republic from being ruined by immorality._
But what is relevant to the present question is this, that however
admirable our adversaries say the republic was or is, it is certain
that by the testimony of their own most learned writers it had
become, long before the coming of Christ, utterly wicked and
dissolute, and indeed had no existence, but had been destroyed by
profligacy. To prevent this, surely these guardian gods ought to have
given precepts of morals and a rule of life to the people by whom
they were worshipped in so many temples, with so great a variety of
priests and sacrifices, with such numberless and diverse rites, so
many festal solemnities, so many celebrations of magnificent games.
But in all this the demons only looked after their own interest,
and cared not at all how their worshippers lived, or rather were at
pains to induce them to lead an abandoned life, so long as they paid
these tributes to their honour, and regarded them with fear. If any
one denies this, let him produce, let him point to, let him read the
laws which the gods had given against sedition, and which the Gracchi
transgressed when they threw everything into confusion; or those
Marius, and Cinna, and Carbo broke when they involved their country
in civil wars, most iniquitous and unjustifiable in their causes,
cruelly conducted, and yet more cruelly terminated; or those which
Sylla scorned, whose life, character, and deeds, as described by
Sallust and other historians, are the abhorrence of all mankind. Who
will deny that at that time the republic had become extinct?
Possibly they will be bold enough to suggest in defence of the gods,
that they abandoned the city on account of the profligacy of the
citizens, according to the lines of Virgil:
"Gone from each fane, each sacred shrine,
Are those who made this realm divine."[109]
But, firstly, if it be so, then they cannot complain against the
Christian religion, as if it were that which gave offence to the
gods and caused them to abandon Rome, since the Roman immorality had
long ago driven from the altars of the city a cloud of little gods,
like as many flies. And yet where was this host of divinities, when,
long before the corruption of the primitive morality, Rome was taken
and burnt by the Gauls? Perhaps they were present, but asleep? For
at that time the whole city fell into the hands of the enemy, with
the single exception of the Capitoline hill; and this too would have
been taken, had not--the watchful geese aroused the sleeping gods!
And this gave occasion to the festival of the goose, in which Rome
sank nearly to the superstition of the Egyptians, who worship beasts
and birds. But of these adventitious evils which are inflicted by
hostile armies or by some disaster, and which attach rather to the
body than the soul, I am not meanwhile disputing. At present I speak
of the decay of morality, which at first almost imperceptibly lost
its brilliant hue, but afterwards was wholly obliterated, was swept
away as by a torrent, and involved the republic in such disastrous
ruin, that though the houses and walls remained standing, the leading
writers do not scruple to say that the republic was destroyed. Now,
the departure of the gods "from each fane, each sacred shrine," and
their abandonment of the city to destruction, was an act of justice,
if their laws inculcating justice and a moral life had been held in
contempt by that city. But what kind of gods were these, pray, who
declined to live with a people who worshipped them, and whose corrupt
life they had done nothing to reform?