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Those ancient sages of the world long ago made
glorious discourses in honour of the moral virtues,
yea, even in behalf of religion: but what Plutarch
observes of the Stoics suits still better the rest of
the pagans. We see ships, says he, which bear the
grandest titles: some are called the Victory, others
the Valour, others the Sun; yet, for all that, they
remain dependent on the winds and waves: so the
Stoics boast of being exempt from passions, without
fear, without grief, without anger, unchanging and
unchangeable, yet are they in fact subject to
trouble, disquiet, impetuosity, and other follies.
I earnestly ask you, Theotimus, what virtues could
those people have, who voluntarily, and of set
purpose, overthrew all the laws of religion. Seneca
wrote a book against superstitions, wherein he very
freely reprehends pagan impiety. "Now this freedom,"
says S. Augustine, "was found in his writings, but
not in his life; since he even advised that a man
should reject superstition in his heart but should
practise it in his actions; for these are his words:
Which superstitions the sage shall observe, as being
commanded by the law, not as being grateful to the
gods."
How could they be virtuous, who, as S. Augustine
relates, were of opinion that the wise man ought to
kill himself, when he could not or would not longer
endure the calamities of this life, and yet were not
willing to acknowledge that calamities were miseries
or miseries calamities, but maintained that the wise
man was ever fortunate and his life happy? "0 what a
happy life," says S. Augustine, "to avoid which one
has even recourse to death? If it be happy, why do
you not remain in it?"
Wherefore, that Stoic and commander who, for
having killed himself in Utica to avoid a calamity
which he considered it unworthy to survive, has been
so praised by the worldly-minded, did this action
with so little true virtue that, as S. Augustine
says, he did not exhibit a high courage that wished
to avoid dishonour, but a weak soul which had not the
strength of mind to await adversity.
For if he reputed it a dishonourable thing to live
under victorious Caesar, why did he tell others to
trust to the clemency of Caesar? Why did he not
advise his son to die with him, if death were better
and more honourable than life? He killed himself,
then, either because he envied Caesar the glory he
would have gained by sparing his life, or because he
feared the shame of living under a victor whom he
hated: wherein he may have the praise of having a
stout, perhaps a great heart, but not of being a
wise, virtuous and constant soul.
The cruelty which is exercised without emotion and
in cold blood, is the most cruel of all. It is the
same with despair; for the most slow, deliberate, and
determined is the least excusable and the most
desperate.
And as for Lucretia (that we may not forget the
valour of the less courageous sex), either she was
chaste under the violence of the son of Tarquin, or
she was not. If Lucretia were not chaste, why is her
chastity so praised? If she were chaste and innocent
on that occasion, was not Lucretia wicked to murder
the innocent Lucretia? If unchaste why so much
praised, if honest why was she slain? But she dreaded
reproach and shame on the part of such as might have
thought that the treatment she had suffered through
violence while she was in life had been undergone
voluntarily, if after it she had remained in life.
She feared to have been considered an accomplice in
the sin, if what was done to her wickedly were borne
by her patiently. But are we then to oppress the
innocent, and kill the just in order to avoid the
shame and reproach which depends upon the opinion of
men? Must we maintain honour at the cost of virtue,
and reputation at the hazard of justice? Such were
the virtues of the most virtuous pagans towards God
and towards themselves.
As to the virtues that refer to our neighbour, they
trod under foot, and most shamefully, by their very
laws, the chief of them, which is piety.(1) For
Aristotle, the greatest intellect amongst them,
pronounced this horrible and most pitiless sentence.
"As to the question of exposing, that is, abandoning
children, or of bringing them up, let this be the
law: that nothing is to be kept that is deprived of
any member. And as to other children, if the laws and
customs of the city do not allow the abandoning of
them, and the number of any one's children so
increase on him that he has more by half than he can
keep, he is to be beforehand, and procure abortion."
Seneca, so praised as a wise man, says: "We kill
monsters: - and if our children are defective,
weakly, imperfect, or monstrous, we cast them off,
and abandon them." So that it is not without cause
that Tertullian reproaches the Romans with exposing
their children to the mercy of the waters, to cold,
to famine, to dogs; and this not by the force of
poverty; for as he says, the very chief men and
magistrates practised this cruelty.
Good God! Theotimus, what kind of virtuous men
were these? And what was their wisdom, who taught a
wisdom so cruel and brutal? Alas! said the great
Apostle, professing themselves to be wise they became
fools, and their foolish heart was darkened,(2) and
delivered up to a reprobate sense. Ah! what horrible
counsels that great philosopher Aristotle gives! and
how greatly is he reproached for them by Tertullian
and the great S. Ambrose.
Indeed if the pagans practised some virtues, it was
generally for the sake of worldly glory, and
consequently they had nothing of virtue but the
action, and not the motive and intention: now virtue
is not true unless it has a right intention. "Human
cupidity has produced the fortitude of pagans," says
the Council of Orange, "and divine charity that of
Christians." "The virtues of pagans," says S.
Augustine, "were not true, but only resembled true
ones, because they were not done for a proper end,
but for transitory ends. Fabricius shall be less
punished than Cataline, not because the former was
good, but because the latter was worse; not because
Fabricius had any true virtues, but because he was
not so far off true virtues. So that the virtue of
the pagans will, at the day of judgment, be a kind of
defence to them; not such as that they can be saved
thereby, but such as that they may be less
condemned."
One vice was neutralized by another amongst the
pagans, vices making room for one, another, without
leaving space for any virtue: and for this one vice
of vain glory they repressed avarice and many other
vices. Yea sometimes through vanity, they despised
vanity; whereupon one of the furthest removed from
vanity, treading under his feet the rich bed of
Plato, - What are you doing, Diogenes, said Plato to
him? I trample underfoot Plato's pride, said he; it
is true, replied Plato, but you trample it with
another pride.
Whether or no Seneca was vain may be gathered from
his last words; for the end crowns the work, and the
last hour judges all: what vanity, I pray you! -
being at the point of death, he said to his friends
that he had not been able until then sufficiently to
thank them, and that therefore he would leave them a
legacy of what he had most desirable and most
beautiful; which, if they faithfully kept it, would
bring them great praises; adding that this
magnificent legacy was nothing else but the picture
of his life.
Do you see, Theotimus, how offensive was the
vanity of the last breath of this man? It was not
love of honest virtue, but love of honour which
pricked forward those wise men of this world to the
exercise of virtue; and similarly their virtues were
as different from true virtues, as the love of right
and of merit is different from the love of reward.
Those who serve their prince for their own interest,
ordinarily perform their duty with more eagerness,
ardour, and outward show; but those who serve for
love, do it more nobly, generously, and therefore
more worthily.
Carbuncles and rubies are called by the Greeks two
contrary names, for they name them pyropos and
apyropos: that is, fiery and fireless, or inflamed
and flameless. They call them fiery, burning, red
coals, or carbuncles, because in light and splendour
they resemble fire: but they call them fireless, or,
so to say, uninflammable, because not only is their
shining without any heat, but they are not even
capable of heat, there being no fire that can heat
them.
So did our ancient Fathers term the pagan virtues,
virtues and non-virtues both together; virtues,
because they had the lustre and appearance of them,
non-virtues, because they not only lacked the vital
heat of the love of God, which alone could perfect
them, but they were not even capable of it, because
they were in persons without faith. "There being in
those times," says S. Augustine, "two Romans great in
virtue, Caesar and Cato, Cato's virtue came much
nearer to true virtue than Caesar's did." And having
said somewhere that the philosophers who were
destitute of true piety had shone with the light of
virtue, he unsays it in his book of Retractations,
considering this to be too great praise for virtues
so imperfect as those of the pagans were: which in
truth are like to shining fireworms, which only shine
during the night, and day being come lose their
light. For, even so, those pagan virtues are only
virtues in comparison with vices, but in comparison
with the virtues of true Christians, are quite
unworthy of the name of virtues.
Yet whereas they contain some good, they may be
compared to worm-eaten apples; for the colour of
these, and such little substance as is left them, are
as good as those of entire virtues, but the worm of
vanity is in the core, and spoils them; and therefore
he who would use them must separate the good from the
bad.
I grant, Theotimus, there was some firmness of
heart in Cato, and that this firmness was
praiseworthy, but he who would rightfully appeal to
his example, must do so in a just and right matter,
not inflicting death on himself, but suffering it
when true virtue requires; not for the vanity of
glory, but for the glory of truth: as was the case
with our martyrs, who, with invincible hearts,
performed so many miracles of constancy and
resolution, that those of a Cato, an Horatius, a
Seneca, a Lucretia, an Arria, deserve no
consideration in comparison with them.
Witness a Laurence, a Vincent, a Vitalis, an
Erasmus, a Eugenius, a Sebastian, an Agatha, an
Agnes, a Catharine, a Perpetua, a Felicitas, a
Symphorosa, a Natalia, and a thousand others, who
make me ever wonder at the admirers of pagan virtues;
not so much because they unreasonably admire the
imperfect virtues of the pagans, as because they do
not admire the most perfect virtues of Christians,
virtues a hundred times more worthy of admiration,
and alone worthy of imitation.
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