Poems 32.1–33.97

I have examined, I confess, all the sects, I, Antonius; I have sought very many things, I have run through each one, but I have found nothing better than to believe in Christ. These things I have resolved to describe in gentle verse; and lest it displease that I compose such songs, David himself entreated God with melodious voice, and by his example we shall sing small things instead of great, telling what is to be fled, what followed, what worshipped, so that in all things both the matter and the reason may be proved. First, not even the wondrous grace of God moved the Jewish people; for then, snatched from wicked Pharaoh, and having crossed the sea on foot with the shining column, with a leader who saw the hostile horsemen drowned, a people which never lacked anything in the desert fields, for whom manna ran from heaven and a spring from the rock, after this it denied the God who granted such great things, and while with mad heart it sought another deity, it destroyed in kindled fires the gold that it brought. The pagan, too, is like it; he adores the stones he carves and makes for himself what he himself must fear. Then he worships images which he so shapes from bronze that, when it pleases him, he sends them broken to the mint, or rather often turns them into shameful forms. Hence he slaughters wretched cattle and seeks in the hot lung the minds of the gods whom he thinks angry, and prays for the life of a man from the death of a beast. What pardon does he ask to be forgiven, who demands it with blood? For what a thing is that, how foolish or how remarkable! Though almighty God once formed man, man dares to form God; and lest crimes be lacking, he even sells him, and the buyer purchases a lord for himself.

Should I believe that philosophers have anything of reason, who lack reason, whose wisdom is vain? There are Cynics, like dogs, as they betray by their name; there are also followers of the uncertain doctrine of Plato, whom the long-sought substance of the soul troubles, always discussing it and never able to define it; hence they love to copy out Plato's book on the soul, which contains nothing certain within except its title. There are also Physicists, called by the name of nature, whom an ancient, rude and uncultivated life delights. For one of them once, carrying a staff and an earthen vessel, which alone he thought useful and alone to be kept, the one for support, the other for drinking, when he had seen a farmer stand and with upturned hands draw water to drink, broke the earthen vessel, and, throwing it far away, said that superfluous things must be removed. A rustic taught him that he could scorn even this. These neither drink wine nor are nourished by bread, nor lie on a bed nor keep off the cold with clothes, and, ungrateful to God, they refuse what he has granted. What shall I say of the various rites, and the temples founded to gods and goddesses? I shall say first what the Capitol is: here is a god and the god's wife, and they will have her to be his sister too, whom Virgil, their authority, marks by saying “both sister and wife.” More is told of Jupiter: that he violated his own daughter and gave her to his brother, and, to seize other women, changed his own shape: now he was a serpent, now a bull, now a swan and a tree, and by changing himself he shows what he was; another's form pleased him more than his own. More shamefully than these he feigned an eagle and came into the unspeakable embraces of a boy. What does the crowd of worshippers say?

Let them either deny that he is Jupiter or confess that disgrace. He certainly holds a name that cannot be proved by reason. They sacrifice to Jupiter and say “Jupiter, best,” and pray to him, and put “Father Janus” in the first rank. This Janus was a king who made the Janiculum by his own name, a prudent man, who, since many future things … he could look back on, they painted him with a double face, and the old Latins called him twin Janus. Because he came by ship to the Ausonian shores, a coin was first struck in his honour in such a way that one side carried a head, the other a ship; remembering this, whatever coins they mark, from the ancient deed they call them “heads” and “ships.” What do they hope from Jupiter, who is second to a king, and who is placed after him in sacrifices by the mouths of those who pray? He also has a mother captured by love of a shepherd; for the shepherd is earlier than Jupiter or Jove himself; but the shepherd was better, who wished to keep his chaste modesty and spurned the goddess, who savagely cut off his manly parts, so that he might never touch another's bed, he who would not approach hers. Was this, was this what the just sentence of the gods did, that he who did not become an adulterer should not become a husband? Now too half-men lament the shameful mysteries, nor are men lacking whom this contagion turns, and within they adore some secret thing as greater and call it holy, and if a chaste man wishes to go there, he will be profane. So the priest himself, more strictly, avoids intercourse with women and submits to that with men. O blind mind of men! The stage always raises laughter at their rites, nor do they withdraw from this error.

They say Saturn is Jupiter's father and that he devoured his children before, and soon vomited the unspeakable feast from his belly, but afterward, by his wife's art, sank into his belly a stone substituted for Jupiter, and had he not done so, Jupiter would have been consumed. And they call him Cronos and, by a fiction, Chronos, because time consumes what it creates and promises again what it has consumed. Why, though, do they obliquely invent a name for time? They say too that he, because he often feared for himself from his offspring, cast down from heaven by Jupiter, hid through the fields of Italy, and that for this reason it was then called Latium. Great gods both! One is hidden in the lands, the other could not know the hiding places of the lands. Hence the ancient Quirites established the evil of the Latiar, so that a slaughtered man might satisfy an empty name. What night of the mind, what improvident hearts! What is worshipped is nothing, and bloody rites are performed. What of the fact that they hide the Unconquered in dark caves, and dare to call him whom they cover in darkness the Sun? Who would worship light in secret and hide the star above in the underworld, except the cause of evils? What of the fact that the rites of Isis do not hide the sistrum and the dog's head, but set them in public places? They certainly seek something and rejoice when it is found, and lose again what they may seek again. What wise man would bear this: those, as it were, shutting up the sun, these bringing out openly the monsters of their own gods? What has Serapis deserved, who is so torn apart by them through various and shameful places? In short, he always becomes a beast and a dog, becomes the rotting corpse of a little ass, becomes a man now in rags, now languid with a sick body. While they do such things, they confess that he feels nothing.

Why should I speak of Vesta, of whom the priest himself denies he knows what she is? And yet in the deepest inner recesses an ever-unextinguished fire is pretended to be kept. Why is she a goddess, not a god? Why is fire said to be female? This woman, indeed, as Hyginus records, was the first long ago to weave a garment with new thread, called after her own name, which she herself handed over to Vulcan, who had then shown her how to guard covered hearths; he in turn, glad of the gift, offered it to the Sun, through whom he had earlier detected the adultery of Mars; now the whole credulous crowd hang garments for the Sun during the Vulcanalia. And to mark Venus, Adonis too is then carried; then they throw dung, they throw him himself as dung. If you inquire into everything, things seem still more laughable. Another thing is added here: I hear that those whom they call Vestal virgins carry five-yearly feasts to a serpent, who either does not exist or, if he exists, is the devil himself, formerly the counsellor against the human race; and they venerate him who now, in the name of Christ, both trembles and hangs and confesses all his deeds. What a mind men have, to speak false things instead of true, who worship what should be left and leave what should be worshipped! Now it will be enough for us to tell of vain fears. All these things I did before I gained the clear light, and when I was long uncertain and driven by so many storms, holy church received me in the harbour of salvation and, after the wandering waves, placed me in a tranquil seat, so that, the cloud of evils wiped away, I may now hope for serene light in the promised time. Now that first salvation which forgetful Adam lost, then at the persuasion of an evil wind, now, with Christ as oarsman, rescued from the rocks, will rise again to remain forever.

For our helmsman so governs all things everywhere that he who just now took error of mind from us opens the threshold of paradise by a better way. Happy is our faith, dedicated to the one and sure God. For God is one, one substance, the Son is one, one; in both there is one vigour, one power. For Christ, the Word of God, shone out from the Father's heart and always was; he, not as if born, but going forth from his mouth, removed that empty chaos and took away the shapeless gap of woven night and distributed sea, lands, air, sky in their places, and gave them twin light, the darkness driven off. But when all things were amazed to see the new sun rise, he increased these four beginnings with various things: men are added to the lands, stars to the sky, the bird hangs in the air, the fish swims in the liquid sea. So he adorned each element with its own forms; he knotted these, though different, and joined the separate, and separated the joined, which now cohere though divided. For Ocean encloses the land, the sea itself is enclosed, under the heavenly axis the air is enclosed in the middle. Even this heaven which we see lofty is below six others rising at equal distance, and after seven thrones, after so many heavenly kingdoms, all the rest, which rises above all beyond, which exceeds above, which stretches everywhere on high, which lies open without end, which no mind gathers, is the house of inaccessible light and the holy seat of mighty God, whence from afar he sees the subject things he made. All things stand so, while the Spirit encircles all things.

These likewise, whose use is granted us, which the lower sky embraces in a great circle, though all differ, are held in one peace; in short, they have one name: all are the world. The earlier Greeks also called this cosmos; hence, distinguishing what was so composed, each language called it cosmos from adornment, mundus from light. For where the sun shines, all this lay foul in shadow, and the example remains whenever night disfigures all things, and teaches from darkness what grace of light has been given. He who made so many good things, who has so worked everywhere, this is the Lord from the heart of God, this the Spirit of his mouth, the Word of the holy Father, the builder of such great things. Nor let the pagan praise himself if he avoids idols, or thinks it enough to believe in one divinity. Does he worship God who does not worship his Word, who does not venerate his Power with like honour? And whoever confesses God to be invisible and incomprehensible will find, if he reflects, that Christ too is the same, since no one can comprehend the Word, no one can see him; his works alone are seen. For the Son in the Father, the Father in the Son made all things, and whatever he gave by power he protects by kindness. So he was, is, and will be the true Saviour forever, who took away errors, who made true things to be seen, and, the Father appeased, gave back the perishing world. Nor is it wonderful if he rules all things who created all things, who gave the whole from nothing and drove back darkness from light and ordered day to succeed night, and, because he was in the flesh, forgives the sins of the flesh;

for he sees that the frail fall into easy slips, and, though he reproves, he will give one pardon to all; and I shall say a new thing, nor shall I regret having said it: he will be more kind than just. In short, if he wished to be just, no one would escape punishment, without crime; for the just condemns evil things, the kind forgives all. He does this so that the gifts of the life to come may be assured, and that indulgence may give back what guilt took away; if this were not granted to the people who ask, then almost no one would be free from every offence. Who could possess the promised light by deserving it? Then it will be granted to the glad to touch the kingdoms of heaven, then death itself will be able to die, when through all time there will be everlasting life, when in that blessed seat there is no place for sinning, where there is no desire. So great a glory remains kept for the faithful people. He has bestowed more than this, given this greater gift too: that the sinner who repents of his former fall he does not have counted in the number of the sinning crowd. For it is punishment enough for one to whom his own guilt is grief; fear is its own punishment; he who confesses he has deserved them suffers, as it were, the torments of guilt. What could be better or what more moderate? He judges, examines, chastises, spares, honours, he who conquers all things and is not conquered even by anger. That this will be so in the future we already see from the present; for when, threatening, he often gathers bristling clouds and with godly terror flashes with fire too ruddy, and thunders with sad rains and black clouds, every kind of creature fears destruction; but the living power ceases and calms both the sky and minds alike. This too he bids us hope then, he who now proves he can destroy all things but refuses to will to destroy. So salvation to be renewed is shown for the age to come, and the kindness of the eternal God will remain eternal.

O blessed man, whose iniquity is forgiven and whose sluggish delay in believing has not been imputed, on whom faith conferred life when his works were empty! See, this man, whom painting, beneath the gold of the lofty roof, represents with true wonders, Baebianus, famous with the proud name of the Verii and with consular blood, is himself the generous grace of mighty Christ. Before, this man, caught in mortal bonds, amid the riches of the world but poor toward God, had run through a flattering life with resources ready, forgetful of mortality. When he sees himself, a mortal, subdued by his end, with weary look he seeks the kind God, and at once, enlightened, he finds Christ; he prays for pardon, and as a suppliant reveres the feet of the priests, himself his own accuser, and, as he denies he is worthy, grace makes him worthy. And he vows his life, if any remains, to be blameless, and rejoices to die, if he should die reborn. The bishop believed his prayer and, girded, poured the pure stream over him as he thirsted for the rivers of life. When the bishop soon performed the godly rites in the usual order, he, partaking of the divine sacrament and fragrant with chrism, confesses that he is astonished by a wondrous majesty; but what fragrance, he asks, does he feel gliding into his breast, healing his fibres with very sweet nectar? Then his diligent wife teaches that the ointment breathes of … from the name of Christ, and the priest promises and urges him to ask for himself a long span of life. He, now wholly God's, replies: “This gift is enough for me, which I possess; now death is gain for me, and life is Christ!”

See grace given to the earth through eternal Christ! This is that happy robber, who at the very end, confessing Christ, earned the stars, guilty but faithful; this is the late hired labourer from the eleventh hour, who goes away given the full wage of the day. So when he shone, renewed by the sanctifying wave, he himself, his heavy limbs laid back on the soft cushions, addresses his like-minded wife with refreshed heart: “My life had begun to draw out nine lustra of age, and a year beyond, happy for me in a like-minded marriage, sweet in children, famous in honours; and now, washed of deadly dirt, by a holy end it passes over to the godly God.” At these words his diligent wife, with godly tears, begs that he pray to live still. Then he: “O woman, not knowing what you ask, do you know already whether I can live so godly as to remain unimpaired in so great a gift? And what good is a life in which salvation dies?” As he says this bravely, his eyes flashing grimly, and looking up at heaven in amazement, he says: “I see a flaming circuit of light, into which circle no woman comes.” O happy he, to whom it was given while still in the body to see the appearance of the eternal age, in which there is no need of marriages, and sex passes away in perpetual bodies! Again, as he said this, released as if by sudden death, he draws a bloodless stiffness through his outstretched limbs.

But his wife, trembling and terrified by such sights, falls into the likeness of death; now mute, she stretches trembling hands to his face and, intent on the limbs of the one lying there, hangs, paler herself, over her lifeless husband. The very delay urges belief in death; for twice the double day turned round its circle, twice was closed by evening, while the image of death deceived mortal eyes. But he, snatched through the clouds by angelic hands, had left the lodging of the body that he was to seek again, and then was beholding the secrets of the heavenly sky and the blessed seats, as God showed them, and his godly mind, deemed worthy by Christ, while he was wept for on earth, rejoiced among the stars, grieving only at this, that he feared he must still return. Sent down from his ecstasy he returns, to tell what he had seen and to strengthen the faith of those who doubt that the dead live. And as, returned to his limbs, he saw the face of his wife bent over him, he promised that he would tell something wonderful, and put off his account to the following daylight. So when the next day shone at its first rising, in the new morning the priest (for he happened to be present) performs the sacred rites, and as he carried out the solemnities with godly worship, Baebianus, looking up at heaven, spread his hands and, drawing his arms to himself, as if pressing with eager embrace some gifts sent from heaven, asks: “Are all these mine?” All were astonished at his words and ask what he sees, hidden from mortals. He says in Greek “All things well,” often recalling the patriarch Isaac, and, shuddering and revering, says, in Greek, “divine, sweet divine to behold,” and tells how an angel lifted him, carrying him through the void, how he saw many thousands mingled with angelic hosts and companies, and Christ reigning as God over all with the Father; he tells of the eternal city with jewelled gates, he tells of the heavenly grove of the paradise of the sky.

And among these words he put his right hand into the secret breast of his wife, saying: “We are both one and the same,” and, repeating this, so completing a calm end in holy order, he gave back his life with a word of the gospel. And now he enjoys God and keeps his care for his blessed wife, bound by eternal love; yet he has taken one son with him as comfort, a father impatient of lacking all his offspring. But after you have closed your times with a full age, famous mother, your children brought up, then that boy of yours, endowed with a crown flowering with light, will run to meet you with his father; and your husband, coming glad from heaven with him as companion, will stretch out his right hand to you with kind words: “The time is here! Be released now from cares, released from limbs! You have lived for your children; now be given back to me. Now ours is not a mortal marriage, such as envious brevity gave before in sickly bodies, which the swift years took from us with slender fruit, adding barely two lustra to three years; for your life had heaped twenty years on one lustrum when my life went before your course, but my age had flowed twice ten years beyond yours, yet one love had made us equal in age. Now, firm in a better yoke and on the lips of the godly, we shall live golden ages with God as King. Rise, following husband and son; see, the gate of the serene sky lies open to merit … … … an angel flying ahead; God himself puts forth a godly hand from the cloud and calls you to heaven with his summoning right hand.” Happy Apra, to whom it was granted on earth and in heaven to hold the lasting good of a husband, wife of one man, by whom, as there was bright honour for you on earth, under the same name there will also be everlasting glory in heaven!