditque doloris acerbi\noppressis gemitum patientia mira timoris:\nhaec tum forma ducis. somno uinoque sepultos\nsternentes tacitis populum regesque trucidant\nuulneribus. nullus confundit castra tumultus,\nnemo gradum sentit, nisi quem iam mens fugit et uox,\nnemo sonum caedis, nisi quem mors excitat; audit.\nsanguine cuncta madent, siccis resoluta serenis\ntellus tabe coit, gressumque morante cruore\nlubrica signato titubant uestigia campo.\nnec tamen omne simul gladiis conciditur aeuum:\nseruantur praedae — tanta est moderatio iusti\nuictoris —, quos iam cunctis sine fraude licebat\nposse capi: reliquos sparsit fuga turpis et agros\nusque Chobarrenos instans formido secuta est.","t":"As soon as his uncle Abram learned that Lot was captured,\nnot with weeping (for what would empty weeping avail?)\nbut dutiful with reason, he chooses from his whole household\nthree hundred and twice nine servants and equips them with arms,\nand follows gradually where he found the enemy heading,\nslow and heavy with plunder, and takes care to come upon them\nin the first night of their rest, when sweet sleep is already watering\ntheir languid hearts and binding their weary limbs.\nSo, when the insane rage of a hungry lion\nhas broken with a flying leap into the enclosures of cattle in a pasture,\nit kills them all with tooth and paw, and its wrath\nputs off its greedy hunger to devour, and the wondrous patience of fear\nshuts in the groans of bitter pain in the victims:\nsuch then was the bearing of the leader. Striking those buried in sleep and wine,\nthey slaughter people and kings with silent\nwounds. No tumult throws the camp into confusion;\nno one hears a step, except one whom mind and voice are already leaving;\nno one hears the sound of slaughter, except one whom death awakens.\nAll is wet with blood; the earth, loosened in the dry calm,\nclots with gore, and, as the blood slows their step,\nslippery footprints totter on the stained field.\nYet not every age is cut down by the sword at once:\nsome are spared as booty (so great is the moderation of the just\nvictor), those whom it was now lawful for all to take\nwithout offense; shameful flight scattered the rest, and pressing fear\npursued them as far as the fields of Hobah.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 3.431 (CSEL 16:422lines 431–456–423; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/3-431)."},"marius-victor-alethia/3.457":{"o":"at uictor tanti nil motus laude triumphi\ninter equos pecudumque greges populumque receptum\naut captum gazasque, auido quae pondere uictos\nuictoresque grauant, tanta inter gaudia mitis\net casus hominum reputans sub pectore, paene\nuicti merce redit praedamque et praemia belli\ndireptis passim populis regique reformat,\nnon sibi se pugnasse docens: decimam tamen offert\nhostibus excussae, quae uera est hostia, praedae\nMelchisedech, cui tum summi pia cura parentis,\ntestatus uicisse deum meruitque futuri\nmystica praemonitus iam tunc libamina sacri\nsumere. et accepto maiora ad praemia cursu\nuoce sacerdotis tanti bona cuncta precantis,\nhoc famulum alloquii dominus quoque munere donat:\n'quandoquidem nullis cupidum te praeda subegit\ninlecebris, pretium fidei mercesque laborum\nmecum plena tibi est teque et tua cuncta tuebor\nheredi seruanda tuo, quem germine sero\nuentre tuo potius natum pius auctor amabis,\nquem iam mente cupis, pro quo placet iste Damascus,\nascitus grege de famulo, dum dulcis alumni\naccendit patrios stimulans infantia sensus\net festinantem natorum fallit amorem.","t":"But the victor, not at all moved by the praise of so great a triumph,\namid horses and herds of cattle and the people recovered\nor captured, and treasures that weigh down vanquished\nand victors with greedy weight, gentle amid such joys\nand pondering in his heart the fortunes of men, returns\nalmost with the reward of the vanquished, and gives back the booty and prizes of war\nto the plundered peoples and to the king,\nshowing that he had not fought for himself: yet he offers a tenth\nof the booty taken from the enemy, which is the true offering,\nto Melchizedek, who then had the dutiful care of the highest Parent,\nbearing witness that God had won the victory; and he deserved, already then\nforewarned, to receive the mystic libations of the sacrament to come.\nAnd, his course accepted for greater rewards,\nby the voice of so great a priest praying for all good things for him,\nthe Lord also honors his servant with the gift of his address:\n“Since plunder has not subdued you, greedy, by any allurements,\nthe price of your faith and the wage of your labors\nis full for you with me, and I will protect you and all that is yours\nto be kept for your heir, whom, born late of your own seed,\nfrom your own body, you will love as a dutiful father,\nwhom you already long for in mind, in whose place this Damascene pleases you,\nadopted from among your servants, while the infancy of a sweet foster child\nkindles and stirs your fatherly feelings\nand cheats your eager love for children of your own.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 3.457 (CSEL 16:424lines 457–480; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/3-457)."},"marius-victor-alethia/3.481":{"o":"suspice conuexum quam denso lumine caelum\npicta nocte micet, quantis congesta premantur\nsidera sideribus numerumque obiecta recusent:\nseminis hoc exemplar habe stirpisque futurae\nhinc formam meritumque tene.' sic fatus: at ille\ncredidit et nudae fidei consensio sola\npro uirtute fuit meritisque ornata laboris\nplenam iustitiae tribuit reputata coronam.\natque ideo hic sancti uirtus tam nobilis Abram\nprodit quod bene sit diuino credere Christo,\nqui, uox uiua patris, rursum sic fatus ad Abram:\n'omnipotens ego sum dominus, qui teque tuosque\nChaldaea de gente tuli tandemque paternis\nexemptum uitiis terra meliore locaui,\nut per te genitus populus meus arua beata\nincolat et seriem longe lateque propaget\ngentibus expulsis, quas foedo errore parentum\nsacrilegas ritus olim fecere profani.\nquod quia cunctaris dubiusque ita credere peccas,\ntrimam sume mihi torua iam fronte iuuencam,\ncum qua par annis blando grege lecta capella\naequaeuus(que) aries nostro mactetur honori:\ncumque columba sacrum casto cum turture iuncta\nclauserit et summam confecerit ordo litandi,\nulterius uolucrum non sentiat hostia ferrum.","t":"Look up at the curving sky, how it glitters with dense light\nin the painted night, how the crowded stars are pressed together by so many stars\nand, set before you, refuse to be counted:\ntake this as the pattern of your seed, and hold from here\nthe form and merit of your future stock.” So he spoke: and Abram\nbelieved, and the sole assent of bare faith\ncounted for virtue, and, adorned with the merits of labor\nby being reckoned so, it granted him the full crown of righteousness.\nAnd so here the noble virtue of holy Abram\nshows that it is good to believe the divine Christ,\nwho, the living voice of the Father, spoke again thus to Abram:\n“I am the almighty Lord, who brought you and yours\nout of the Chaldean race and at last, freed from your father's\nvices, settled you in a better land,\nso that my people, begotten through you, may dwell in blessed fields\nand spread its line far and wide,\nthe nations driven out whom profane rites, through the foul error\nof their parents, once made sacrilegious.\nAnd since you hesitate and, doubting, so sin in believing,\ntake for me a three-year-old heifer, already fierce in brow,\nand with her let a she-goat of equal age, chosen from the gentle flock,\n(and) a ram of the same age be slain in our honor:\nand when a dove joined with a chaste turtledove\nhas closed the rite and the order of sacrifice has completed the whole,\nlet the birds offered feel no further knife.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 3.481 (CSEL 16:424lines 481–505–425; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/3-481)."},"marius-victor-alethia/3.49":{"o":"et sint signa, quibus caelo radiante remissas\ndiluuii testemur aquas: quippe aere denso\ncum leuis in tenues nebulas suspenditur umor\net nigras iam cogit aquas in concaua nubes,\neffundam radios et pulchrum circite summo\narcum curua mihi decorabit solis imago\npingentem conuexa poli, qui luce calorans\nexsiccet pluuias et in aera dissipet imbres\nusque adeo, ut possit mundi pars altera poenae\nhoc sibi uenturi specimen praesumere signi,\nquod plus ignis habet rutilans et iam minus imbris.'\nTalibus attoniti imperiis, quae cuncta tremiscunt,\npromissisque piis alacres, quibus omnia gaudent,\ncertatim limo dulcique uligine laeta\narua Noe natique simul, quis firmius aeuum,\ninfindunt rastris et semine rura maritant,\niam uere effusis late densissima campis\nherba cibi ex calamis in frugem lacte gelato\nreddit multiplicem cumulato faenore messem:\net noua praegrauido iam palmite uinea diti\nluxuriat fructu, quem dulci nectare tendens\nparturit ac duro nascuntur pocula ligno.\nForte Noe domini celebrat dum laetus honores\nindulgens epulis et dulcia pocula libans\npersensit uiuos latices somnoque grauante\nuictus membra toro posuit neglecta fideli:","t":"And let there be signs by which, the sky shining, we may bear witness\nthat the waters of the flood have been sent away: for when, in the dense air,\nlight moisture is hung in thin mists\nand the cloud is already gathering black waters into its hollows,\nI will pour out my rays, and the curving image of the sun\nwill adorn for me a beautiful bow in the highest circle,\npainting the vault of the sky; and, warming with its light,\nlet it dry up the rains and scatter the showers into the air,\nso much so that the world in its other age may take beforehand\nfrom this sign a sample of the punishment to come,\nsince the bow has more of glowing fire and now less of rain.”\nAstonished at such commands, at which all things tremble,\nand eager at the gracious promises, in which all things rejoice,\nNoah and his sons together, whose lives were sturdier,\nvie in cleaving with hoes the fields, glad with mud and sweet moisture,\nand wed the countryside with seed;\nnow, in spring, the grass, very thick on the widely spread plains,\nturning from stalk to grain, its milk hardened,\ngives back a manifold harvest with heaped-up interest:\nand now the new vineyard, its shoots heavily laden,\nluxuriates with rich fruit, which, swelling it with sweet nectar,\nit brings forth, and cups are born from hard wood.\nIt happened that, while Noah gladly celebrates the honors of the Lord,\nindulging in feasting and pouring sweet cups,\nhe felt the living liquor and, overcome by heavy sleep,\nlaid his limbs, careless of them, on the faithful couch:","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 3.49 (CSEL 16:408lines 49–74–409; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/3-49)."},"marius-victor-alethia/3.506":{"o":"at pecudes uteris mediae scindantur apertis\ninque duas abeant tantum tria corpora partes,\nquas sic diductas mundis distingues harenis,\nconferat ut membris altrinsecus aemula membra\nordo quater duplex. tunc (quae) sperare iuberis,\nsponte sub aspectum uenient oculisque probabis:\nDixit: at ille dei monitis seruire libenter\nassuetus raptim properat mandata patrare.\nsed cum dispositam quo iussa est ordine terrae\nstrauisset seriem, subito globus ingruit ater\ninportunarum praeda inuitante uolucrum.\nquae ne contactu uiolarent sacra profano,\nundique sollicitus cauet et circumspicit Abram.\nsed cum operi attonitum tanto nec sole cadente\nuinceret officii moles tam magna recepti,\necce niger terror, tremor horridus et sopor intrat,\nnuntia iussa ferens uenturaque saecula formans.\ncredo, uidebatur saeptum sibi cernere Nilum\nHebraeae gentis populis serosque nepotes\net quae se ad summum numerent cognoscere turbas:\ninde truces motus deductaque castra suorum,\ntransmissum pelagus sicco pede, mersa profundo\nagmina, naufragium nulla cum classe secutam\nterrestrem fecisse manum : dehinc tota beatae\nregna Palaestinae populo patuisse reuerso.","t":"But let the beasts be cut through the middle, their bellies opened,\nand let only the three bodies go into two parts each,\nwhich, divided thus, you will set apart on clean sand,\nso that a fourfold double row may set matching limbs\nagainst limbs on either side. Then (what) you are bidden to hope for\nwill come of itself before your sight, and you will prove it with your eyes.”\nHe spoke: and Abram, accustomed gladly to obey God's warnings,\nhastens at once to carry out his commands.\nBut when he had laid out the pieces on the ground in the order\ncommanded, suddenly a black flock of importunate birds\nswooped in, the prey inviting them.\nAnxious lest they violate the sacred things with profane contact,\nAbram guards them on every side and keeps watch all around.\nBut when the great burden of the duty he had taken on did not overcome him,\namazed at so great a work, even as the sun set,\nbehold, black terror, horrid trembling and sleep come upon him,\nbearing messages commanded and shaping the ages to come.\nI believe he seemed to see the Nile hemmed in\nby the peoples of the Hebrew race, and late descendants,\nand to recognize crowds that count themselves up to the highest number:\nthen fierce struggles and the camps of his people led out,\nthe sea crossed on dry foot, columns sunk in the deep,\nthe shipwreck, with no fleet, that came upon\nthe army on land: then the whole kingdoms of blessed\nPalestine laid open to the returning people.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 3.506 (CSEL 16:425lines 506–530–426; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/3-506)."},"marius-victor-alethia/3.531":{"o":"talibus attonito uisis non defuit almus\ninterpres : 'praenosce tuos subolemque tuorum,\ncrescet in externis quae post uos edita terris\nNiliaci famulare iugum sensura tyranni,\nquam, quadringentos cum duro expleuerit annos\nseruitio, eripiam dominosque ulciscar iniquos\net reddam terris, blando quas gurgite cingunt\nNilus et Euphrates, sed cum peccata nocentum\ngentis Amorraeae populi(que) haec regna tenentis\nexplerint summam scelerum dignique paternis\nsedibus expelli fuerint. at tu tamen ante\nlongaeuo felix decedens limite uitae\nlaudatus natis cum pace et munere nostro\nad sanctos migrabis auos.' sic fatus: et alto,\ncum iam nox terris densas induceret umbras,\nsignum monte dedit; claro nam clibanus igne\nemicuit raptim crinemque in prona retorsit\net diuisa petit mediumque inuecta paratum\npraecipiti cursu delibans flamma sacrauit.\nhaut aliter crasso uibrantes aere corpus\noblicum per inane uolant undantque coruscae\nnocturno splendore faces crinemque rubentem\nmendax stella trahit concussaque nubila uentis\nexcutiunt pronum, qui terram euerberet, ignem,\nInterea certus regni prolisque futurae","t":"To him, astonished at such sights, a kindly interpreter\nwas not lacking: “Know beforehand your own and the offspring of your own,\nwhich, born after you, will grow in foreign lands\nand feel the servile yoke of the tyrant of the Nile;\nand when it has filled four hundred years in hard\nservitude, I will rescue it, take vengeance on its unjust masters,\nand restore it to the lands which the Nile and the Euphrates\nenclose with their gentle flood, but only when the sins of the guilty\nrace of the Amorites and of the peoples (that) hold these kingdoms\nhave filled up the sum of their crimes and have become worthy\nto be driven from their fathers' seats. But you, before that,\ndeparting happily at the far limit of a long life,\npraised by your children, in peace and by our gift,\nwill go to your holy ancestors.” So he spoke: and from on high,\nwhen night was already bringing dense shadows over the lands,\nhe gave a sign from the mountain; for a furnace with bright fire\nflashed out suddenly and twisted its tresses downward\nand sought the divided pieces, and, carried into the middle prepared for it,\nthe flame in its headlong course consecrated them as it tasted them.\nNot otherwise, hurling their bodies through the thick air,\ntorches fly slantwise through the void and surge,\nflashing with nocturnal splendor, and a lying star drags\nits red tress, and clouds shaken by the winds\nshake out downward a fire to lash the earth.\nMeanwhile, sure of the kingdom and of future offspring,","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 3.531 (CSEL 16:426lines 531–555–427; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/3-531)."},"marius-victor-alethia/3.556":{"o":"accelerare patrem cupit Abram, casta sed uxor\nabnuit officium, quod inane effeta senectus\niam signo cessante probat: sed dulce mariti\npignus spemque nouam quacumque ex paelice fusam\nesse suam credens famulam, cui iunior aetas —\nAgar nomen erat, Nilotica tellus origo —\nsubrogat in thalamos precibusque adgressa maritum\nprogeniem uili concredere perpulit aluo.\npro seruile nefas! ut primum uiuere sensit\nAgar uentris onus, fastu tumefacta superbo\ndespexit dominam et dominam, cui matris amorem\ndebebat, causamque sui furiosa tumoris.\nrecte igitur flagris hanc uir iustissimus Abram\nconiugis addixit, quorum magis acta pudore\nin deserta procul secretaque lustra ferarum\nabditur indignans: nec quod perpessa refugit,\nsed rursum dominam nimios mentita timores\ncontemnit, quo more potest, mauultque pericla\nsecretae perferre uiae, ni missus Olympo\nangelus occurrat famulamque ad pristina iura\nrestituat miti dominae magnoque refectam\nhortatu melius iubeat sperare reuersam\net nomen nati doceat moresque manusque\ninnumerosque greges populi de stirpe nepotum.","t":"Abram longs to hasten becoming a father, but his chaste wife\nrefuses the duty, which her worn-out old age,\nthe sign now having ceased, shows to be vain: but believing that her husband's sweet\nchild and new hope, born from whatever concubine,\nwould be hers, she puts in her place in the bed her maid, younger in age\n(Hagar was her name, the land of the Nile her origin),\nand, approaching her husband with entreaties,\nprevailed on him to entrust his offspring to a lowly womb.\nO servile wickedness! As soon as Hagar felt the burden\nof her womb come alive, swollen with proud disdain\nshe despised her mistress, the mistress to whom she owed\na mother's love and the cause of her own swelling, in her rage.\nRightly, then, most just Abram handed her over to the lashes\nof his wife; driven more by shame at these,\nshe hides herself, indignant, far off in the deserts and secret lairs\nof wild beasts; nor does she flee because of what she has suffered,\nbut, feigning excessive fear of her mistress, despises her again\nin the only way she can, and would rather endure the perils\nof a hidden road, had not an angel sent from Olympus\nmet her and restored the maid to her former duties\nunder a gentle mistress, and, refreshing her with great\nencouragement, bidden her return and hope for better,\nand taught her the name of her son, his ways and his hand,\nand the countless throngs of people from the stock of her descendants.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 3.556 (CSEL 16:427lines 556–579–428; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/3-556)."},"marius-victor-alethia/3.580":{"o":"quo maiore redit uoto iam certa futuri\net partu dominum fecit prior ipsa parentem,\ncum iam decursi spatiis felicibus aeui\noctoginta super bis ternos clauderet annos.\nQui cum bis senas unam super ordine coepto\nadderet aestates, solito hunc rursum pater almus\nalloquio dignatus adit iussitque trementem\ndegere felicem: simul et promissa reuoluit,\nquae merces uirtutis erat — tunc corpore prono\nAbram suppliciter dominum prostratus adorat —\net post multa, quibus percursis uota fidelis\nlaxauit famuli, signo discernere cunctis\nse iussit tacito populis, ut sponte resecta\ncarne superuacua prompte liquidoque pateret\ncorporeis uitiis dominum iussisse recisis\nprogeniem seruare nouam prolemque futuram.\nquod res ipsa tacens loquitur: resecare pudenda\nsic monuisse deum puerosque a matre recentes\natque rudis uitae, dum mens ignara dolendi est,\npraeputio exutos octaua luce sacrari,\nquod qui tam sanctum corrumpere testamentum\nauderet cessans legi inseruire rogatae,\nexheres fieret regni uitaeque futurae.\net simul, ut uero sibi crederet argumento\ninnumeras gentes propria de stirpe creandas,\nhoc ipsum ut resonent, commutans nomina dixit:","t":"She returns with greater hope, now sure of the future,\nand by giving birth was the first to make her lord a father,\nwhen he was completing six years beyond eighty\nin the happy spaces of his life's course.\nWhen he had added twice six summers and one more in the order begun,\nthe kindly Father deigned to approach him again\nwith his usual address and bade him, trembling, live in happiness: and at the same time he unfolds\nthe promises, which were the reward of virtue (then Abram, prostrate\nwith body bowed, adores the Lord in supplication),\nand after many things, in telling which he satisfied the hopes\nof his faithful servant, he commanded him to set himself apart\nfrom all peoples by a silent sign, so that, the superfluous flesh\nfreely cut away, it might be readily and clearly evident\nthat the Lord had commanded, with bodily vices cut away,\nthe keeping of a new progeny and a future offspring.\nThe thing itself, though silent, says this: that God gave warning\nto cut away the shameful parts, and that boys fresh from their mother,\nnew to life, while the mind does not yet know pain,\nshould be consecrated on the eighth day, stripped of the foreskin;\nand that whoever should dare to corrupt so holy a covenant,\nfailing to serve the law required of him,\nwould be disinherited of the kingdom and of the life to come.\nAnd at the same time, so that he might believe by a true proof\nthat countless nations would be created from his own stock,\nhe said, changing their names so that they might proclaim this very thing:","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 3.580 (CSEL 16:428lines 580–605–429; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/3-580)."},"marius-victor-alethia/3.606":{"o":"'littera te renouet, te syllaba plena reformet,\nut non Sara tibi coniunx, sed Sarra uocetur\net tu non Abram, sed nomine clarior aucto\nAbraham populis posthac uocitere futuris.\nquod commune ideo tibimet cum coniuge uera est\npromissi, quoniam saeclis uoluentibus aeuum\nmater erit generis teque annum sole remenso\nesse patrem faciet. quamuis ridenda putetis\nuirtutis promissa meae, quis uestra senectus\npraescribat, quod erit diuini gloria iuris,\nsic ut praestiterim fieri potuisse putetur.\nsed tamen ignoscam dubiis pueroque futuro\ninponam nomen, quod culpam hanc arguat, Isac,\nqui solus nostri cuncta cum stirpe suorum\nheres erit certus seruato foedere pacti.\nnec tamen hic sacrae, quem solum amplecteris, Ismael\nexpers dotis erit; nostro nam munere fultus\nmilia multa uirum, ualido cum stemmate gentes,\nbis senis pariter ducibus regnanda creabit.'\nDixit: at ille auidus pactum accelerare receptum\niam centum pulsans annos, iam pubere nato\nse primum pignusque suum cunctosque clientes\nac famulos signo, quo iussum est, eximit aeuo\net populum facit esse nouum fontemque piorum,\nuna eademque uia — tanta est deuotio — legem\naccipiens explensque dei. quid non mereatur\ntam praesens ueloxque fides? iam non timor istud,\nsed sincerus amor famulique probatio plena est\nquod libet imperium placida sic mente subire,\nut placeat iussisse deo. quippe antea tantum.","t":"“Let a letter renew you, a full syllable refashion you,\nso that your wife may be called not Sara but Sarra,\nand you not Abram, but, brighter with your name enlarged,\nmay be called Abraham by future peoples from now on.\nThis promise you share with your true wife,\nsince, as the ages roll on,\nshe will be the mother of the race, and, when the sun has run its year round again,\nshe will make you a father. Although you think laughable\nthe promises of my power, to which your old age\nwould set limits, it will be the glory of divine right\nthat what I have accomplished should be thought to have been possible.\nBut I will forgive the doubting, and on the boy to come\nI will put a name that may rebuke this fault: Isaac,\nwho alone, with the whole stock of his line,\nwill be my sure heir, the covenant of the pact being kept.\nNor yet will Ishmael here, whom alone you embrace,\nbe without a sacred dowry; for, upheld by our gift,\nhe will produce many thousands of men, nations of strong stock,\nto be ruled likewise by twice six princes.”\nHe spoke: and Abraham, eager to hasten the pact he had received,\nnow knocking at a hundred years, his son now of age,\nsets apart from the world by the commanded sign first himself, then his son,\nand all his dependents and servants,\nand makes them a new people and the source of the pious,\nreceiving and fulfilling God's law by one and the same act\n(so great is his devotion). What would such ready\nand swift faith not deserve? This is no longer fear,\nbut sincere love and the full proof of a servant,\nto undertake any command with so calm a mind\nthat God is pleased to have commanded it. For before he was accustomed only","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 3.606 (CSEL 16:429lines 606–635–430; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/3-606)."},"marius-victor-alethia/3.636":{"o":"audiri solitus meritum post tale ministri\niam patitur cerni nec, cum indignatio iusta\nultorem stimulet, mortales numine miti\nrespuit aspectus. nam cum damnare pararet\ncrimina terrarum flammisque abolere nocentes,\naut uerum aut qualem norat se posse uideri\net numen numerumque suum confessus alumni,\nquamuis caelitibus famulis comitatus adiret,\nuisibus obiecit. iuxta aedes quippe sedenti\ntres subito adstiterunt augusta luce micantes.\nAbraham tanti stimulatus imagine uisus\nprocurrit dominumque solo prostratus adorat\nunum, cum tres miretur, cupidusque placendi,\nut sibi mente pia liceat seruire, precatur,\nut refici in medios aestus tendentibus horis\nnon dedignentur famuli mensisque cibisque.\nusque adeo uisus inter sensusque uigentes\nerrabat dubitans, hominem quod forma referret,\nquem norat mens esse deum. tamen annuit ore\nofficiumque pii non aspernatur alumni\nomnipotens uisusque cibos mensasque sacrare,\nut sibi deuotus credat concessa minister,\npura sacerdotis claraque occurrit imago\nuerum hominem rursus uultuque et corpore toto\nsumendum quandoque deo Christique futuri\nargumenta daret promissa(que) mira retexens\nederet et praesens famulum dubitare uetaret.","t":"to be heard, but after such merit in his minister\nhe now allows himself to be seen, and, though just indignation\nspurs him to vengeance, he does not with his gentle divinity\nrefuse mortal sight. For when he was preparing to condemn\nthe crimes of the lands and to destroy the guilty with flames,\neither as he truly is or in such a form as he knew he could be seen,\nconfessing to his creature both his divinity and his number,\nthough he came accompanied by heavenly servants,\nhe set himself before his eyes. For as Abraham sat by his dwelling,\nthree suddenly stood before him, shining with august light.\nAbraham, stirred by the image of so great a sight,\nruns forward and, prostrate on the ground, adores the Lord,\none, though he marvels at three, and, eager to please,\nprays that he may be allowed to serve with a pious mind,\nand that the servants will not disdain to be refreshed with tables and food\nas the hours stretch toward the midday heat.\nSo far did he waver in doubt between sight and his living senses,\nbecause the form showed a man\nwhom his mind knew to be God. Yet the Almighty nodded assent\nand does not scorn the service of his pious creature,\nand, seen to hallow the food and tables,\nso that his devoted minister might believe what had been granted,\nhe meets him as the pure and clear image of a priest,\nto give proof that one day true man,\nin face and whole body, would be taken on by God, and to give signs of the Christ to come,\nand, unfolding wondrous promises, to utter them,\nand by his presence to forbid his servant to doubt.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 3.636 (CSEL 16:430lines 636–662–431; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/3-636)."},"marius-victor-alethia/3.663":{"o":"inde mouens gressus lateri comes haeret euntum\nhospes ouans dulcique quatit concussa pauore\npectora et attonitum uenerabilis attrahit horror.\nquippe uidet uultus tacitos uisusque seueros\nin Sodomam Gomoramque deum uibrasse simulque\nemissos famulos pacisque iraeque ministros,\net cum cognosset tanta quid mole pararet\narcana pandente deo causamque docente\naduentus, ut qui didicit, quae praemia uitae\nelectos maneant, etiam metuenda caueret,\nultro ausus dominum scitari, an perderet urbem\nerrantis populi per crimina cuncta nocentum,\nquinquaginta probos ciues si forte tulisset.\n'non perdam' dixit. dehinc percunctatio blanda\ndeducens sensim numerum ueniamque lacessens\nsuppliciter summasque ipsis minuente recursu\nusque decem meruit responsum auferre parentis,\net, se ne totam domini clementia mitis\nproderet, in medio famulum sermone reliquit\ntendentem ulterius seque in sua regna recepit.\nInterea Sodomam missi Loth forte sedentem\nante fores urbis iam terris sole propinquo\ninueniunt. qui cum miro splendore uideret\nangelicos radiare uiros, ratus adfore caelo,\ncui mentem deus ipse dabat, prostratus adorat\ninuitatque domum noctemque auertere tecto\neuincit precibus simul et conuiuere suadet\ninnocuosque cibos et pocula parca ministrat.","t":"Then, as they set out, the joyful host keeps close at the side\nof his departing guests, and venerable awe shakes his breast\nwith sweet fear and draws him on, astonished.\nFor he sees that God's silent faces and stern looks\nwere turned toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and at the same time the servants\nsent out as ministers of peace and of wrath;\nand when he learned what God was preparing with such great force,\nGod revealing his secrets and explaining the reason\nfor his coming, so that he who had learned what rewards of life\nawait the chosen might also beware of what is to be feared,\nhe dared of his own accord to ask the Lord whether he would destroy a city\nof an erring people for all the crimes of the guilty,\nif perhaps it held fifty upright citizens.\n“I will not destroy it,” he said. Then a coaxing questioning,\nbringing the number down little by little and pressing for pardon\nhumbly, reducing the sums as it went back over them,\nwon the Father's answer down to ten;\nand, so as not to reveal the whole of his gentle clemency,\nthe Lord left his servant in the middle of his speech,\nstill pressing further, and withdrew into his own kingdom.\nMeanwhile those sent to Sodom find Lot sitting by chance\nbefore the gates of the city, as the sun was already nearing the earth.\nWhen he saw the angelic men radiant with wondrous splendor,\nthinking them come from heaven (for God himself gave him understanding),\nhe falls prostrate and adores them, invites them home, and prevails by his entreaties\non them to spend the night under his roof, persuades them to dine with him,\nand serves them innocent food and sparing cups.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 3.663 (CSEL 16:431lines 663–690–432; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/3-663)."},"marius-victor-alethia/3.691":{"o":"ecce sub occasum lucis noctisque recursum\nfoeda manus uulgi, si fas dixisse, uirilis\nprosilit et iuuenum furias puerique senesque\ncertatim exacuunt: claro Loth nomine clamant,\ndederet exceptos. pudet heu meliusque profecto est\na quantum reticere nefas quam prodere uerbis,\nuel dum damnatur, quod iam tunc more sinistro\ninfandae lex urbis erat. mollire furentes\nLoth cupiens natas, quibus nata manebat\nuirginitas, offert quos plebs uoluisset in usus:\nper sexum factura minus. sed corda profana\nuile putant quodcumque licet gaudentque uetari,\nut sit quod cupiant. ipsum ergo affligere certant\nauctorem fidei, morum iustique magistrum.\nut uis iam maior, quam quae uirtute repelli\nhumani ualeat nisus, tunc hospes uterque\nangelicas nudant mentito corpore uires\net Loth subreptum retrahunt caecantque furentes.\nseruauit morem iuris sententia recti:\nquod poenam anteuenit, damnandis lumina clausit.","t":"Look: toward sunset and the return of night\na foul band of the crowd, of males, if it is right to say it,\nbursts out, and boys and old men vie in sharpening\nthe fury of the young: they shout Lot's name aloud,\nthat he should hand over those he has taken in. Alas, it is shameful, and surely better\nto be silent about how great the wickedness was than to betray it in words,\neven while condemning it, since already then by perverse custom\nit was the law of the unspeakable city. Wishing to calm their rage,\nLot offers his daughters, whose virginity remained as at their birth,\nfor whatever uses the crowd might wish,\nmeaning by their sex to commit a lesser wrong. But profane hearts\nthink worthless whatever is lawful, and rejoice to be forbidden,\nso as to have something to desire. So they strive to assault\nthe very author of faith, the teacher of morals and of justice.\nWhen the force was now greater than human effort\ncould repel by strength, then both the guests\nreveal their angelic powers behind their feigned bodies,\nsnatch Lot back inside, and blind the raging crowd.\nThe sentence kept the custom of right law:\nwhat came before the punishment closed the eyes of those to be condemned.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 3.691 (CSEL 16:433lines 691–710; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/3-691)."},"marius-victor-alethia/3.711":{"o":"tunc ad Loth sancti trepidum uix mente recepta\ncondicione sui (non) dissimulata ministri\niam semet sensisse animo, quod (et) ipse timebat,\nqui sint, quid ueniant, quae sint praecepta, fatentur,\nquae praestare uelint. generi, si credere digni,\nnuntiet excidium Loth quippe euadere iussum\npermixtamque domum, cuius per plurima nomen,\ncolligat et generos: sed turpis origo timorem\nnon meruit sentire dei. ne quis tamen istos\ndifficilis fidei credat, cum linquere sedes\nLoth quoque dissimulet. quem postquam luce propinqua\ncunctantem pigrasque moras sine fine trahentem\nhospes uterque uidet, manibus cum coniuge raptum\nuirginibusque suis procul extra moenia ducunt\net celerare iubent montesque euadere in altos\ntali lege data, ne quis quae praeterit ultra\npost se respiciat cautus male. sed metuens Loth,\nne tardum uelox poenae praeuerteret ira,\nipse Segor lacrimis petiit placuitque rogando,\nquod dominum multos pariter seruare coegit\nconcessumque sibi donum speciale salutis\npluribus inpertit meritumque e munere fecit.","t":"Then to Lot, trembling and his mind scarcely recovered,\nthe holy ministers, (not) concealing their condition,\nsince he had already perceived in his mind what he (too) feared,\nconfess who they are, why they have come, what their orders are,\nwhat they wish to do for him. Let Lot announce destruction to his sons-in-law,\nif they are worthy to believe, since he himself is ordered to escape\nand to gather his mixed household, whose name is spread among many,\nand his sons-in-law: but their shameful origin did not deserve\nto feel the fear of God. Yet let no one think these alone\nof hard faith, since Lot too hesitates to leave\nhis home. When, as daylight drew near, the two guests\nsee him lingering and dragging out sluggish delays without end,\nthey seize him by the hand with his wife\nand his maiden daughters and lead them far outside the walls,\nand bid them hurry and escape to the high mountains,\nwith this command: that no one, ill-advised,\nshould look back behind him at what he had passed. But Lot, fearing\nthat the swift wrath of punishment might overtake him in his slowness,\nhimself asked with tears for Segor, and pleased them by asking,\nsince he moved the Lord to save many together,\nand shared with more the special gift of salvation granted to him\nand made merit out of a gift.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 3.711 (CSEL 16:433lines 711–732–434; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/3-711)."},"marius-victor-alethia/3.733":{"o":"et iam non solitas raptim obducentia caelum\na patria uirtute deo miscente coacta\nnubila densarant nebulas, sed quas rotat Aetna,\nquas uomit Inarime, calidis quas Aponus undis\nexalat, quas uicino concussa Uesaeuo\neructat tellus, Lyciae quas saeua Chimaerae\nora sinu uasto trinae fornacis anhelat,\net quocumque loci fallentia sulphura uelox\nspiritus inflammans angusto tramite fusus\neffluit in lucem rupta tellure uaporans.\nnon quod non possit pluuias quoque uertere in ignes,\ntotum de nihilo licuit cui condere mundum:\nsed maiore bonus iudex damnare paratu\nmauult quos miserans orbis morumque ruinae\npunit in exemplum. cuncta ergo ex omnibus oris\nconcurrunt undante globo stipataque flatu\nquaeque suo coeunt flammarum pabula in unum,\ncorpus et ut solidum terrasque urbesque nocentes\nsulphurei testudo tegit curuata metalli,\nquam citus et uires angusto tramite sumens\nspiritus incussam tanto crepitare fragore\nconpulit et crebro tonitrus referente corusco\nconsternare animos, coniunx miserabilis ut Loth\nlumina, quod uetitum, pauitans conuersa referret\net poenas raptim uiolata lege subiret\nin statuam conuersa salis: spoliataque luce\nsic animam infelix cum corpore perdidit omni,\nut nullum extaret forma remanente cadauer.","t":"And now the clouds, swiftly covering the sky,\ndrawn together as God mingled them by his fatherly power,\nhad thickened not the usual mists, but those which Etna rolls,\nwhich Inarime vomits, which Aponus breathes out\nwith its hot waters, which the earth, shaken by neighboring Vesuvius,\nbelches forth, which the savage mouth of the Lycian Chimaera\npants out from the vast gulf of its threefold furnace,\nand wherever a swift breath, kindling hidden sulphur\nand poured through a narrow passage,\nflows out steaming into the light through the broken earth.\nNot that he could not turn rains into fires as well,\nhe who could found the whole world from nothing:\nbut the good judge prefers to condemn with greater preparation\nthose whom, pitying the world and the ruin of morals,\nhe punishes as an example. So all things from every shore\nrun together in a surging mass, and, packed by the blast,\neach kind of fuel for flames gathers into one,\nand, like a solid body, a curved vault of sulphurous metal\ncovers the guilty lands and cities;\nthis a swift breath, gathering strength in a narrow passage,\nstruck and forced to crackle with a mighty crash,\nand, as the thunder answered the frequent lightning,\nto dismay men's minds, so that Lot's wretched wife,\ntrembling, turned back her eyes, which was forbidden,\nand swiftly suffered the punishment of the broken law,\nturned into a statue of salt: and, robbed of light,\nthe unhappy woman so lost her soul together with her whole body\nthat, though her form remained, no corpse was left.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 3.733 (CSEL 16:434lines 733–760–435; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/3-733)."},"marius-victor-alethia/3.75":{"o":"et reuoluta simul uestis secreta retexit\ncorporis ac risum tibi, Cham deterrime, mouit\nfons et origo tui, fratresque aspergine culpae\nSem primum summumque Iaphet miscere parasti.\ndisce quid exposcat quod .... t rese cachinno\ntu solus: fratrum melior sententia dignum\nofficii putat esse locum; nam tegmine rapto\net post terga dato sensim properante recessu\nauersi patrium manibus texere pudorem\net palmam fratri rapuit pietatis uterque\nsublatam medio. nam postquam libera somno\ncorda Noe repetunt diuini nuntia sensus,\nnatorum meritum tali mercede rependit:\n'Cham maledicte, tuo dubius seruire parenti\nfratrum seruus eris, sancto tu, maxime natu\nSem, benedicte deo uiues fratremque minorem\n(semine iam) dominus multo distendet in orbe,\ndonec et in fratris domibus numerosa propago\nconstituat sedem populisque admixta propinquis\nimpleat adiunctas et quas construxerit urbes.'\nHaec fatus senior, cum iam decurrerat annos\nmille minus decies quinos, quos summa recusat,\nconscia uenturi resolutus pectora leto\ncessit et hunc orbem natis curasque relinquit:","t":"and at the same time his garment, rolled back, uncovered the secret parts\nof his body, and the source and origin of yourself, most wicked Ham,\nmoved your laughter, and you set about involving your brothers,\nShem first and great Japheth, in the stain of your guilt.\nLearn what … with laughter\nyou alone: the better judgment of the brothers thinks it\nan occasion for duty; for, snatching a covering\nand placing it behind their backs, retreating step by step,\nturned away, they covered their father's shame with their hands,\nand each of them snatched from his brother the palm of piety\nset between them. For after Noah's heart, freed from sleep,\nregained the messages of divine sense,\nhe repays his sons' deserts with such reward:\n“Cursed Ham, slow to serve your father,\nyou will be the slave of your brothers; you, Shem, eldest by birth,\nblessed of God, will live, and your younger brother\n(now by his seed) will spread as lord through the wide world,\nuntil his numerous offspring set up their seat\nin his brother's houses, and, mingled with kindred peoples,\nfill the neighboring cities and those they will build.”\nHaving said this, the old man, when he had run through years\nfifty short of a thousand, which the full sum refuses,\naware of the future, his breast released in death,\ndeparted and left this world and its cares to his sons:","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 3.75 (CSEL 16:409lines 75–98–410; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/3-75)."},"marius-victor-alethia/3.761":{"o":"ocior inde Segor luctum pellente timore\nhorrificoque malo stupefactus ingreditur Loth.\net sol exoritur toto feruentior igne\nirato fulgore micans radiosque seueros\ndirigit in Sodomam. qui postquam lumina flammis\ninuoluere suis resolutaque sulphura nexos\nsecum praecipitant ignes siccoque liquore\ndispensata suis stillant incendia toris,\nfulmineus denso praeceps cadit aere nimbus\ninuoluitque urbes et totis saeuit in agris\nac mixto stridore tonat uincit(que) querellas\nflammea tempestas, quae, postquam pabula terris\nrepperit oppressis atque ipsis sedit harenis,\nerigit inmensam coniuncto fomite metam\nignis et a terris redeunt in sidera flammae,\nin cineres donec cautes tellusque resultans\ntranseat ac penitus mersae soluantur harenae\ndepressisque cauos consumpto caespite campis\npandant arua sinus uenisque effusus apertis\nconsocians uires, qui terras strinxerat, umor\npriuatum gignat pelagus. quidnam esse putamus,\nquod raptim lacus est mira uirtute refertus,\nqui fuit ante rogus? cunctisne abolere elementis\ndamnatos iudex uoluit bonus an mage finem\ndesignat tacitum mitis clementia poenae,\nquod flammas conpressit aquis, requiemque futuri\nforsan iudicii calidis contraria prodit\nmateries sanctusque lacum Iordanis inundans,\nqui primus hominum meruit peccata lauare?","t":"Then, fear driving out grief, Lot enters Segor all the faster,\nstunned by the horrifying evil.\nAnd the sun rises, more fervent with all its fire,\nflashing with angry glare, and aims its stern rays\nat Sodom. After the flames had wrapped its light in their own,\nand the loosened sulphur hurled down the fires bound up with it,\nand the burnings, distributed in a dry liquid, drip from their beds,\na storm of lightning falls headlong from the dense air,\nwraps the cities and rages through all the fields,\nand the fiery tempest thunders with mingled shrieking (and) drowns\nthe cries; and when it had found fuel on the overwhelmed lands\nand settled on the very sands,\nit raises an immense cone of fire from the joined tinder,\nand flames go back from the earth to the stars,\nuntil the rocks and the rebounding earth pass into ashes\nand the sands, sunk deep, are dissolved,\nand the fields, the turf consumed, open hollow bays\nin the sunken plains, and the moisture which had bound the lands together,\npoured out through opened veins and joining its forces,\nbegets a sea of its own. What are we to think it means,\nthat suddenly there is a lake, filled with wondrous power,\nwhere before there was a pyre? Did the good judge will to destroy\nthe condemned by all the elements, or does gentle clemency\nrather mark a silent end to punishment,\nin that it quenched the flames with water? And perhaps matter contrary to fire\nbetrays the rest of the judgment to come,\nand so does the holy Jordan flooding the lake,\nthe river which first deserved to wash away the sins of men.","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 3.761 (CSEL 16:435lines 761–789–436; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/3-761)."},"marius-victor-alethia/3.99":{"o":"quippe datum culpa uacuis uitioque remotis\net post peccatum, prima quod morte piatur,\ncum deus electae penitus sacraria mentis\nspiritus implesset pectusque rigasset amicum,\nomnia nosse simul coramque oblata tueri,\nquae fugiens rapuit quaeque est quaeque afferet olim\nsaecula uenturis carpenda nepotibus aetas,\nquodque hominum uarios conceptum fundit in usus\nterra grauis, liquidum pelagus, uegetabilis aer\natque auidus, nimio quod fomite gignit et ignis.\nsed postquam tantum munus damnata propago\nperdidit et miseris nil praeter scisse remansit\nmaiores arcana suos, reuocare parentum\nquisque memor secum monitus et cuncta reuoluens,\nquae quibus apta modis, qua rerum parte iuuarent,\ncondere in hoc fixis olim sermonum elementis\naut signis, solida mandantes uerba figura.\nhinc artes traxere caput, quas littera seruans\npriscorum in tardos misit commenta nepotes\net ueterum studiis miscens inuenta nouorum\nspem dedit attonitis uanaque cupidine motos\ntraxit ad inlicitum praeceps indago futuri:","t":"for it was given to those free of guilt and far from vice,\nand, after the sin which is expiated by the first death,\nwhen God the Spirit had filled deeply the sanctuaries of a chosen mind\nand watered a friendly heart,\nto know all things at once and to behold them set before their eyes:\nthe ages which fleeing time has snatched away, the age that is, and the age that will one day bring\nwhat later descendants will enjoy,\nand whatever the heavy earth, the liquid sea, the quickening air\nand greedy fire, which gives birth from too much fuel,\npour out, conceived for the various uses of men.\nBut after the condemned offspring lost so great a gift\nand nothing remained to the wretched except that their ancestors\nhad known the secrets, each, mindful of his parents' warnings,\nrecalling them, and turning over with himself all things,\nwhat was fitted to what ends, in what part of nature they would help,\nsought to store them up for this purpose in fixed letters of speech\nor in signs, entrusting words to a solid form.\nFrom this the arts took their beginning, which writing preserved\nand sent the inventions of the ancients down to late descendants,\nand, mingling the discoveries of the new with the studies of the old,\ngave hope to the astonished, and drew them, moved by vain desire,\nheadlong to the forbidden search into the future:","f":"Marius Victor, <i>Alet.</i> 3.99 (CSEL 16:410lines 99–120; trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/p/marius-victor-alethia/3-99)."}}