Carmen De Providentia Divina [Incertus]

A Poem on Divine Providence. The greater part of the year has already passed in months gone by, Since not a single page was written by you in verse. What causes have produced for you such a long silence? Or what grief oppresses your sorrowful mind? Although even amid heavy cares poems are not absent, And sad hearts have their own measures: And if the wounds of a shattered world constrain you, And a single ship carries you on a troubled sea, It befits the unconquered to preserve vigor in their studies. Why do they fear what will endure, if what is doomed to fall collapses? Fortunate is he to whom God, granting such ability, Has given the power to be free in such a time! Whom neither the ruin of a neighboring disaster shakes, Fearless even amid flames and waters. But we, under such a storm of evils, Weak, are struck down and fall on all sides. And when the image of a smoking fatherland comes to mind, And whatever perishes everywhere stands before my eyes, We are broken, and we wet our faces with immoderate tears: And while we act piously, we turn into complainers. Nor do some spare a troubled mind from attack; With the javelins of tongues they wound a heart already stricken. “Tell us,” they say, “the causes, you who believe that the labors of men and things Stand and are ruled by the will of God: By what crime committed have so many cities perished alike? So many places, so many peoples—what evil have they deserved?

If the whole Ocean had poured itself out over the Gallic fields, more would remain of its vast waters. What is certainly lacking are the herds, the seeds of the crops, and the place for vines or olive trees; what the fire and rain have taken away are the buildings of the estates, some of which it is sadder to see standing empty. If the plague of evil must be endured, alas, in a ten-year slaughter we are laid low by Vandal and Gothic swords. Neither fortresses on rocks, nor towns set on high mountains, nor cities on sea-girt rivers have availed against the deceits and arms of barbaric fury; we have endured the worst. Nor would I complain that the common people have been destroyed without distinction; let the death of the leading men also cease from envy. Perhaps the older years and a more wicked age have brought upon us what we deserved by offending God: but what have innocent boys done? what have girls committed, to whom a brief life had given no crimes? Why was it permitted to desecrate the temples of God with fire? Why were the sacred vessels of the ministry violated? Honor did not protect the unwedded state of devoted virginity, nor did the love of religion shelter widows. Even those who were accustomed to live in deserted caves, praising God night and day, underwent no other god than any profane person: the same whirlwind carried off the good and the bad alike. No reverence for the holy name distinguished the priests from the wretched sufferings of the people: thus they were struck by hard clubs, thus burned by fire, thus they groaned, their hands bound in chains.

You too, dusty among the wagons and arms of the Getae, were treading a hard road, not without a burden, when that holy old man, driven from the burned city, led his torn flock like a shepherd in exile. But let these deeds be silenced under the whirlwind of war, since in the confusion of evils there was no order. For perhaps the calm affairs of the world and times of peace, the care of God may deign to consider as an arbiter. If we review all the years of our ancient forebears, and whatever our own day sets before us to see, the greatest place will be found in the world for the unjust, but almost no portion for the good oppressed. Whoever has been violent, fierce, cunning, greedy; in whose heart faith has yielded, shame from his mouth, him all admire, love, revere, honor; to him the highest offices, to him wealth is granted. But if some just man has preferred to lead a chaste and blameless life with a different purpose, this man, without honor, poor, an object of hatred for both young and old, lives as an exile in all parts of the world. The impious exults, mature in full years; dire sores never cease to afflict the pious. Falsehood prevails in judgments, and truth labors; punishment follows the innocent, and safety the guilty. The adulteress mocks the pious at the sacred rites; the blasphemer safely approaches the threshold of the temple. If the care of God were to look down from its high citadel, and manage our affairs under its rule, either crimes would not escape avenging punishments, or virtue alone would be found on earth. When such things are spread into the ears of the common crowd, what a web of malice the evil tongue weaves for untaught minds!

The pain of being consumed by Scythian arms is not so great as that which is sown by faithless hearts. Therefore, draw forth the heavenly darts from the sacred quivers, and strike the enemy with healing wounds. Perhaps some will be able to escape the night of errors, and you, once the light is seen, to turn back your step. But let us not suffer delay in our speech from an unequal verse; extend the pentameter to heroic measures. These things, indeed, would be better learned from the divine books, where, in the open sea, it would be easy to give free sails to favorable winds. But since fear keeps the unskilled from entering the deep, let them first learn to run in a shallow stream, where the land lies encircled by the farthest sea, and where the race of men is spread throughout the body of the world. Whether you review our years or ancient times, all have felt that God exists, nor has any lacked a teacher of nature revealing the Author; and if impious error lost Him, attributing to many what was due to one, it is innate in all to acknowledge the true parent. He, lacking an author and time, remains the same always, and the immense is not confined by ages or places. He, with no existing causes of the world, having in Himself whatever He might wish, when it seemed good, established all things as He willed, setting forms, numbers, modes, kinds, lives, and seeds for things. Whatever is in the sky, whatever on earth and sea, whatever exists in any body, whether animate or not.

Whether lacking a soul, hot, moist, cold, or dry, all things exist from one author, God: who, with His rich Word (which is God), brought forth the natures of things and the elements, and as the craftsman, intent on both the highest and the lowest. But that created things contend with opposing causes, and that some oppose others, a discordant motion nourishes all; and while one is met by another, all things, stirred up, seize a vital vigor: things which, either sluggish in their state, or too slippery, or with unsteady course, or with stagnant torpor, would perish. Thus soft things resist hard, rare things resist dense, and liquid resists solid, and swift resists slow; clear contends with obscure, and sweet with bitter. Nor is it right for me to have said that anything was not properly created, nor would I dare to reproach any part of the world: since that sower of works holds the measures of his own, and, piece by piece, tempers various uses into a whole. Finally, whatever harms, either by cause or by changed time, benefits: and all things subsist in a double risk. Having endured cold, one desires the sun; born from heat, one prefers to shiver among Hyperborean frosts. The traveler under a burden fears unjust rain, which the farmer with a thirsty field prays for. To see blue snakes is a fear for one; but for another, a table loaded with sun-dried chelydri is fearless. If it displeases that wolves, lynxes, and bears were created, look to the nobles of Scythia and the kings of the Getae; who, despising purple and Seric silk, consider it an outstanding honor to bristle with the hides of wild beasts.

It is tedious to pursue each single thing; but by Christ’s gift it is given to know that whatever the earth nourishes, whatever lives in the sea, whatever varies in trees or in herbs, subsists by fixed causes to the praise of the author. And things which alone harm, when combined, heal. Therefore God exists, and He is good, and whatever is effected by Him is wholly free from fault and complaint. Moreover, He who created this whole mass of the world Himself also rules it, and just as nothing that has arisen did not take its beginning from Him, so there is nothing that can stand when the maker is removed. For those who grant God a sluggish leisure, I believe, fear that intent cares, wakeful and hard labors might wear Him out, and that one alone cannot manage so much. O you who are sunk in darkness, empty of the divine fire, seeing more with your bodily eyes than with your mind: you who dare to compare God to your own nature and condition: to whom, if you love anything, you add it to the praise of the perverse, and you believe Him to be blessed by your own goods, or to bear any inconveniences. Or is it because, when you hold great cities and peoples under your command, it is wretched for a mind, sick with sleepless cares, to be divided among many affairs; and when grave causes press upon the anxious from all sides, conquered industry does not bear the urgent labors; and if worry is driven from sick minds, bland leisure creates rest for the nights: is it pious to think this of the Lord, whom, always the same, nothing weighs down, nothing occupies entirely?

Time flows away, and comes, and both the born and the birthing look to an end: He remains, simultaneously holding what has been done and what is to be done, beyond futures, prior to pasts: one alone present to all, and alone, without time, condensing times. And just as He precedes the spaces and numbers of ages, and passes beyond, so He is not confined by any limit of places, being boundless. And nothing is so great that a fixed measure does not bound it: both heaven and earth, and finally the whole world, has a limit: there is a boundary for the high, and a boundary for the deep. But it is of God that He is nowhere not present, who is wholly everywhere, and freely penetrates all the limbs of the world, and encompasses them. This power alone, therefore, can divide the controls of things, and persist in the same calm cares: which fleeing things do not escape, nor delaying things delay; which is never ignorant, never far away, nor, transferred and approaching through any regions, is absent from any; nor does it need to be taught by manifest things in order to know them. This silent witness hears things, sees hidden things: it gives lives, and takes away those given, saves perishing things, raises up the fallen, presses down the lofty, prolongs years and diminishes them, changes hearts, and remits sins. But those who grant power to the omnipotent perhaps take away will; and think that the great ruler, having renounced care for man, has left him, born into brief and varied times, abandoned under a changeable storm. Why do you willingly fall, forgetful of your parent, into the kind and lot of beasts and wild animals?

The hidden beginnings of our nature lie unknown: either the hope set before us in Christ is disturbed by present things, spare the sublime honors of the eternal race from degenerate fear; rather, seize the immortal glory, abandoned, by overcoming heaven. The way is known, with Christ the teacher opening all things, who calls and will lead us with him and into him. And lest we seem to promise uncertain things with vain speech, the matter urges us to open from the first parents the origin of the human race, and to unfold the causes of life lost, and again, with Christ granting, regained. With things arranged, the creator had already made the whole world, and the world bloomed in beautiful origin. Already the sun was going in measured courses through time, and the moon with the stars was giving lights to the night: already the earth nourished beasts, the sea nourished fishes, and birds swam the liquid air on wings. But what could be polished by divine reason was not yet animate on earth: the best Author gave this special honor to man, and while he established all things by word, he deigns to form this one with his hands, so that he might have more of the parent: a double substance is joined, and contrary things come together into one life. For the soul is not born from nothing, like the rest, free from destruction, except that it is capable of being tormented by the one Lord, and being guilty can bear punishment under the name of death, and having slipped into an earthly home, it gives its partner life, and together they drink in divine vapor.

Nor because the nature of the two things is dissimilar is their condition unequal: one and the same outcome awaits both—whether the better is subjected to the right of the lesser, or the weaker is made equal to the virtue of the stronger. For it is possible for both to be conquered, and possible for both to conquer, to advance and to diminish, to rule and to lose a kingdom. Not because any bring more or less from the origin of their birth, or because any external force brings forth the created, and drives the ignorant into the conflicts of morals; but because man, free and wise, can discern right from wrong, having within himself the distinctions of things, and the power of will by which the mind tempers its judgment. Yet if, amid the battles of this uncertain life, he does not boast of himself, but, safe in modest prayers, thinks that all power comes from whence he also received his being. So deeply implanted in us is the image of our native virtue, which, long exercised in the cultivation of justice, as a mirror reflects the divine light. And when a lifetime spent in good arts had passed, the eternal victor would hold the citadel, remaining. And, having become wholly a thing of God, it would undergo no battles, nor tremble in conflict with itself, nor wish to have wished what it would soon not wish, nor know fear, ignorance, desire, or suffering: needing no increase by additions, and subject to no losses. And so that trust in the great promises may be present, and the hope of the proposed crown not be uncertain, man takes from the gift of present life the lessons of the future, and learns to trust in what is to be given from what has been received.

To this man the birds of the sky and all the animals of the earth are subject, and the fishes which the sea and rivers nourish; to him it is given to know the changes of the sun and moon and the stars of the night, to comprehend days and years by numbers, to know the powers of herbs, to impose names upon things, and to increase his talent through various arts. This one man, more powerful than all breathing creatures, is subject to serve one God alone; not by bodily strength, but by the aid of reason, he rules over those stronger than himself. But if anyone thinks that I am not extending these things fully in words as a whole man, and has not yet recognized himself in these matters, let him hear that the race, through sins, has departed far from the first parents by its deeds, and that much of the vigor has been corrupted by the rust of morals, leaving only a scant seed remaining. And so that he may learn the honor of his own nature alone, let him return to the supreme head of the holy race, and consider himself from the hands of the Lord and the guiding breath, as Adam was when he was not yet condemned to this earth, and free from guilt, he held the rich orb of paradise, wealthy in the fruit of cultivated virtues. To whom, when God had granted such great gifts, the prince of the viperous people envied him, and cast down from the high region of the sky (because only pure goodness can hold the highest things), conceived greater poisons, his heart turned and changed. He, who knew that the possessor of such great delights had been excluded from a single tree by command, drove him to pluck the apple from the forbidden branches, in which there was then a greater experience of right and wrong under the dominion of man, because he had not yet received that power by which he could know what to avoid without his own peril.

To this man, brought low by deceit, and born under this crime, Death subdued him, with the fault spreading to all lesser descendants: which, once having driven those driven from the ancient citadel of virtue, did not entangle them merely by the single transmitted error of the parents; but, increased with the peoples being born, it spread a manifold ruin in a broad slaughter. And although death reigned over the slain, let loose upon them; yet no age failed to produce those pleasing to the Lord, and all centuries had their own just men: whom, although many goods of life remained by merit of their life, yet corrupted nature dragged them into death, not to be freed from the bond of the first parent before Christ, born in that same majesty, would destroy the causes and seeds of death. Whose perpetual care for all is evident, known from examples sought from the beginning. The just Abel does not escape notice, burdening altars with sacred offerings, choosing the firstlings from the flock of sheep, turning the Lord's face to sincere gifts; nor does the devoted appearance of religion deceive Cain, dedicating gifts to be rejected, whose bitter poison was brewing in envy against his brother with kindled gall. Nor did the Lord refrain from recalling him with kind speech: how great a crime was being prepared by him, he thrust it upon him, and gave a form by which he could overcome himself, and rule stronger than mad anger. But once conceived, impiety carried out the cruel deed, plunging the beginnings of the world into crime. But could God not preserve the just man, pleasing to him, from the nefarious slaughter?

But the bitter end was outweighed by a better life and the crown of eternal honor, granted beyond measure. What of Enoch, whom God translated living from the earth, despising earthly things? For that example benefited all, so that the terror of death might depart, and the substance of flesh might seize unshaken hope. Thus, after many ages, later generations, by another example, merited to take up the life proposed in Christ, when they saw Elijah, snatched by fiery chariots through the void, ascending into the glowing sky. Was the care of God then absent, when, with piety utterly abandoned, the human race, steeped in every sin, engendered dire monstrous giants from forbidden unions? That indeed foretold the future destruction of the world. It gave ample time, during which mortals, brought back to better ways, might atone for the chain of crimes through virtue. And when the established wickedness persisted throughout the whole world, and crimes could be erased only by the flood, only Noah’s house was saved; the ark, free from disaster, with enclosed pairs of every kind of breathing creature, from which the emptied lands might be repopulated with animals, survived unharmed while the world perished. Not because God could not have produced other peoples, but because, broken by many ills, so that from that very seed the same man might come into the body of Christ by being born, and so that, with God as the just judge of merits, we might know the rest prepared for the saints in the destruction of the wicked. Did not the Lord’s merciful love even then reach toward our lineage, when the believing Abraham, father of many peoples through his faith, counted the promised race among the countless stars?

Or when the fiery rain descended upon Pentapolis, did not the wrath of God, long deferred, come with a far greater judgment? He who is ever ready to spare found no grounds for pardon; and from the whole unchaste populace of Sodom, he singled out one man unlike them, rescued him, and made him lord of the little town, Lot. And when a dire famine held Egypt and the lands of Canaan, to be endured for seven full years, a certain plan was laid to move the patriarchs, and a household was prepared, pleasing among foreigners, to gently foster the growth of a future people, while Joseph’s dreams betrayed him to his brothers, who sold him for a price and deceived their father; while the mistress’s wantonness condemned the chaste man to prison; while the king, upon the telling of a dark dream’s riddle, honored the seer with the second rank; and while the Hebrew youth, led by pious tricks, rejoiced to recognize the brother they had worshiped in forgiveness. And he, though innocent, bore many evils—could he not, withdrawn and scorning human affairs, have accused God with an unseemly complaint, had he not known that all things run their course under a just judge through deep causes? These causes, though they may confound faithless minds, cannot disturb pious ones, because in this time virtue is so placed that those possessed of freedom, in a narrow space, the just endure the unjust, whom God himself sustains with wrath long deferred.

If the people were dear to God and suspected by a savage tyrant, they endured the unjust rule of a harsh king; and with the better offspring of grieving mothers put to death, they furnished the prescribed bricks for crowded cities, so that hard labor and the cruel inclemency of death consumed all the terrible years of the people. But God did not leave this inflicted upon the fathers at a distance; He Himself teaches and proves that He cares for His own. For He commands the chosen Moses to declare to Pharaoh that he allow the Lord's people to depart from Egypt. If he does not, his pride, to be punished with many plagues, will feel the wrath which the power of the kingdom holds. Indeed, whenever he suffers the celestial weapons, he yields and feigns obedience; but with the disaster removed, he hardens as God spares him, drawing from that which could bring him salvation the causes of perishing, until the tyrant, conquered by force, relaxes his savage laws. Moses advances the barbaric troops with rich treasures, and a conspicuous column showing the way through the desert tempers its form for both times, so that it may grant advantages to the camp by turns, covering by light and guiding by night, the same being fire and shadow, dispelling darkness with flames and heat with cloud. Why should I speak of when the enemy pressed upon the fearful fathers, the sea was divided, and the waters, bound with solid stiffness like a mountain, yielded to the empty deep; and where so many thousands of the people had borne their steps unharmed, the Egyptian people were overwhelmed by the converging waves? For all nature serves its powerful creator, and what yields for aid, the same serves for wrath.

But it is not my task to run through all the forms of the virtues with empty speech, nor does my mouth have equal power for their deeds. For who could unfold the miracles of such great things? The rain of manna, and all flavors in the bread of heaven, the water of a dry rock, and the sweetness of a bitter spring, or the forty years spent in the desert, with neither age harming the limbs nor use wearing out the garments? It helps to go to the law as an example, and to ask of those who remove the care of the Lord, whether from that time God began to inform human minds into the covenants of life; nor, though unmoved by the vices of so many ages of the world, did he then prescribe a just law. Go yourselves into the inner chambers of your minds, and inspect the engraved letters and the written volumes of the heart, and recognize the law born with you. For who will there be, unless a beast of the field or a monster of the sea, who so stupidly delights in open vices that he would wish to suffer himself what he does? The deceitful man condemns lies, the rapacious man condemns theft, the savage man condemns fury, the bloody murderer condemns murder, and the adulterer draws swords against the adulterer. "For there is one father of all, and no one lacks the seed of righteousness, and a similar origin produced all. For whence, before the law was written, were there those who lived a peaceful life in holy morals, neither ignorant of the highest father nor lacking law? Therefore we all, created with the law in life, have come, and we bear within us the books that are stored in books. Nor was our care new, when the letter handed to Moses condemned crimes with a present penalty.

But a holy guard was added to the race, so that it might remain mindful in the honor of the ancestral faith and become the heir of the Lord's promises. Yet, under the same sacred law, anyone was permitted to enter, nor did the temple's threshold bar outsiders. And when prophets, at God's prompting, sang of things to come, they often spoke many things even to various peoples. Thus the Queen of the South, with eager ears, drew in the eloquence of the Lord from Solomon's mouth, venerating it. Thus Nineveh, at the warnings of Jonah in a time of disaster, believed; and the tribe, fasting for three days in mourning, earned through its conduct that the kingdom should stand firm, spared from destruction. But lest we linger too long in speech on these matters, which were published here and there and in various ways in their own ages, and lest anyone deny that what is in a part exists in the whole—since divided affairs conceal the solid care of the Lord, and what seems rare is not accepted—tell me what people, in what remote part of the world, or what men, of what race or condition, has God neglected to save? Man, woman, slave, free, Jew, Greek, Scythian, Barbarian—all. In Christ we are one: no precedence of the powerful, nor of master or king; no distinction of the one light, except for the differing use of the mirror. For the mind is like a mirror, which, the more polished it is...

With refining faith and eyes fixed on the heavens, the image of Christ shines forth more brightly confessed: He who is always God with God the Father; and remaining in the paternal majesty, He mingles with the human condition: and the Word becomes flesh, and the Creator of all things is born, and the maker of the air succeeds the years. For this the law, this the venerable volumes of the prophets, this the not uncertain hope of the patriarchs held: when the last age of the world was nearing its end, that God would come to earthly realms, who, with death destroyed, would break the laws of hell, and raise the long ruin of the human race by a better birth. But you who see the twofold nature of man and God have met on the narrow path's edge, hold your steps cautiously firm, lest wavering error push you to one side or the other: if, beholding the miracles of divine works, you suspect God without flesh; or, considering all things of our body, you believe the man without divinity. For many have only life, many have only death subdued holds them; and there is no way by which the conquered can conquer, unless the true power of God is joined to me, or unless the true Savior received me in flesh, whose stable majesty is not violated by this by which I am redeemed; nor is He less while I am changed in Him; but my mortal He undergoes, so that death, by which life cannot be held, may perish for me, and I no longer live in myself, but Christ lives, who has mingled me with Himself. For the conquered earthly Adam poured death into all men, since all are born from him, and the cause of the transgressor parent runs through.

But a new man came from the heavens through the sacred Virgin’s womb, and, good to mortals, he made in himself a new beginning; and, poured back into every flesh, he produced both the dead, by sharing nature, and the living, by changing life. And just as the grace of old embraced only those who saw Christ with faith, so in our time Christ renews no one unless he is received into the heart. Behold, man, how great a power has been freely granted to you. “You are a son of God, if you wish, you can; the all-powerful Spirit, shadowed by the power of the Word, created you. And do not now consider yourself born from the bodily seed of fathers; let the captive beginnings of the flesh perish. Join nothing old to the new; this world is not for you, this life is not given to you, nothing here is yours, nor are you your own. For you have been bought, and it is right to pay the price for yourself, by which you can, so that by paying you become richer, and what you have given grows for you, and the Redeemer himself yields his part to you. Nor does the difficult observance of the law now command you to go under a harsh yoke; a free mind should bear holy obedience with reason, which the nurturing Spirit writes on the tablets of the heart with the blood of Christ. He who insinuated everything to us in words, established it by example, equating precepts with deeds. That king and lord of things acted in the guise of a poor man, neither shining in dress nor proud in honor. Strong to the weak, king to servants, rich to the needy; justice yields to the unjust, wisdom to the brutish. Struck by sacrilegious hands, he does not prepare to return the blow; he returns nothing to the greedy insults of the tongue.

The judge is condemned, the Word is silent, the Light is spat upon; the ministry itself is his punishment; gall and vinegar are sweeter than honeycombs to him, he drinks them; the holy one is cursed on the cross, and Christ dies while Barabbas lives. Wicked race, so great a crime dared, do you not feel your madness now that the world condemns you? The sun fled from the earth, and night was made in the middle of the day; the shaken earth trembled, and with God undergoing death, the bodies of the saints, roused from their tombs, took up life. Even the veil of the temple was torn, so that the unworthy people would no longer hold anything hidden in the sacred shrines; and the holy priests fled, offended by the bloodstained ones. But you, Jesus, gave to the astonished disciples on the third day a light, treading on the spent barbs of death and bringing back from the flesh a new trophy of the flesh. Nor was it permitted to know the Lord by doubtful signs, since faith grasped the proofs, with sight and hand examining the traces of the nails and the wound of the spear; and since, confirming the promises for forty days, he was visible to many and often tangible. Thus far, Jesus, we have known you in our own; from here on, our things pass into yours: no longer are they two different things, but one, while life is in life, light in light, an increase, not an end, of man; with him glorified, you are so much man, so much God, that you are not one and the other. And you bid us go up to you, and be polished with your light: if, however, we run on the same path, taught that heaven cannot be seized except from the cross. Has the love of God been found, and the care spread to all? Is it known that salvation stands by for everyone?

Yet again, alas! you, man, stir up querulous words with your chatter, and with your own darts you pierce your own vitals. Why am I not good? You do not wish this. Why am I evil? You wish this. Why do I will what is evil, and why do I not will what is good? You are free: but when you can discern right from wrong, you choose the worse, and heedlessly cling to your choices. You say, "I err, and I wish I could not err." This judgment is subject to two wishes: for you either desire to be utterly lifeless, or to be devoid of reason. For error belongs to one who has left the straight path, and who can, with Christ as guide, return to the way. But one whom no line of the road has ever received nowhere deviates; and things that do not stand fear no fall. Does God have any care for oxen? Is the Word of the Lord directed to any birds? Are the monsters of the sea held by law? When they do the commands of the Almighty, they are ignorant that they are doing them; they take on the impulse of willing, and believe that what they do for others yields to themselves. Thus even things that do not breathe are always in that mode in which they were formed: plains do not swell into hills, nor are high mountains leveled into plains; the Alps do not come into the sea, nor the sea into the fields; rocks lie still, rivers run down, and marshes stand. And yet there is no reward in these things, which without sensation provide for the living the uses arranged in them. But if nature seems to you to provide these things, you would wish to be changed into an ox, or a rock, or a river. I would not wish to become worse; I would have wished to be better. Did those who pleased the Lord with their gentle ways displease themselves?

Do we not all come from one seed, or is the nature of good men different? The rich man is born no differently than the poor; there is one beginning for slaves and kings. That best man received no more than the worst; the measure of the creator is equal, who lights all with one light. But, having entered the world, we are received by various kinds of things, and whatever things appear approach the mind, to be judged by the judgment of man. Countless forms stand all around, and all can be approved by being looked at. Some even enter through the wide-open ears, packed in—the errors of old studies and the empty teachings of parents, displaying a certain false show of truth. These come with modulated sound, these with a light touch, these spread far with sweet odors, those win favor with various foods in a thousand flavors. Therefore, these things must be discerned by man with great danger: lest, too timid, he set out upon no sea; or lest, wandering, he be carried with loose reins without law. For there is a holy use of things, which, by keeping within the measure of number and the balance of equal weight, we will render honor to the Lord alone for all things. He made all things very good, not as incitements to vices, but so that we might grasp the heavenly in them, having here contended in the contest of virtue, we win crowns. Do not those heavenly men, whom the world has produced and still bears, seem to you to have endured the same things that we suffer: movements of the mind, rebellious affections, and vices attacking the surrounding camp?

But with the sword of the word and the shield of faith they conquered the bows of darkness and the darts of death. And when they saw this great and beautiful work of the world—not the sea, not the sky, not fire, nor the stars, which they held subject to number and sight—they did not worship them as gods; rather, with reason as their guide, they honored the one Author and Lord of things, not the things made. But you, who wished yourself made more nobly, would you not complain in the angelic order, had you been placed there? For when that exalted Lucifer was cast down from the axis and fell, and with him that third part of the stars was driven out, I ask, in which part would you then have been? Would you have remained a clear image of God’s goodness, or would you have followed the camp of envy and the ranks of night? But whither does the orbit hurl you headlong? Do you wish to be good without your own effort? Do you think this can happen if the natal stars are changed for you, whose crooked course drives you? Why do you seek the old refuges of error in Chaldean stars? Though you approach the heavens with anxious cares and thoroughly examine the open causes of things, you do not thereby know God more than you know what nature He gave to each element, by what law He ordered the sea to move, or what power He accustomed to the tender breezes, and at what moments He created the starry fires. He who, being the pure source of equity and goodness, prescribed a harsh law for unjust commands, if He Himself first bound human morals to the stars.

For these things are opposed to each other and excessively conflict: to demand innocent actions, to afflict faults with punishments, and to call all to the same promises. But on the contrary, to affix a violent star to those born, which yields neither to man's will nor to his power, but leads all, unknowing, both virtue and error from above. Therefore either there is no right of the ethereal fires over us, or if they retain something of ours, they can grant it. Since the good author instills into my life the commands of salvation, born with me, and into my heart and ears, and calls the one running with a reward, the one delaying with terror. "Worship God alone," he says, "and remember to serve only him, and despise external religions. Pursue this work of good, flee this of evil, being cautious. Blessed life is born from this, death is eaten from that. The saving water and the destroying fire are present before you: stretch out your hand to whichever you wish; equal opportunity lies open. What the warning of the law and the writings of the pious prophets, and God himself, would proclaim in vain with his own mouth, if external force held our free choice. But if anything hinders virtue and slows our spirits, it is not born from the heavenly fires, nor does it flow from the ether: but it arises from our own hearts; freedom itself wages war, and we are shaken by civil arms: when soft, lazy pleasure embraces sluggish leisure, refuses to go the difficult way, and it irks us to attempt any arduous thing for the sake of a hidden prize, polished by the reward.

And when the cunning enemy saw these things being carried on within, he gains strength from your pursuits: and to turn away the true worship of the parent, he persuades that fates are spun from the stars, and that men strive in vain against the gods. Hence, with varying honor, they purchase masters for their life. Error, begone, error, begone far away: the deceits of the ancient dowry are sufficiently known, by which the Omnipotent disentangles us who are warned, and teaches us to avoid profane cults. For we know at what great price it stood for some to have worshipped the star Rempham, the venerated host of heaven, and the cult dedicated to the Sun and Moon. Nor is it hidden that these things, ordered to stand by the words of a man, served the voice with delay, and the day grew with the times of the repulsed night: when the serving light would not know what end victory would make, unless it made it. We also know the conditions prescribed to the sky once remained by the will of a holy prophet; when, for a set time, with the fields closed and thirsty, it was not permitted for the poles to rain; and the flame itself, called from the upper regions onto the holy altars, which had given fire to the sacred rites, was cast into profane ones. Whose power would also have fallen upon the disciples of Christ, exacting punishment for a denied lodging; had not the patient Lord forestalled the anger with forgiveness. Therefore, no right over us is granted to the elements, over which man has right; nor can they make law, which receive law. Only God is the almighty King, who dispenses all the times of our life, and does not wish those whom he has placed above the stars to serve the stars.

For all whom the sacred stream of the Spirit has renewed, born in Christ, severed from the mortal stock, already a heavenly abode holds, and no earthly offspring binds them into the temple of the Lord and their bodies reclaimed. But if someone, by observing the course of the stars and their noted effect, contends that human nature is thereby determined, I ask: what does this art bring to trembling mortals? "This one," he says, "will be fortunate, this one wretched; death will snatch this one before puberty, this one will surpass Nestor's years in old age." Is this false or true? If the seer's predictions stand, no hope remains for the wretched, no fear for the blessed. And what reverence is due to the fixed stars, if they can bear what they cannot change? Let all rather give themselves to the torrents of crime: let them deceive, plunder, murder, confound all right and wrong—the star will nonetheless persist; from its fixed effect, as the hinge of things, evils cannot be repelled by holy probity, nor will goods flee from the perverse, though owed to their character. But if the order of the predicted lot is changeable, and future events can be avoided, then all the pendulous force of fate is dissolved by uncertain chance. Therefore, in scrutinizing the motions of the stars, this is the work of the art: to overturn all religion, either by persuading mortals that no god cares for them, or by teaching that the elements can be moved by prayers, thus insinuating a countless mob of gods to the wretched.

But since the hidden snares of deceit have been uncovered, and the error that would lead the captive astray through vain pursuits has been found out, it now remains to answer the complaints that object that divine care is absent from worldly affairs, because often a painful burden oppresses the good, while the life of all the wicked flows in tranquility. Come then, you who think that human affairs proceed without the guiding reins of a moderating Lord, what departs from the order of nature? What wars do the elements wage? What anywhere dissents from the ancient covenant of things, now divided? Thus the day, interrupted by night, is recalled to its rising; the same is the return of the moon and stars, and they retrace the known boundaries as they undergo the seasons. Not otherwise do the winds blow; so does rain come from the clouds. The joyful seasons do not deny, and the flowers that push forth preserve each their own kind; nor is the enduring order absent from the origin of things; all things subsist by the same causes. Unless the skill of the perpetual King, the All-Wise, were to sustain this, and to foster the whole mass by his breath, they would collapse, reduced to nothing by sudden ruin. And since these things are governed by the watchful care of the Almighty, which proceed on a fixed course toward a certain end, who would deny that God distributes his laws more specifically to our race? To whom he has granted the hope of everlasting life, fashioned in the likeness of his own image. But you, who complain that punishment for the unjust and rewards for the holy are not restored in the present, would you wish the avenging wrath of the judge to descend upon all sins? And how would the magnanimous patience of the wise King differ from the savage cruelty of a merciless tyrant? Or what part of mankind, free from sin, would then possess the world?

what place would there be for holy Virtue on earth? If its present gifts were to flow abundantly, it would rather remain in heaven, having been taken up. Thus the world's end would have been hastened, with boundaries broken, and no posterity would come to be generated in offspring, since both the just and the guilty would be removed from the world by either promised honor or punishment. But now the deep propagation of our race extends, and youth succeeds through a twofold origin, born from the limbs of fathers and reborn from the font of Christ. And while the Lord's patience spares the peoples, we see many returned from dark night into the light, and, having set aside the stain of sin, become bright. That man, who once worshipped through countless forms and a thousand altars—bearded gods, smooth-faced gods, young gods, and old gods—as his ancestors did, now, having cast off the error of his fathers, humbly adores the only-begotten Son. This man, who followed the sophistical arts of the Greeks and their vain doctrines, now rejoices to think with Christ and to be foolish to the world, taught by apostolic play to understand heavenly things. How many has the whirlwind of shameful deeds swept far from the harbor of reason into the deep, tossed over the whole sea and driven by too many wandering errors, whom it now helps to receive as they return, and, comforted by a fatherly embrace, never to depart from the station of life? If the implacable rigor of wrath had quickly entangled them among the many prior faults of their character, the time for a better life would have been cut off, and those who had fallen would not have been allowed to gather strength to stand.

Death," says the Lord, "I do not want for the sinner, nor is there any gain for me from one who perishes: let him rather return, and, changed, be brought back to the path he abandoned, and let him enjoy life." And because He wishes those whom He has begotten to be like His own virtues, He says: "Yield vengeance to me; I will render it with a judgment worthy of me; let room be given for anger." Thus, while the punishment of many evil men is deferred, not a few are often recalled to righteous deeds, and each becomes his own judge and stern avenger, killing what he formerly was, and rising again as another. But those who persist in clinging to a long error, although they grow old with impunity in many vices, will come to a cruel end: there will be no hope of pardon there, not even a farthing's summons to punishment. For we, whenever we are moved by any cause, desire swift vengeance, because our rare opportunity does not allow a long time for harming to pass. But to the eternal one nothing escapes, and all things are present and safe for God; for Him nothing is slow or swift; nor should we think that the things which come are ever delayed or hastened; times are changed by our affairs. For what is being done everywhere, what has been done, and what is to be done, stands in a single moment before the Lord's eyes, to whom one day is always present, both our yesterday and our tomorrow.

But although God keeps all things for that examination when what now lies hidden will be revealed and laid open, yet throughout all the ages of the world, the justice that rules the world has given many proofs, while it shakes the greatest kingdoms in wars, while it often drains powerful cities and peoples with diseases, burns them with fires, overwhelms them with floods; and while it enriches the poor, raises the fallen, diminishes the great, frees the captive, and subdues the proud. Nor should this be thought to happen without great reason, that whenever the wicked experience wrath, the innocent seem to undergo the punishments of the guilty. Indeed, many things in this world are always common to both the unworthy and the worthy: the same sun is for all, the same rain, cold and heat are equally endured. And just as water, light, and air are undiscriminating for all, so it is necessary that the just bear the evils of the unjust: so that while the innocent suffer many things together with the wicked, there may be those by whose merit the wicked peoples are spared, and who, when converted, may lead by the example of virtue. But when the immutable end for those who are to be destroyed is at hand, the same sentence does not fall upon the saints. There are those whom the flood of the world does not overwhelm, and those whom it is permitted to escape the burning of Sodom: the Angel of Egypt knew the thresholds marked with the sign of the cross, removing the plague from the sacred blood. Nor was the woman deceived by the golden fleece, whose house alone survived when so great a city perished. The sea becomes a path for the saints, and so does the sand; and through the void there is a step for the pious: food is supplied by a serving bird, and the greedy reaper loses his own provisions.

And that nothing may harm God's servants, the order of nature is turned: bonds loosen for the bound, the prison opens of its own accord, the air does not hold the bars shut; water fails the waters, heat the fires, anger the lions. Yet there is no doubt that in the great whirlwind of destruction tender years are involved, and, after the manner of their parents, those innocent of crime perish for another's fault. For when the sea covered men, it is known that many thousands of girls and boys were destroyed throughout the world. Yet the offspring taken from the earth does not seem unjustly removed—a progeny that would increase the wicked, to whom a better fate was granted in that very destruction: they died before their own guilty fault could fall, because of their fathers' crime. But if some just person has been embraced by the punishment of the wicked, do not doubt that this pleased God; for no death is evil for the good, to whom any end, through varied and long toil, lies open as a path to rest: the harsh road gives life, and the crown is seized not in the field but at the finish. But we, captivated by the pleasant and offended by the harsh, judge neither good things with discernment nor evil things with truth. While we take up the business of things not our own to manage, and neglect our own, we are helped by others' affairs. And deeming no one wretched because of vices, or blessed because of virtue, we vainly join blame and glory to external things, and, though enrolled in heaven, we cherish earthly things. It is the custom to call happy those whom a flattering power has raised to the highest peaks of swollen honors, whom great profits have enriched, and for whom widespread resources have amassed ample returns throughout the whole world.

Costly garments and beautiful furnishings are praised, great houses, countless servants, watchful clients, and everything that is not ours, and which one day could give, so one day can take away. But we do not embrace that which is the special good of man and fears no force; we pity those who lack these perishing things, and we believe in things that perish in a thousand ways, as if harsh labor and the pain of a sick body, and the deaths of children, and foul poverty were pressing upon justice. We do not see how many palms patient endurance bears, nor where the brief struggle will lead; but, fearing to taste the cross and the life that brings happiness, we drink viperous poison covered with honey. For sweet in taste and beautiful in appearance are those things which generate and foster diseases and death of the soul, and like a cancer they consume the languishing vitals. And when God deigns to send down healing care from heaven and to cut away the deeply rotten fibers, we accuse the tender help, and we prefer to waste away in disease rather than endure the force of the healer. Therefore, those things which we consider evils are not evils; and when the healer's hand does not spare the dire ulcers, the complaint should be embraced for salvation, not sharpened. Now those whom God reproves for sinning, he also loves, and he wishes to correct them with a fatherly whip. And may he join me rather with those than gather me among those whom, with the lash already removed, he has allowed to go on the course of their own will and be carried by their own desire.

These are the truly wicked, whom crimes keep safe, and who, rich from the fruit of their misdeeds, an unpunished old age has brought to the shores of a foul final life. They oppressed the just with unjust hatreds; through these men, wars were stirred up against the pious, and torments slow to heal. For the same weapons exercise all the faithful under a twofold cause: while the unjust are tormented by them, the holy grow by them; and what brought punishment to them for their guilt, this gives a crown of virtue to these. Finally, if you shake out whatever bitter thing happens in worldly affairs, you will see that the servants of God have already anticipated it all of their own accord. One groans over talents of silver and gold lost; another is tormented by stolen household goods and necklaces divided among Gothic daughters-in-law. This one is affected by cattle driven off, a house burned, and wine drunk; sad children and obscene servants grieve him. But the wise servant of Christ has lost none of these things which he scorned, having transferred them to heaven and placed them there beforehand; and if anything of the world falls upon him in the storm of labors, he has undergone it fearlessly, manifest in his promised honor and eager to be released from the contest he has won. But you, who bewail squalid fields, deserted halls, and the ruined stage of a burned villa—could you not more rightly give tears to your own losses, if you were to look into the devastated inner chambers of your own heart, the beauty covered by much filth, and the rampaging enemies in the citadel of your captive mind? Unless, having surrendered itself through all the gates, it had given fuel to its own destruction, even those things which were made beautiful by hand would remain, testifying to the merit of a devoted people.

But when they lie prostrate in hideous ruin, they cast upon us their own misfortunes and ours. Therefore, let us, captive hands, lament these ashes of temples, these tombs of the mighty, which lie heaped up in the hall of a plundered heart—we who were once the splendid vessels of God, we the nourishing altars and sanctuaries of Christ, in which the silver of eloquence, the gold of virtue, and the scepter of the cross, and the diadem of beauty have been seized. Nor should we, with raging complaints, provoke just anger by blaming the judgment of God, which transcends the duty of mind and mouth, greater than the abyss. Although in this fleeting time of life the unjust swell with pride and rejoice in the safe peace of their crimes; and though the vine does not deceive them, nor the field; and though they harm while unharmed, and grow through crime: we, for whom all things are in Christ, should not be seized by perishable things, which we neither brought with us at birth nor will carry away from this world when we depart. But if the vigor of the mind remains, let us shake off the servile yoke of sin, and with broken chains, return to the freedom and honor of our homeland. Impious pacts will not harm the one who is a fierce tyrant; a covenant written by a captive hand is revocable for Christ—this pact, which by just right he can overturn. "Calling back the turned-away and lifting up the converted; whom the prodigal buyer sought with his own blood, if only the swift will of the claimant anticipates, faithful weeping will move the Lord.

For no one unwilling, nor one sleeping in deep slumber, is saved, nor is he sought by force who has withdrawn of his own accord; just so, when the gates of life are struck, they open for those returning, and the court of heaven receives the saved citizens. Cherishing the hope of pardon with a steadfast heart, implore God, and leave behind, brothers, the quarrels of words and the disputes arising from perverse opinions. Nor, because we have fallen prostrate in the first conflict, should we fear to stand and enter a second struggle. Although the enemy fills all things with various terrors and besieges the closed gates with a watchful soldier, yet the war is with the conquered, if, stripped of the old flesh, we are renewed in the body of Christ, and seek all our power to conquer from the Victor. He, while joining ours to His, has united His with ours. So that, trusting not in human strength, one refers wholly to Him, without whom those who seem to stand do not stand, and through whom the scattered come together and the prostrate rise again. It will be enough to have written these things in a small book for the untaught: when they have tasted the pure liquid from a living fountain, they themselves will pour forth rivers from the bosom of their heart and will provide refreshing urns for their brothers.