Arnobius, Against the Nations (Book I)
I have learned that certain people, convinced of their own superior wisdom, are raving like frenzied prophets. They claim that ever since the Christian religion appeared in the world, the earth has gone to ruin and the human race has been overwhelmed by every kind of disaster; even the heavenly powers, they say, have abandoned their solemn watch over human affairs and have been driven from the regions of the earth. I have therefore decided, as best my ability and my modest style allow, to answer this envious slander and refute its false charges. I must do so lest these accusers imagine that their popular rhetoric actually proves something weighty, or lest, if we keep silence, they suppose they have won the case — a case lost by its own merit, not by any failure of its defenders. I will not deny that the accusation sounds formidable, and that we deserve hostile hatred, if it can be shown that our presence caused the world to stray from its laws, drove the gods far away, and imported such vast miseries upon the ages. Let us then examine the mind behind this opinion and test the truth of its claims. Setting aside all partisan zeal that usually obscures a clear view of reality, let us weigh the matter on an even balance. The connected force of the following arguments will certainly prove that we are not the impious ones; rather, those who boast of serving the gods and clinging to ancient rites will be found guilty of the very crime they charge against us.
First, in a calm and friendly tone, we ask them: since the Christian name began to exist on earth, what has nature — the very order of things — experienced or suffered that is new, unknown, or contrary to the fundamental laws established from the beginning? Have the primary elements, out of which all things are composed, been altered into opposite qualities? Has any part of the vast machine and structure of the universe, which encloses and sustains us, been loosened or dissolved? Has the world's rotation, exceeding its primordial motion, begun to creep more slowly or to spin with precipitous speed? Have the stars started to rise in the west and set in the east? Has the sun, prince of the stars, by whose light all things are clothed and by whose heat they are animated, flared up or grown cold, corrupting the tempered moderation of its course? Has the moon ceased to renew itself and return to its ancient phases through the constant succession of the new? Have cold, heat, and the moderate temperatures of the seasons perished in confusion? Has winter begun to have long days and summer to recall the latest dawns of night? Have the winds breathed their last? Have the lightning flashes died out, so that the sky is no longer driven into clouds and the fields, moistened by rain, no longer flourish? Does the earth refuse the seed entrusted to it? Do the trees refuse to bud? Has the flavor of edible fruit and the juice of the vine been changed? Does the oil pressed from olives yield a foul gore and fail to feed the lamp? Do land animals and sea creatures no longer conceive or give birth? Do fetuses in the womb no longer follow their natural development and law? Finally, do human beings — scattered by the first navigation over the earth's uninhabitable shores — no longer contract marriages with proper solemnities? Do they not beget children, conduct public and private business, manage their households? Do they not, each as he pleases, direct their talents through various arts and disciplines and reap the fruits of their studies? Do they not rule and command, those to whom the lot of such things has fallen? Do they not grow daily in dignity and power? Do they not preside over courts, interpret laws and rights? Do they not observe in every nation the ancestral moral institutions that sustain and contain human life? Since all this remains exactly as it was, and no novelty has broken in to disrupt the perpetual course of things, what is this claim that a stain has come upon the earth since the Christian religion entered the world and revealed the hidden mysteries of truth?
They reply that pestilences, droughts, wars, crop failures, locusts, mice, hail, and other scourges that afflict human affairs are sent by the gods, enraged by our injuries and offenses. If it were not foolish to linger over matters so clear they need no defense, I would certainly demonstrate, by reviewing earlier ages, that these evils are neither unknown nor sudden; they did not burst upon the world only after our people was deemed worthy of the happiness of this name. If we are the cause, and these plagues were devised as punishment for our crime, how did antiquity know the names of these miseries? How did it have words for war, pestilence, and hail — by what concept could it name them, or take them into its vocabulary? If these evils are new and spring from recent offenses, who could have coined words for things it had never experienced and never learned of from its ancestors? 'Crop failure and grain shortages press us hard,' they say. Were the ancient and most ancient ages never acquainted with this necessity? Do not the very names by which these evils are called testify and proclaim that no mortal has ever been immune from them? If that is hard to believe, I can cite authors who record how many and how great nations have felt the horror of famine and perished in vast numbers. Hailstrikes are frequent and have struck everywhere. Do we not read in ancient writings that stone rains have often devastated whole regions? Excessive rains ruin crops and signal sterility. Was antiquity exempt from these evils? We know that even great rivers have dried up in the mud. Pestilences have burned through the human race. Run through the annals written in many languages and you will learn that all nations have often been desolated and stripped of their inhabitants. Locusts and mice attack and gnaw every kind of crop. Consult your own histories and learn from these plagues how often earlier ages were afflicted and reduced to misery. Cities tremble, shaken by the most violent earthquakes, until they stand in danger. Did earlier times not see cities swallowed by great chasms, or did they enjoy security from such disasters? When was the human race destroyed by a flood? Not before us? When was the world burned and dissolved into ashes? Not before us? When were the greatest cities covered by the waves of the sea? Not before us? When were wars waged with wild beasts and battles fought with lions? Not before us? When did poisonous snakes bring destruction upon peoples? Not before us? As for the frequent wars, city devastations, and the incursions of Germans and Scythians that you habitually throw at us — I say this with your leave and goodwill — you do not see what you are saying, blinded by the lust for calumny. Were we the cause when, as Plato demonstrates, a vast host erupted from the island of Atlantis ten thousand years ago and wiped out innumerable nations from their foundations? Was it our envy that, among the Assyrians and Bactrians under Ninus and Zoroaster, they fought not only with iron and strength but also with magical and Chaldaean arts from hidden teachings? Was the rape of Helen, led on by the gods themselves and a dire fate for her and future ages, a crime of our religion? Was it the effect of our name that Xerxes poured the sea onto the land and marched across the waters? Did we make and stir up the causes that let a single youth from the borders of Macedonia subjugate the kingdoms and peoples of the East to captivity and servitude?
Latin
Quoniam comperi nonnullos, qui se plurimum sapere suis persuasionibus credunt, insanire, bacchari, et velut quiddam promptum ex oraculo dicere: postquam esse in mundo christiana gens coepit, terrarum orbem periisse, multiformibus malis affectum esse genus humanum; ipsos etiam coelites, derelictis curis solemnibus, quibus quondam solebant invisere res nostras, terrarum ab regionibus exterminatos: statui pro captu, ac mediocritate sermonis contraire invidiae, et calumniosas dissolvere criminationes, ne aut illi sibi videantur, popularia dum verba depromunt, magnum aliquid dicere; aut, si nos talibus continuerimus a litibus, obtinuisse se causam putent, victam sui vitio, non assertorum silentio destitutam. Neque enim negaverim validissimam esse accusationem istam, hostilibusque condignos odiis nos esse, si apud nos esse constiterit causas, per quas suis mundus aberravit ab legibus, exterminati sunt dii longe, examina tanta moerorum mortalium importata sunt saeculis. Inspiciamus igitur opinionis istius mentem, et hoc quod dicitur, quale sit: summotisque omnibus contentionum studiis, quibus obscurari et contegi contemplatio rerum solet, an sit istud quod dicitur verum, momentorum parium examinatione pendamus. Efficietur enim profecto rationum consequentium copulatu, ut non impii nos magis, sed illi ipsi reperiantur criminis istius rei, qui se numinum profitentur esse cultores, atque inveteratis religionibus deditos. Ac primum ab his illud familiari et placida oratione perquirimus: postquam esse nomen in terris christianae religionis occoepit, quidnam invisitatum, quid incognitum, quid contra leges principaliter institutas, aut sensit aut passa est rerum ipsa quae dicitur appellaturque natura? Numquid in contrarias qualitates prima illa elementa mutata sunt, ex quibus res omnes consensum est esse concretas? Numquid machinae hujus, et molis, qua universi tegimur, et continemur inclusi, parte est in aliqua relaxata, aut dissoluta constructio? Numquid vertigo haec mundi, primigenii motus moderaren excedens, aut tardius repere, aut praecipiti coepit volubilitate raptari? Numquid ab occiduis partibus attolere se astra, atque in ortus fieri signorum coepta est inclinatio? Numquid ipse siderum sol princeps, cujus omnia luce vestiuntur, atque animantur calore, exarsit, intepuit, atque in contrarios habitus moderaminis soliti temperamenta corrupit? Numquid luna desivit redintegrare se ipsam, atque in veteres formas novellarum semper restitutione traducere? Numquid frigora, numquid calores, numquid tepores medii inaequalium temporum confusionibus occiderunt? Numquid longos habere dies bruma, revocare tardissimas luces nox coepit aestatis? Numquid suas animas expiraverunt venti? emortiusque flaminibus neque coelum coactatur in nubila, nec madidata ex imbribus arva succedunt? Commendata semina tellus recusat accidere, aut frondescere arbores nolunt? sapor frugibus esculentis, et vitis liquoribus mutatus est? olearum ex bacculis cruor teter exprimitur, nec lumini subministratur extincto? Animalia terris sueta, atque in aquis degentia non suriunt, nec concipiunt? foetus non in uteris sumptos suis moribus, et sua lege custodiunt? Ipsi homines denique, quos per inhabitabiles oras terrae sparsit prima incipiensque navitas, non matrimonia copulant nuptiarum solennibus justis? non dulcissimas procreant liberorum stirpes, non negotia publica, non privata, et familiares res agunt? non, ut cuique libitum est, per diversas artium, disciplinarumque rationes ingenia dirigunt, et studiosae referunt navitatis usuras? Non regnant, non imperant, quibus sors rerum attributa est talium? non auctiores quotidie dignitatibus et potestatibus fiunt? judiciorum disceptationibus praesunt? leges interpretantur et jura? Nonne omnia caetera, quibus vita succingitur et continetur humana, suis omnes in gentibus patriorum celebrant institutionibus morum? Cum igitur haec ita sint, neque ulla irruperit novitas, quae tenorem perpetuum rerum dissociata continuatione diduxerit: quid est istud, quod dicitur invectam esse labem terris, postquam religio christiana intulit se mundo, et veritatis absconditae sacramenta patefecit? Sed pestilentias, inquiunt, et siccitates, bella, frugum inopiam, locustas, mures, et grandines, resque alias noxias, quibus negotia incursantur humana, dii nobis important injuriis vestris atque offensionibus exasperati. Si in rebus perspicuis, et nullam desiderantibus defensionem, non stoliditatis esset diutius immorari, ostenderem profecto, replicatis prioribus saeculis, mala ista, quae dicitis, non esse incognita, non repentina; nec postquam gens nostra felicitate donari hujus vocaminis meruit, irrupisse has labes, et infestari coepisse discriminum varietate mortalia. Si enim nos sumus in causa, et in nostri criminis meritum excogitatae sunt hae pestes, unde novit antiquitas miseriarum haec nomina? unde bellis significatum dedit? pestilentiam, grandines, qua potuit notione signare, aut inter suas voces, quibus oratio explicabatur, assumere? Nam si novella sunt haec mala, et ab recentibus ducunt offensionibus causas, qui potuit fieri ut eis rebus verba formaret, quas nec ipsa sciebat expertam se esse, neque ullis comperisset majorum in temporibus factitatas? Penuria, inquit, frugum, et angustiae frumentariae arctius nos habent. Antiqua enim et vetustissima saecula necessitatis istius aliquando fuerunt expertia? nonne ipsa nomina, quibus censentur haec mala, testificantur et clamant, nullum ab his umquam immunem abisse mortalium? Quod si ad credendum difficilis res esset, testimoniis agere possemus auctorum, quantae, quoties, et quae gentes famem senserint horridam, et aggerata interierint vastitate. Casus frequentissimi grandinis accidunt, atque adierunt cuncta. In litteris enim priscis comprehensum et compositum non videmus, etiam imbres saxeos totas saepe comminuisse regiones? Difficiles pluviae sata faciunt emori, et sterilitatem indicunt terris. Immunis enim antiquitas malis ab his fuit? cum etiam flumina cognoverimus ingentia limis inaruisse siccatis. Pestilentiae contagia urunt genus humanum. Annalium scripta percurrite linguarum, fol. 3, diversitatibus scripta, universas discetis gentes saepenumero desolatas, et viduatas suis esse cultoribus. A locustis, a muribus, genus omne acciditur atque arroditur frugum. Historias ite per vestras, et ab istis pestibus instruemini, quoties prior aetas affecta sit, et paupertatis ad miserias venerit. Terrarum validissimis motibus tremefactae nutant usque ad periculum civitates. Quid, hiatibus maximis interceptas urbes cum gentibus superiora tempora non viderunt, aut ab hujusmodi casibus fortunas habuere securas? Quando est humanum genus aquarum diluviis interemptum? non ante nos? Quando mundus incensus in favillas et cineres dissolutus est? non ante nos? Quando urbes amplissimae marinis coopertae sunt fluctibus? non ante nos? Quando cum feris bella, et praelia cum leonibus gesta sunt? non ante nos? Quando pernicies populis venenatis ab anguibus data est? non ante nos? Nam quod nobis objectare consuestis bellorum frequentium causas, vastationes urbium. Germanorum et Scythicas irruptiones, cum pace hoc vestra et cum bona venia dixerim: quale sit istud quod dicitur, calumniarum libidine non videtis. Ut ante millia annorum decem, ab insula quae perhibetur Atlantica Neptuni, sicut Plato demonstrat, magna erumperet vis hominum, et innumeras funditus deleret atque extingueret nationes, nos fuimus causa? ut inter Assyrios et Bactrianos, Nino quondam Zoroastreque ductoribus, non tantum ferro dimicaretur et viribus, verum etiam Magicis et Chaldaeorum ex reconditis disciplinis, invidia nostra haec fuit? ut Helena diis ducibus atque impulsoribus rapta, et suis esset dirum et venturis temporibus fatum, religionis nostrae attributum est crimini? ut ille immanis Xerxes mare terris immitteret, et gressibus maria transiret, nostri nominis effectum est causa? ut ex Macedoniae finibus unus exortus adolescens Orientis regna et populos captivitati et servitio subjugaret, nos fecimus, atque excitavimus causas?