On the Governance of God

Contents

Reading pages: 0.1–1.36 · 1.37–1.60 · 2.1–3.12 · 3.13–4.2 · 4.3–4.48 · 4.49–4.95 · 5.1–5.49 · 5.50–6.39 · 6.40–6.96 · 6.97–7.50 · 7.51–7.100 · 7.101–8.25

1. 0.1Preface: worldly writers have cared for elegance of style more than worth of subject.
2. 0.2Such writers sought praise, and their works are vain, false, or obscene.
3. 0.3Salvian writes to heal, not to please.
4. 0.4Salvian aims to correct a false opinion of God and will be rewarded for the attempt.
5. 1.1Book 1 opens: against those who say God neglects human affairs, Salvian first cites pagan philosophers.
6. 1.2Pythagoras taught that the divine mind pervades the world.
7. 1.3Platonists and Stoics describe God as the ever-attentive helmsman of the world.
8. 1.4Virgil and Cicero also teach that God pervades and rules all things.
9. 1.5Only the Epicureans deny God’s care, and their view matches their vices.
10. 1.6The opponents argue that God’s neglect is shown by the good suffering and the wicked prospering.
11. 1.7Grief for false Christians’ misfortunes is misplaced; they deserve worse.
12. 1.8The truly religious are happy in the poverty and weakness they choose.
13. 1.9Hardships are light to those who choose them, and the religious have what they want.
14. 1.10The heroes of early Rome were poor by choice and did not count it a hardship.
15. 1.11Poor magistrates once made Rome rich; now rich officials make the state poor.
16. 1.12Even Greek philosophers held the wise man happy in suffering; much more are the holy happy.
17. 1.13An opponent asked a sick holy man why God let him be ill while sinners were healthy.
18. 1.14The holy are weak because they fast and discipline the body, following Paul.
19. 1.15Timothy’s weakness did not mean God neglected him; the flesh opposes the spirit.
20. 1.16Weakening the flesh frees the soul from temptation.
21. 1.17The opponent argues that God reserves all justice for the last judgment.
22. 1.18God judges now as well as at the end, because governance is itself judgment.
23. 1.19Reason shows that the Creator also governs, as even human affairs depend on governance.
24. 1.20Objection: God made the world and then abandoned its care.
25. 1.21If God neglected the world, prayer and worship would be pointless.
26. 1.22Paul commands prayer for present peace, showing God hears for this life.
27. 1.23On the opponents’ view, Christians would have to pray only for things after death.
28. 1.24A God who would not hear prayers about this life would not hear prayers about the next.
29. 1.25Such foolish arguments should not be dwelt on, out of reverence for God.
30. 1.26God does not despise human affairs; therefore he rules and judges.
31. 1.27Examples begin with Adam: created, placed in paradise, given a law, and judged.
32. 1.28God both ordered and judged Adam, and then judged between Cain and Abel’s offerings.
33. 1.29Cain thought God did not see his crime, but was judged.
34. 1.30God’s presence, rule, and judgment are visible in the story of Cain; Abel’s death shows that the holy may suffer by God’s permission.
35. 1.31God saw mankind’s wickedness and resolved to destroy it in the flood.
36. 1.32God’s “repenting” expresses his anger in human terms; God is not subject to passion.
37. 1.33The flood shows God judging twice: saving Noah and destroying the wicked.
38. 1.34The same God governs after the flood; a few major examples suffice.
39. 1.35God called, blessed, tested, and vindicated Abraham.
40. 1.36Every part of Abraham’s story shows God’s active governance.
41. 1.37The cry of Sodom’s sins compels the merciful God to punish.
42. 1.38The destruction of Sodom was a judgment that prefigures the last judgment.
43. 1.39God’s long patience with Sodom shows that he punishes unwillingly.
44. 1.40The call of Moses and the ten plagues show God’s care and repeated judgment.
45. 1.41The exodus and the drowning of Pharaoh show God’s patience and judgment.
46. 1.42God led Israel through the desert by the pillar of cloud and fire.
47. 1.43God’s wonders in the desert and the giving of the law at Sinai show his care.
48. 1.44God spoke with Moses face to face and fed Israel with heavenly food, showing great care.
49. 1.45The lack of present miracles does not show God’s neglect; we have abundant ordinary gifts.
50. 1.46Like the Israelites longing for Egypt, people always prefer what they lack.
51. 1.47Men always prefer what they lack and are ungrateful to God.
52. 1.48At Sinai God punished part of the people for the golden calf and spared the rest.
53. 1.49God punished the sabbath-breaker and the blasphemer inexorably.
54. 1.50The blasphemer’s trial shows God judging by due process, with an example for all.
55. 1.51Nadab and Abihu were struck at once by God’s fire for offering strange fire.
56. 1.52If priests were punished for rashness, much more will contempt of God be punished.
57. 1.53Miriam was tried and punished with leprosy, and Aaron humbled with her.
58. 1.54God did not lift Miriam’s punishment even at Moses’ plea.
59. 1.55Israel’s complaints and craving for meat were punished.
60. 1.56Korah, Dathan, Abiram, and the 250 rebels were destroyed.
61. 1.57Despite repeated punishment, Israel did not amend, and 14,700 died.
62. 1.58God sometimes punished all and sometimes some, balancing discipline and mercy.
63. 1.59In the end the whole generation died in the wilderness except two.
64. 1.60In Israel’s history God appears everywhere as ruler and judge.
65. 2.1Book 2: having proved God’s presence, governance, and judgment by reason and example, Salvian turns to scriptural testimony.
66. 2.2Scripture testifies that God’s eyes see the good and the wicked everywhere.
67. 2.3God watches over the righteous and his ears are open to their prayers.
68. 2.4God is always ready to hear the saints; objection: this applies only to the righteous.
69. 2.5God sees the wicked too, but to destroy them.
70. 2.6God’s looking implies governing, since he treats each according to merit.
71. 2.7God rules “Israel,” those who see him by faith; a Christian must believe he is ruled by God.
72. 2.8Scripture says God cares for all and disposes all things justly, with reverence for human dignity.
73. 2.9God fills heaven and earth to save, and in him we live and move.
74. 2.10Christ promised to be with us always; his presence excludes neglect.
75. 2.11God’s constant presence is a sign of love, not neglect.
76. 2.12No one seeks another’s company in order to neglect him; still less does God.
77. 2.13God judged between David and Nabal in this life.
78. 2.14God avenged David on Absalom beyond what David wished.
79. 2.15God judges by causes, not persons, and so judged even against David.
80. 2.16God, through Nathan, pronounced judgment on David for Uriah’s death.
81. 2.17God saw David’s secret sin and punished it; he sees ours too.
82. 2.18David’s punishment came at once, in this life.
83. 2.19Despite David’s deep penance, he did not escape punishment.
84. 2.20David’s repentance spared him eternal punishment but not the death of his child.
85. 2.21God’s judgment continued in the rape of Tamar and the murder of Amnon.
86. 2.22Absalom drove David out and publicly lay with his father’s concubines.
87. 2.23David’s flight brought him to humiliation, pitied by Ziba and cursed by Shimei.
88. 2.24David’s story shows God both regarding and judging, as he always will.
89. 2.25God’s justice is constant, and the saints asked for his judgment in this life.
90. 2.26The psalmist asks for God’s judgment against his present enemies.
91. 2.27The psalmist’s plea for shield and sword asks for God’s present judgment in human terms.
92. 2.28The psalmist distinguishes God’s present judgment from his future judgment.
93. 3.1Book 3: the argument so far rests on Scripture and so cannot be overthrown.
94. 3.2Why do barbarians and the wicked prosper? Salvian could answer that God’s counsel is hidden.
95. 3.3God’s reasons are hidden, but whatever God does must be confessed as just.
96. 3.4God’s word is its own witness and needs no further proof.
97. 3.5Salvian addresses Christians, to whom Scripture is proof.
98. 3.6Christians are appointed to suffering, but Salvian will grant the opponents’ premise.
99. 3.7Faith means faithfully keeping God’s commands, as a faithful steward keeps his master’s goods.
100. 3.8God’s goods entrusted to Christians are Scripture, baptism, and the chrism.
101. 3.9Salvian asks who keeps even a few of God’s commands.
102. 3.10Christians ignore even Christ’s plainest commands, such as loving enemies.
103. 3.11Even prayers for enemies are often mere words; Christians obey almost none of God’s commands.
104. 3.12Hatred and even anger are counted as murder before God.
105. 3.13Christ condemns even insults; men use the insult that brings Gehenna rather than the lesser one.
106. 3.14Christians do not keep even the lesser commands, let alone renouncing all and taking up the cross.
107. 3.15Even those who leave the world do not truly renounce all or walk as Christ walked.
108. 3.16The apostles demanded more of themselves than of others, like loving parents.
109. 3.17Paul imitated Christ in all his sufferings.
110. 3.18Paul describes his endurance as a minister of God.
111. 3.19Christians match Paul only in shipwreck, since their whole life is a moral shipwreck.
112. 3.20In times of peace God asks only for purity and holiness of life.
113. 3.21With Christian rulers and no persecution, Christians should at least excel in lesser duties.
114. 3.22Christ forbids lawsuits and commands giving up one’s cloak too; who obeys?
115. 3.23Christians, far from yielding, try to strip their adversaries.
116. 3.24Christians return many blows for one, rather than turning the other cheek.
117. 3.25Christians remember what others owe them under the Golden Rule but ignore what they owe others.
118. 3.26Paul went beyond Christ’s rule, but Christians keep neither.
119. 3.27A servant may not choose which of his master’s commands to obey.
120. 3.28We would not tolerate selective obedience from slaves, yet offer it to God.
121. 3.29All God’s commands must be kept, not only those we like.
122. 3.30Salvian will show that most Christians do not keep even the least commands.
123. 3.31Christians swear and curse freely despite Christ’s commands.
124. 3.32Reviling alone excludes from the kingdom of God.
125. 3.33Envy and slander are boundless among Christians.
126. 3.34Slander harms only the slanderer, who will be rooted out.
127. 3.35Clamor and malice, forbidden by Paul, persist among Christians.
128. 3.36Christians complain about everything, even God’s answers to their prayers.
129. 3.37Christ forbids even lustful looking, since desire enters through the eyes.
130. 3.38Christian life should be as pure from unchastity as the eye from dust.
131. 3.39Christ’s command to cut off a hand or eye means giving up even needed attendants who lead to sin.
132. 3.40Almost no one keeps even Christ’s least commands.
133. 3.41We complain that God ignores us while we ignore him.
134. 3.42God refuses to hear those who refused to hear him.
135. 3.43Christians not only disobey but do the opposite of God’s commands.
136. 3.44The church itself, apart from a few, is a sewer of vices.
137. 3.45Nearly every Christian is guilty of many sins, the greater along with the lesser.
138. 3.46Christians show less reverence to God’s house than to a magistrate’s.
139. 3.47Sinners enter church to appease God and leave to provoke him.
140. 3.48Many plot new sins even while praying for pardon for old ones.
141. 3.49After the liturgy, people go straight back to their sins.
142. 3.50Vice is not limited to slaves; traders, curials, officials, and soldiers are corrupt too.
143. 3.51The sins of the lower classes still offend God; objection: the nobles are innocent.
144. 3.52James rebukes the rich for oppressing the poor and blaspheming Christ’s name.
145. 3.53Nobility and wealth now coincide, so James’s words apply to both.
146. 3.54The rich condemn in others the crimes they themselves commit.
147. 3.55Almost every rich man is guilty of both murder and debauchery.
148. 3.56Ceasing to sin is not the same as never having sinned, and one man’s reform does not help the many.
149. 3.57One man’s conversion cannot save others.
150. 3.58Even Noah, Daniel, and Job could save only themselves.
151. 3.59Children who depart from their parents’ virtue lose the benefit of kinship; so Christians lose the benefit of their name.
152. 3.60The Christian name without Christian life only increases guilt.
153. 4.1Book 4: a Christian who does not do a Christian’s work is not a Christian; a name without deeds is nothing.
154. 4.2The Christian name worn unworthily is like a gold ring in a pig’s snout.
155. 4.3Israel lost the names “people of God” and “Israel” when it lost the reality.
156. 4.4God renamed Israel “not beloved” and “not my people” because they forsook him.
157. 4.5The same charge applies to Christians who disobey Christ.
158. 4.6Not even faith, much less the name, profits without good works.
159. 4.7Faith is proved only by works; even the demons believe.
160. 4.8Faith without works is like the demons’ belief.
161. 4.9Demons both believe and fear; so it is no wonder if faithless Christians are punished.
162. 4.10Our sufferings show that we are bad servants and God a merciful master who corrects rather than destroys.
163. 4.11We punish our slaves for sins yet resent God’s punishment of ours.
164. 4.12We condemn in others what we excuse in ourselves.
165. 4.13Masters’ vices are more and greater than slaves’, with very few exceptions.
166. 4.14Slaves who steal are often driven by hunger, and Scripture half excuses them.
167. 4.15Slaves run away because of the cruelty of overseers and fellow slaves.
168. 4.16Slaves’ lying and gluttony are driven by fear and want.
169. 4.17Salvian turns to the rich and noble, few of whom are free from crime.
170. 4.18The rich are runaways from God and gluttons far more than slaves.
171. 4.19Paul’s rebuke of hypocritical judges fits the rich, who commit worse sins.
172. 4.20The rich openly rob the poor, who are their prey.
173. 4.21Office is bought by a few and paid for by ruining the provinces of Spain, Africa, and Gaul.
174. 4.22Nobles commit worse crimes than slaves; freed slaves made nobles have done the same.
175. 4.23Slaves rarely kill; the rich kill their slaves and call it their right.
176. 4.24The rich violate marriage and treat their households as brothels.
177. 4.25Keeping a few concubines seems almost chaste compared with the rich men’s other crimes.
178. 4.26Married nobles take slave women as additional wives, dishonoring marriage.
179. 4.27Nobles who are innocent should be angry not at Salvian but at the guilty who disgrace their class.
180. 4.28Slaves do not keep harems of concubines as the rich do.
181. 4.29Slaves are not innocent, but the rich are more to be condemned.
182. 4.30The rich shift their taxes onto the poor while the dying empire strangles under taxation.
183. 4.31Tax relief granted to cities benefited the rich and crushed the poor.
184. 4.32A noble who turns to God loses his standing; the world lies in evil.
185. 4.33Converts lose honor; the world honors the bad and despises the good, so suffering increases.
186. 4.34We suffer less than we deserve; our sins force the merciful God to punish.
187. 4.35We besiege God’s mercy with our sins like an army attacking a city.
188. 4.36Every sin wrongs God; each sinner kindles the fire that will punish him.
189. 4.37Sinners fill up the measure of their sins until they perish.
190. 4.38When their sins were complete, Sodom burned in the fire it had kindled.
191. 4.39Christ says those who neglect the gospel are worse than Sodom.
192. 4.40Not content with sins against men, many blaspheme God by denying that he sees.
193. 4.41To deny God’s providence is close to denying God, and contradicts belief in him as Creator.
194. 4.42As human makers care for their work, God cared for his creation even before he made it.
195. 4.43Even ants and bees work with care for the future.
196. 4.44Our love for our children comes from God, who loves his creatures far more.
197. 4.45God loves us more than a father loves his children, giving his only Son.
198. 4.46God gave his righteous, only-begotten, divine Son for the wicked.
199. 4.47God’s love in giving his Son for sinners seems to human eyes almost unjust, so great is it.
200. 4.48Christ’s death for sinners commends God’s love.
201. 4.49God’s grace is undeserved; we owe him the psalmist’s response.
202. 4.50The first return we owe Christ is our own death for him.
203. 4.51The second return is love, drawn out by Christ as a magnet draws iron.
204. 4.52Instead of love and devotion, Christians return to God every kind of sin.
205. 4.53Christians now add the new sin of accusing God of neglect.
206. 4.54God lets the Romans be defeated by barbarians because they deserve it.
207. 4.55Roman misfortunes prove rather than disprove God’s judgment.
208. 4.56Thinking ourselves innocent only adds to our guilt.
209. 4.57Christians ought to be better than barbarians, and are worse if they are not.
210. 4.58Sins are graver in those of higher rank or holier profession, so Christians sin worse than barbarians.
211. 4.59Christians, professing the Christian philosophy, are more shameful when they sin.
212. 4.60We should judge ourselves by our works, not our opinion.
213. 4.61Barbarians are pagans or heretics; Romans are better in faith but worse in life.
214. 4.62Except the religious and a few lay people, Romans are more guilty than barbarians.
215. 4.63Salvian invites condemnation if he cannot prove his claim from Scripture.
216. 4.64The good catholic law is Christ’s gift; our bad lives are our own and the law accuses us.
217. 4.65In vices the Romans equal the barbarians.
218. 4.66If vices are equal but Romans are weaker, Romans must be more guilty, since God judges justly.
219. 4.67Even if vices are equal, Christians’ sins are graver; the pagan barbarians each have their characteristic vice.
220. 4.68Barbarian vices are less guilty because they do not know God’s law.
221. 4.69Many Romans, especially traders and Syrians, treat perjury as profit.
222. 4.70Christians, knowing God’s law and breaking it, are more guilty than ignorant barbarians.
223. 4.71Christians use “By Christ” as a casual oath, constantly perjuring themselves.
224. 4.72The name of Christ is used in vain more than anything.
225. 4.73Some even swear by Christ to commit crimes.
226. 4.74Salvian pleaded with a powerful man not to seize a poor man’s property.
227. 4.75The powerful man claimed he had sworn by Christ to take the poor man’s property.
228. 4.76Swearing by Christ to commit crimes makes God the author of sin.
229. 4.77Perjury by Christ is far worse than pagans’ perjury by false gods.
230. 4.78Paul distinguishes those under the law, now Christians, from those outside it.
231. 4.79Only Christians, knowing the law, are transgressors; their knowledge increases their guilt.
232. 4.80Christians cause God’s name to be blasphemed by their evil lives.
233. 4.81Pagans do not bring reproach on Christ, but Christians do.
234. 4.82Only Christians, not pagans, bring curses on the Christian law.
235. 4.83Pagans judge the Christian teaching by the evil lives of Christians.
236. 4.84Pagans conclude from Christians’ lives that Christ teaches evil.
237. 4.85Pagan persecutors accused Christians of murder, incest, and cannibalism in their rites.
238. 4.86False Christians caused the pagans’ slanders of Christianity.
239. 4.87David was forgiven but could not escape punishment for causing God’s enemies to blaspheme.
240. 4.88Despite David’s penance and prayers, his child died.
241. 4.89Causing others to blaspheme God is the gravest sin.
242. 4.90Only Christians, who know and break God’s law, cause blasphemy.
243. 4.91Christians are worse for professing goodness; Christ rejects the lukewarm.
244. 4.92The lukewarm Christian is worse than the cold pagan and is spat out.
245. 4.93Peter says it is worse to know the truth and turn back than never to have known it.
246. 4.94Paul says the law-keeping uncircumcised will judge the transgressing circumcised; bad Christians are below pagans.
247. 4.95Christians who spurn the known law are worse than pagans who do not know it.
248. 5.1Book 5: the law harms only those who misuse it; it is good to those who use it rightly.
249. 5.2The law is not against the righteous; sinners oppose the law, not the law them.
250. 5.3Blaming God’s law is like a sick man blaming his doctor for illness he caused himself.
251. 5.4The law is an antidote that cannot work while we keep taking the poison of vice.
252. 5.5Salvian turns to the heretical barbarians, who have the same Scriptures.
253. 5.6The heretics’ Scriptures are corrupted; only catholics have them whole.
254. 5.7Even where the barbarians’ Scripture is less corrupt, they follow corrupt tradition.
255. 5.8Illiterate barbarians follow their teachers’ doctrine as law.
256. 5.9The Arian barbarians are heretics unknowingly, sincerely believing they honor God.
257. 5.10The Arians err from love of God; their judgment is known only to God.
258. 5.11God is patient with ignorant heretics but chastises catholics who knowingly sin.
259. 5.12Christians sin by rebellion, not ignorance.
260. 5.13God chastises catholics to restrain their sin and bears with heretics to bring them to the true faith.
261. 5.14The heretical barbarians are Vandals and Goths; Roman heretics are worse, and Roman teaching made the barbarians heretics.
262. 5.15Barbarians love one another; Romans persecute one another.
263. 5.16Among Romans, even kin envy one another and rejoice in others’ misfortune.
264. 5.17A few officials turn public taxation into private plunder of the many.
265. 5.18Every town’s curials are tyrants who devour widows, orphans, and the religious.
266. 5.19Almost no one protects the oppressed, not even the bishops.
267. 5.20Bishops keep silent before the powerful, fearing to make them worse.
268. 5.21Oppressed Romans, even of good family, flee to the barbarians for humane treatment.
269. 5.22Romans prefer freedom under the barbarians to slavery under Rome; Roman citizenship is now shunned.
270. 5.23Roman injustice has made many, even nobles, unwilling to be Romans.
271. 5.24The Bacaudae were made rebels by Roman oppression.
272. 5.25Corrupt judges and tax collectors created the Bacaudae.
273. 5.26Oppression is still driving people toward rebellion.
274. 5.27The poor are driven to want rebellion yet are too weak to achieve it.
275. 5.28The poor flee taxes that fall on them while the rich escape.
276. 5.29The poor pay like the rich but live like beggars; the rich even raise taxes the poor must pay.
277. 5.30The rich decree new levies that only the poor pay.
278. 5.31Those who decree new levies should at least share in paying them.
279. 5.32The poor do not know why they pay; the truth comes out only when the rich quarrel.
280. 5.33The rich object only when left out, not to injustice; the poor are tossed between them.
281. 5.34In tax relief, as in tax burden, the poor are treated unjustly.
282. 5.35The rich take all the tax relief for themselves.
283. 5.36Such injustice exists only among the Romans, not among the barbarians.
284. 5.37Romans under Gothic rule pray never to return to Roman rule.
285. 5.38Unable to emigrate, the poor surrender themselves to the protection of the rich.
286. 5.39Patrons sell their protection for the property of the poor, impoverishing their children.
287. 5.40Patrons sell protection at the price of everything.
288. 5.41In this “sale” the patron gains all and the poor lose all.
289. 5.42The dispossessed poor still pay taxes on land they no longer own.
290. 5.43The dispossessed pay taxes for the usurpers and are ruined; some seek refuge on great estates.
291. 5.44The dispossessed become coloni on the estates of the rich and lose their freedom.
292. 5.45Like Circe’s victims, free men taken onto estates are turned into slaves.
293. 5.46Romans who enslaved their brothers are now themselves captured; they eat the fruit of their deeds.
294. 5.47Romans now suffer what they did to others, yet do not see God’s judgment.
295. 5.48No one is corrected, though many suffer for their sins.
296. 5.49God punishes less than we deserve so that we may repent.
297. 5.50We force God to punish us by heaping up sin.
298. 5.51Men die in their sins, sinning not in ignorance but in contempt of God.
299. 5.52Even clergy and professed religious often change only their dress, not their lives.
300. 5.53Some “penitents” repent of their penance and buy offices and power.
301. 5.54Some abstain from their wives but not from seizing others’ property.
302. 5.55God forbade sins, not marriage; abstaining from marriage while plundering is perverse.
303. 5.56Salvian appeals to a powerful man at least to spare the kinsman who favored him above all.
304. 5.57No Goth harms those who love him; the man addressed does, despite God’s recent warning.
305. 5.58The man’s neighbors suffer worse than victims of Charybdis and Scylla.
306. 5.59The man drives out his neighbors; Salvian sets before him the example of a humble great man.
307. 5.60Even a pagan teaches that one should be protected by love, not arms.
308. 5.61The man must renounce and lose himself to be saved by Christ.
309. 6.1Book 6: objection that one man’s crimes do not bear on the general argument.
310. 6.2Scripture shows one man’s sin can bring ruin on many: Achan, David, Rabshakeh.
311. 6.3Not one man only, but almost all are rushing to ruin.
312. 6.4The apostolic church punished single sinners; today the wicked outnumber the good.
313. 6.5The church would count itself blessed if even half its people were innocent.
314. 6.6Almost all are wicked in deed or desire.
315. 6.7The wicked compete in wickedness as the good compete in virtue.
316. 6.8Christians take wickedness for wisdom.
317. 6.9Christians sin knowingly, unlike the ignorant barbarians.
318. 6.10The spectacles delight in men being torn by beasts, and the whole world is searched for animals.
319. 6.11Those who love the spectacles share their guilt even when not attending.
320. 6.12Pagan augury still attends the inauguration of the consuls.
321. 6.13Public consent makes the consuls’ pagan rites the sin of all.
322. 6.14The demons have spread so many traps of pleasure that hardly anyone escapes them all.
323. 6.15Salvian turns to the circuses and theaters, too impure even to describe.
324. 6.16The theater pollutes mind, eyes, and ears at once.
325. 6.17Theater obscenities cannot even be described decently.
326. 6.18Other sins stain only the doer; the theater stains even the spectator.
327. 6.19Spectators of theater obscenities share the actors’ guilt.
328. 6.20Can God regard Christians who spend their days at shameful spectacles?
329. 6.21If God turns his eyes from the theater, he turns them from those who are there.
330. 6.22Pagans held games for their gods; Christians know their God hates them.
331. 6.23Christians knowingly serve the devil at the games, like the giants assaulting heaven.
332. 6.24Romans celebrate God’s gifts and victories with games that insult him.
333. 6.25Christians repay God’s goodness with insult, like an ungrateful freedman.
334. 6.26Christ did not become incarnate and die so that Christians would honor him with obscene shows.
335. 6.27Christ became poor and died to make a pure people, yet Christians repay him with shameful lives.
336. 6.28Where is the pure people Christ came to make?
337. 6.29Christ wept but is never said to have laughed; Christians follow him into the theaters.
338. 6.30Joy and laughter are fine if innocent; why must they offend God?
339. 6.31The baptismal renunciation names the spectacles as works of the devil.
340. 6.32Returning to the spectacles after baptism is returning to the devil.
341. 6.33Abandoning the renunciation undermines the whole creed.
342. 6.34Without its foundation, the renunciation, the creed is lost, and the spectacles bring death.
343. 6.35The barbarians have no such spectacles, and even if they did, they break no baptismal vow.
344. 6.36Christians prefer theaters to churches; God alone is nothing to them.
345. 6.37When games and church festivals coincide, the games draw the larger crowd.
346. 6.38Christians leave church for the games, and God threatens destruction.
347. 6.39The games have ceased only where cities like Mainz, Cologne, and Trier were destroyed.
348. 6.40Vice ends only where barbarians rule; viciousness has become Roman nature.
349. 6.41Objection: most cities no longer hold the shows.
350. 6.42The shows ceased from poverty, not virtue.
351. 6.43Only the empty treasury prevents more waste on the shows.
352. 6.44Even in poverty, Romans squander what they can on vice.
353. 6.45The shows ceased because God made the cities a desolation for their sins.
354. 6.46Romans keep adding sins though most have already perished.
355. 6.47Though already burned by disaster, Romans do not fear the fire.
356. 6.48The desire for the shows remains wherever the shows have ceased.
357. 6.49The will to see the shows is itself guilt, and provincials attend them in Rome and Ravenna.
358. 6.50The shows are now more criminal than in prosperous times.
359. 6.51In prosperous times the waste was not felt.
360. 6.52Though wealth has gone, Roman vice remains, rooted in the heart.
361. 6.53No offense against God is light, since guilt grows with the dignity of the one offended.
362. 6.54Uzzah was struck dead for touching the ark, though he meant no harm.
363. 6.55The sabbath-breaker was killed as a warning to many.
364. 6.56Israel was punished for craving meat even before any law forbade it.
365. 6.57Israel was punished for ungrateful complaining; how much more should the prosperous please God.
366. 6.58The games are crimes committed in laughter.
367. 6.59The games both destroy souls and offend God.
368. 6.60Each kind of show is dedicated to a pagan god.
369. 6.61Demons preside over the shows; attending them is sacrilege.
370. 6.62Christians offend God both in prosperity and in adversity, when they should do the reverse.
371. 6.63Prosperity makes Christians forget God and themselves.
372. 6.64Christians use God-given peace to sin more freely.
373. 6.65Christians turn God’s good gifts into evils.
374. 6.66Adversity has not corrected the Romans.
375. 6.67Italy, Rome, Gaul, and Spain have suffered invasion but not reformed.
376. 6.68The Vandals took Sardinia, Sicily, and Africa; did fear reform the Africans?
377. 6.69While the Vandals besieged Carthage, its Christians reveled at the games.
378. 6.70Those who laughed while others were captured were captives in soul.
379. 6.71The cries of battle and the circus mingled at Carthage.
380. 6.72In Gaul, calamity made the leading men worse; they ruined themselves more than the barbarians did.
381. 6.73Aged Christian notables indulged in gluttony and lust as their city faced ruin.
382. 6.74The notables of the city feasted and drank; even repeated sackings did not stop them.
383. 6.75One sack should have been enough to reform the city.
384. 6.76In Trier, calamities multiplied crimes like the Hydra’s heads.
385. 6.77In another Gallic city the notables were still at table when the enemy entered.
386. 6.78Old and young alike drank, danced, and committed adultery.
387. 6.79Drunkenness and lust led the citizens to deny Christ; they had perished before their city fell.
388. 6.80Other Gallic cities fell the same way, blind to danger.
389. 6.81A God-sent stupor fell on the sinners so that they would not escape.
390. 6.82Even after repeated destruction, vice increased in the chief city of Gaul.
391. 6.83Survivors of the sack died of wounds, burns, hunger, and cold.
392. 6.84Unburied corpses spread death from the sacked city to others; Salvian witnessed it.
393. 6.85Surviving nobles of Trier asked the emperors for circus games.
394. 6.86The request was irreligious, foolish, luxurious, and mad.
395. 6.87Salvian addresses the people of Trier, more wretched for wanting games than for their ruin.
396. 6.88Games are asked for a ruined city whose survivors are worse off than the dead.
397. 6.89Games amid the ruins provoked God; Trier deserved its fourth destruction.
398. 6.90All Roman sufferings are just; God alternates chastisement and kindness like a father.
399. 6.91God, like a physician, uses harsh and gentle remedies for the same healing.
400. 6.92Neither punishment nor kindness corrects the Romans.
401. 6.93When God delivers the Romans from danger, how do they respond?
402. 6.94Ironically: surely the Romans thank God with worship, offerings, and reform?
403. 6.95Instead, the Romans celebrate God’s deliverance by rushing to the games.
404. 6.96Romans repay God’s gifts with injuries; there is no hope of good fruit in them.
405. 6.97Others reform when their causes of sin are removed; the Romans have no such excuses.
406. 6.98Rome, once feared and paid tribute, now pays tribute to the barbarians.
407. 6.99Rome buys peace from the barbarians, always ransomed and never free.
408. 7.1Book 7: objection that pagan Rome triumphed while Christian Rome is conquered.
409. 7.2Salvian promises to show that God’s favor to old Rome was as just as his punishment now.
410. 7.3Even animals are healed by cautery, but Romans are not healed by punishment.
411. 7.4Incurable, the Romans are being destroyed like diseased cattle.
412. 7.5Luxury might belong to times of peace, yet it persists where peace is gone.
413. 7.6Romans laugh in the face of death, as if poisoned by the Sardonic herb.
414. 7.7Salvian will compare the Romans with the Goths now settled in Roman Gaul.
415. 7.8Aquitaine was the richest and loveliest part of Gaul, an image of paradise.
416. 7.9Those so blessed owed God special devotion, which he asks without burden.
417. 7.10Christ’s yoke is light; he asks only virtues that adorn us.
418. 7.11God rewards in us the very gifts he gives; the Aquitanians owed special devotion.
419. 7.12Instead, the Aquitanians were first in vice as in wealth.
420. 7.13The Aquitanians themselves admit their vices without repentance.
421. 7.14A few holy men redeemed their sins by almsgiving and were corrected.
422. 7.15The Aquitanian nobles lived like a brothel, worse than prostitutes who at least do not commit adultery.
423. 7.16Aquitanian nobles broke faith with their wives and treated them as slave women.
424. 7.17Wives kept the rank of mistress but not the integrity of marriage, since husbands took slave women.
425. 7.18Rich Aquitanians used all their slave women like stallions in a herd.
426. 7.19The masters’ corruption corrupted their whole households.
427. 7.20Slave women were forced into unchastity by their masters.
428. 7.21The exiled Aquitanian nobles are now even worse than before.
429. 7.22Old, poor, and captive, they persist in impurity even among the barbarians.
430. 7.23Even among unchaste barbarians a Christian should be chaste.
431. 7.24The Goths punish fornication; only Romans among them are allowed it.
432. 7.25The barbarians now purify by chastity the lands Romans polluted.
433. 7.26Spain too was handed over for its vices, and to the chaste Vandals.
434. 7.27God gave Spain to the Vandals to show his hatred of lust and love of chastity.
435. 7.28God gave Spain to the weakest enemy to show that sin, not strength, decides.
436. 7.29Being conquered by the weakest enemies shows God’s hand in it.
437. 7.30God works through the weak: Jael, the woman of Thebez, Judith.
438. 7.31Ben-hadad was defeated by a few young men so that God’s hand would be known.
439. 7.32God told Gideon his army was too large.
440. 7.33God reduced Gideon’s army to 300 so Israel could not boast of its own strength.
441. 7.34Romans trust in their own strength though they have none, and do not thank God.
442. 7.35Romans credit fortune or generals for victories, never God.
443. 7.36Thanking chance rather than God is like thanking fields and sheep.
444. 7.37Romans deny God thanks for his protection amid the barbarians.
445. 7.38Goths and Vandals, though heretics, pray to God in danger and thank him for success.
446. 7.39In the war of 439 the humble Goths, who trusted God and sent bishops to ask peace, defeated the proud Romans who trusted the Huns.
447. 7.40The Roman general Litorius entered Toulouse as a captive, not a victor.
448. 7.41Litorius suffered what he had planned for the enemy.
449. 7.42Litorius was led in triumph, mocked, and died ignominiously.
450. 7.43Litorius wasted long in prison until even his enemies pitied him.
451. 7.44The Gothic king prayed in sackcloth before battle and won.
452. 7.45The Roman army in Spain, trusting in itself, was defeated by the Vandals.
453. 7.46The Vandals met the Romans with the book of Scripture, and won.
454. 7.47Catholics despise the heretical barbarians but live in a heretical way.
455. 7.48Like Israel trusting in the temple, catholics trust vainly in their name.
456. 7.49The barbarians grow and Rome declines, like David and Saul; God’s judgment is just.
457. 7.50The Vandals ravaged Germany, Belgium, Aquitaine, and all Gaul step by step.
458. 7.51No part of the Roman world is amended by its afflictions.
459. 7.52Spain was not amended by Gaul’s example and burned too; then the Vandals were sent to Africa.
460. 7.53The Vandals had no military reason to leave Spain.
461. 7.54The Vandals said they were driven to Africa by God, as Assyria and Babylon were sent.
462. 7.55Punishment is to be ascribed to sin, not to God.
463. 7.56The Africans’ crimes, not God’s severity, brought the Vandals.
464. 7.57Others mix good with evil; the Africans are wholly evil.
465. 7.58Africa was a house of vices like Ezekiel’s rusted pot and mixed metals.
466. 7.59Even the noble silver is smelted; Ezekiel’s lament over Tyre fits Africa.
467. 7.60Rich Africa, like Tyre, was cast down for pride and sin.
468. 7.61Africa’s fall, like Tyre’s, came from its own sin; may eternal punishment not follow.
469. 7.62Salvian will speak only of Africa’s impurities and sacrileges, passing over common vices.
470. 7.63All the world’s vices flowed into Africa like filth into a ship’s bilge.
471. 7.64Each barbarian nation has good and bad traits; the Africans have only vices.
472. 7.65Africa burned with lust like Etna, as all the world knows.
473. 7.66An African who is chaste seems no longer an African.
474. 7.67Salvian takes Carthage, Rome’s rival, as his one example.
475. 7.68Carthage had every institution of government and learning.
476. 7.69If Carthage, with its governors, was so corrupt, the lesser cities were worse.
477. 7.70Carthage seethed with every vice, its people drunk with sin.
478. 7.71The oppressed poor of Carthage prayed even for the enemy’s coming, and God granted it.
479. 7.72Carthage was full of brothels, its streets like traps of lust.
480. 7.73Lust lay in ambush for everyone in Carthage.
481. 7.74Only the clergy at the altar, Salvian supposes, were pure in Carthage, like Lot in Sodom.
482. 7.75Hardly a chaste man could be found among the Christians of Carthage.
483. 7.76Paul’s description of same-sex relations among men applied to Carthage.
484. 7.77Paul wrote this of the Romans, whom the Africans surpassed in impurity.
485. 7.78Worse than the crime was that it was done openly and without shame.
486. 7.79In Christian Carthage men openly lived as women and the city approved.
487. 7.80These men even adopted women’s appearance and dress.
488. 7.81Even the sin of a few, like a speck in the eye, darkens the whole church.
489. 7.82The sin of a few defiles the whole church, as Christ’s image of the eye and Paul’s leaven show.
490. 7.83The authorities’ tolerance made the crime that of the whole empire.
491. 7.84Salvian compares the Vandals with the Africans.
492. 7.85The Vandals entered a rich land where luxury would have been no wonder.
493. 7.86One would expect the Vandals to have been corrupted by Africa.
494. 7.87No Vandal became effeminate or joined in the Romans’ vice.
495. 7.88Even Roman armies once tolerated such vice among camp boys.
496. 7.89The Vandals rejected the vices of Carthage and shunned brothels and prostitutes.
497. 7.90The Vandals not only avoided vice but removed it from others.
498. 7.91Unlike Roman officials who commit what they punish, the Vandals truly removed vice.
499. 7.92Former officials continue their robbery as private men, without end.
500. 7.93Laws bind only the poor, while the powerful trample them.
501. 7.94The Vandals removed effeminate men and prostitution from all Africa.
502. 7.95Discipline can change even vices of nature; Salvian will tell how the Vandals did it.
503. 7.96The Vandals reformed prostitutes without killing them.
504. 7.97The Vandals made prostitutes marry, fulfilling Paul’s command.
505. 7.98Marriage gave former prostitutes guardians to keep them chaste.
506. 7.99The Vandals punished unchastity by law, unlike Roman laws that forbade adultery but allowed brothels.
507. 7.100The Vandals confined sexual relations to marriage, following God’s law.
508. 7.101Socrates, called wisest by the Delphic oracle, taught that wives should be held in common.
509. 7.102Common wives would mean no one is husband, wife, or child of anyone.
510. 7.103Socrates and Cato gave their wives to others, making husbands pimps.
511. 7.104Humanity rightly condemned Socrates’ teaching by its way of life.
512. 7.105The Vandals’ laws on marriage are the opposite of Socrates’ teaching.
513. 7.106Many Romans live by Socrates’ precepts; great cities excel in impurity.
514. 7.107The barbarians’ discipline has made even the Romans among them chaste.
515. 7.108Only Roman vice, not barbarian strength, has defeated Rome.
516. 8.1Book 8: Salvian knows his reproofs will be unwelcome, since all prefer flattery.
517. 8.2One must not flatter, for Scripture curses those who call bitter sweet.
518. 8.3Those who call God neglectful accuse him of sloth and injustice.
519. 8.4Calling God neglectful is an insult one would not offer a free man.
520. 8.5Claiming we suffer undeservedly calls God unjust.
521. 8.6What God permits he judges; our sufferings are his sentence, kindled by our sins.
522. 8.7We kindle the fire that burns us; God wishes no one to perish.
523. 8.8God punishes us, but we bring the punishment on ourselves.
524. 8.9Many Africans worshipped the goddess Caelestis.
525. 8.10Worse than pagans were professed Christians who served idols in mind.
526. 8.11Christians came to church reeking of sacrifices to Caelestis, which was worse than staying away.
527. 8.12Putting Christ second to Caelestis honored the idol; they were Christians to Christ’s insult.
528. 8.13They shared both the Lord’s table and the table of demons, preferring the latter.
529. 8.14The powerful few polluted the whole city through their households.
530. 8.15Hatred of God’s servants, common to all, is sacrilege against God.
531. 8.16God counts harm to his servants as harm to the apple of his eye.
532. 8.17In hating God’s servants the Africans hated God.
533. 8.18The Africans’ hatred is shown in the same ways as the hatred of Christ’s persecutors.
534. 8.19The Africans persecuted the monks as Christ’s enemies persecuted him, short of killing.
535. 8.20Hating the monks was akin to murder; it arose from the clash of their ways.
536. 8.21In Carthage monks in their habits were met with abuse.
537. 8.22Visiting monks from Egypt or Jerusalem were jeered and hissed in Carthage.
538. 8.23The apostles were better received by pagan Athens and Lycaonia than monks in Christian Carthage.
539. 8.24Only pagan law protected the monks from being killed by Christians.
540. 8.25The Carthaginians now suffer from barbarians as they made the saints suffer; their sins against God were greater.