the favour or hostility of demons, but on the will of the true God._
But, further, is it not obvious that the gods have abetted the
fulfilment of men's desires, instead of authoritatively bridling them?
For Marius, a low-born and self-made man, who ruthlessly provoked and
conducted civil wars, was so effectually aided by them, that he was
seven times consul, and died full of years in his seventh consulship,
escaping the hands of Sylla, who immediately afterwards came into
power. Why, then, did they not also aid him, so as to restrain him from
so many enormities? For if it is said that the gods had no hand in
his success, this is no trivial admission, that a man can attain the
dearly coveted felicity of this life even though his own gods be not
propitious; that men can be loaded with the gifts of fortune as Marius
was, can enjoy health, power, wealth, honours, dignity, length of days,
though the gods be hostile to him; and that, on the other hand, men
can be tormented as Regulus was, with captivity, bondage, destitution,
watchings, pain, and cruel death, though the gods be his friends. To
concede this is to make a compendious confession that the gods are
useless, and their worship superfluous. If the gods have taught the
people rather what goes clean counter to the virtues of the soul, and
that integrity of life which meets a reward after death; if even in
respect of temporal and transitory blessings they neither hurt those
whom they hate nor profit whom they love, why are they worshipped, why
are they invoked with such eager homage? Why do men murmur in difficult
and sad emergencies, as if the gods had retired in anger? and why, on
their account, is the Christian religion injured by the most unworthy
calumnies? If in temporal matters they have power either for good or
for evil, why did they stand by Marius, the worst of Rome's citizens,
and abandon Regulus, the best? Does this not prove themselves to be
most unjust and wicked? And even if it be supposed that for this
very reason they are the rather to be feared and worshipped, this
is a mistake; for we do not read that Regulus worshipped them less
assiduously than Marius. Neither is it apparent that a wicked life is
to be chosen, on the ground that the gods are supposed to have favoured
Marius more than Regulus. For Metellus, the most highly esteemed of
all the Romans, who had five sons in the consulship, was prosperous
even in this life; and Catiline, the worst of men, reduced to poverty
and defeated in the war his own guilt had aroused, lived and perished
miserably. Real and secure felicity is the peculiar possession of those
who worship that God by whom alone it can be conferred.
It is thus apparent, that when the republic was being destroyed by
profligate manners, its gods did nothing to hinder its destruction by
the direction or correction of its manners, but rather accelerated
its destruction by increasing the demoralization and corruption
that already existed. They need not pretend that their goodness was
shocked by the iniquity of the city, and that they withdrew in anger.
For they were there, sure enough; they are detected, convicted:
they were equally unable to break silence so as to guide others,
and to keep silence so as to conceal themselves. I do not dwell on
the fact that the inhabitants of Minturnæ took pity on Marius, and
commended him to the goddess Marica in her grove, that she might
give him success in all things, and that from the abyss of despair
in which he then lay he forthwith returned unhurt to Rome, and
entered the city the ruthless leader of a ruthless army; and they
who wish to know how bloody was his victory, how unlike a citizen,
and how much more relentlessly than any foreign foe he acted, let
them read the histories. But this, as I said, I do not dwell upon;
nor do I attribute the bloody bliss of Marius to, I know not what
Minturnian goddess [Marica], but rather to the secret providence of
God, that the mouths of our adversaries might be shut, and that they
who are not led by passion, but by prudent consideration of events,
might be delivered from error. And even if the demons have any
power in these matters, they have only that power which the secret
decree of the Almighty allots to them, in order that we may not
set too great store by earthly prosperity, seeing it is oftentimes
vouchsafed even to wicked men like Marius; and that we may not, on
the other hand, regard it as an evil, since we see that many good and
pious worshippers of the one true God are, in spite of the demons,
pre-eminently successful; and, finally, that we may not suppose that
these unclean spirits are either to be propitiated or feared for the
sake of earthly blessings or calamities: for as wicked men on earth
cannot do all they would, so neither can these demons, but only in so
far as they are permitted by the decree of Him whose judgments are
fully comprehensible, justly reprehensible by none.