The World from a Height

Caecilius Cyprian to Donatus, greetings.

You are right to remind me, my dear Donatus. I have not forgotten my promise, and I admit that this is the fitting time to keep it, when the grape-harvest holiday invites the mind to unbend and rest, and to take the yearly, appointed rest at the close of a wearying year. The place suits the season, too. The gardens are pleasant, and the look of them agrees with the soft breezes of a mild autumn in soothing and cheering the senses. In a spot like this it is a delight to spend the day in conversation, and, by our talk, to shape the conscience of the heart toward God’s commands. And so that no unwelcome intruder breaks in on us, and no unchecked racket from a noisy household disturbs us, let us take this arbor. [c]

The thickets next to us make sure we are left alone, and the wandering vine branches, trailing in hanging tangles among the reeds that hold them up, have made us a porch of vines and a roof of leaves. It is pleasant here to put our thoughts into words. While we please our eyes with the agreeable view of trees and vines, the mind is taught by what it hears and fed by what it sees — though at the moment your only pleasure and your only interest is in what we are saying. You think nothing of the pleasures of sight; your eye is fixed on me. With your mind as well as your ears you are all listener, and a listener with an eagerness that matches your affection.

And yet, what sort of thing, and how much of it, is my mind likely to pass on to yours? The poor mediocrity of my shallow understanding yields a very small harvest and enriches the soil with nothing fertile. Still, I will set about it with what powers I have, since the subject I am going to speak about will help me. In the law courts, in the public assembly, in political debate, a lavish eloquence may be the glory of a talkative ambition; but when the subject is the Lord God, a chaste plainness of speech works for the conviction of faith by the substance of what is said rather than by the powers of eloquence. So take from me things that are not clever but weighty; words not dressed up to charm a crowd with cultivated rhetoric, but plain, and fitted by their unvarnished truth for announcing the mercy of God. Take what is felt before it is spoken — what was not piled up by slow effort over the passing of years, but breathed in at a single breath of ripening grace.

While I was still lying in darkness and the gloom of night, drifting this way and that, tossed about on the foam of this boastful age, unsure where my wandering steps were taking me, knowing nothing of my real life, far off from truth and light, I used to think it a hard thing — and, given the man I then was, especially hard — that anyone should be capable of being born again, which is what the mercy of God had announced for my salvation; that a man brought to life again in the washing of saving water should be able to put off what he had been before, and, keeping his whole body as it was, be changed himself in heart and soul. [e]

“How is such a turning possible,” I would say, “that a man should suddenly and quickly strip off everything that is either inborn in us and hardened into the corruption of our material nature, or picked up by us and set fast by long habit? These things have grown into us deeply, down to the root. When does a man learn thrift who is used to generous banquets and rich feasts? And when does one who has glittered in gold and purple, and been celebrated for his costly clothes, bring himself down to plain, ordinary dress? A man who has felt the charm of the fasces and of public honors shrinks from becoming a private citizen with no glory left. The man attended by crowds of clients, and dignified by the numerous company of an obliging escort, counts it a punishment to be alone. It is unavoidable, as it always has been, that the love of wine should lure, pride puff up, anger set on fire, greed unsettle, cruelty goad, ambition delight, and lust hurry a man to ruin, with attractions that will not let go their hold.”

These were my frequent thoughts. Held as I was in chains by the countless errors of my earlier life, out of which I did not believe I could possibly be brought, I was ready to give in to the vices that clung to me; and because I despaired of anything better, I used to indulge my sins as if they were actually parts of me, native to me. But afterward — once the stain of my earlier years had been washed away by the help of the water of new birth, and a light from above, calm and clean, had been poured into my heart, now at peace; once, by the working of the Spirit breathed from heaven, a second birth had made me over into a new man — then, in an astonishing way, doubtful things at once began to settle for me, hidden things to be uncovered, dark things to be lit up. What had seemed difficult began to suggest a way of doing it; what had been thought impossible turned out to be within reach. So I was able to admit that what before, being born of the flesh, had been living in the practice of sins, was of the earth, earthly, but had now begun to be of God, and was given life by the Spirit of holiness. [g]

You know for yourself, and remember as well as I do, what was taken away from us and what was given to us by that death of evil and that life of virtue. You know it without my telling you. Anything like boasting in one’s own praise is hateful — though in truth we cannot boast, only be grateful, for whatever we do not credit to human virtue but declare to be the gift of God. So the fact that we do not sin now is the beginning of the work of faith, whereas the fact that we sinned before was the result of human error. All our power is from God. From God, I say. From him we have life, from him we have strength; by power drawn and conceived from him we know beforehand, while still in this world, the signs of what is to come. Only let fear be the keeper of innocence, so that the Lord, who in his mercy has flowed into our hearts at the coming of heavenly grace, may be kept there by an obedience that does what is right, in the lodging of a grateful mind — so that the assurance we have gained does not breed carelessness and so let the old enemy creep up on us again.

But if you keep to the way of innocence, the way of righteousness; if you walk with a firm and steady step; if, leaning on God with all your strength and all your heart, you simply are what you have begun to be — then liberty and power to act are given you in proportion to the growth of your spiritual grace. For there is no measure and no stint in the handing out of the heavenly gift, as there is with earthly benefits. The Spirit flowing out freely is held back by no limits, checked by no closed barriers inside set bounds. It flows without stopping; it is lavish in its abundance. Let our heart only be thirsty and ready to receive: in the degree that we bring a roomy faith to it, in that measure we draw an overflowing grace from it.

From there is given power — with modest chastity, with a sound mind, with a plain voice, with unspoiled virtue — power that can quench the venom of poisons for the healing of the sick, purge out the stains of foolish souls by restoring their health, order peace for those at enmity, quiet for the violent, gentleness for the unruly; power that by startling threats forces the filthy and roaming spirits, which have gone into the bodies of the men they mean to destroy, to admit out loud what they are, drives them out with heavy blows, stretches them out struggling, howling, groaning as the pain keeps starting over, beats them with scourges and roasts them with fire. The business is carried on there and is not seen; the blows landed are hidden, but the punishment is plain.

So, as regards what we have already begun to be, the Spirit we have received has its own liberty of action; while, since we have not yet changed our body and its parts, the fleshly way of seeing is still darkened by the clouds of this world. How great this empire of the mind is, and what power it has! Not only is it withdrawn from the harmful company of the world — as one who is cleaned and clean can take no stain from an enemy’s raid — but it becomes greater still and stronger in its might, so that it can rule with its sway over the whole overbearing army of the attacking adversary.

But so that the marks of what is divine may shine out more brightly as the truth is unfolded, I will give you light to grasp it by, once the fog that sin causes has been wiped away. I will draw the veil off the darkness of this hidden world. For a short while imagine yourself carried up to one of the highest peaks of some unreachable mountain. From there gaze at how things appear below you, and, turning your eyes in every direction, look at the swirling eddies of a heaving world, while you yourself are out of reach of anything on earth. You will begin at once to feel pity for the world, and, collecting yourself and growing more grateful to God, you will be all the gladder that you got out of it.

Look at the roads blocked by robbers, the seas beset with pirates, wars scattered over the whole earth with the bloody horror of army camps. The whole world is wet with each other’s blood. Murder, which in one man’s case is admitted to be a crime, is called a virtue when it is committed wholesale. Impunity is claimed for these wicked deeds — not on the plea that they are guiltless, but because the cruelty is carried out on a grand scale.

And now, if you turn your eyes and your attention to the cities themselves, you will see a crowd more full of sadness than any wilderness. The gladiatorial games are got ready, so that blood may gladden the lust of cruel eyes. The body is fed up on stronger food, and the vigorous bulk of the limbs is enriched with brawn and muscle, so that the wretch fattened for punishment may die a harder death. A man is slaughtered so that a man may be gratified, and the skill best able to kill is a practice and an art. Crime is not only committed; it is taught. What could be said that is more inhuman, more repulsive? Training is undergone to acquire the power to murder, and the achievement of murder is its glory. [i]

What state of things, I ask you, can that be, and what can it be like, in which men whom nobody has condemned offer themselves to the wild beasts — men in the prime of life, of quite beautiful appearance, dressed in expensive clothes? Alive, they are decked out for a death they chose; wretched, they boast of their own miseries. They fight beasts not for a crime but for their madness. Fathers watch their own sons; a brother is in the arena and his sister is close by; and although a grander display of pomp raises the price of the show, still — for shame — even the mother will pay the increase so that she may be present at her own misery. And while they look at scenes so frightful, so godless, so deadly, they do not seem to notice that with their eyes they are murdering their own kin.

Now turn your eyes to the abominations of another kind of show, no less to be lamented. In the theaters too you will see what may well cause you grief and shame. It is the tragic boot that recites in verse the crimes of long ago. The old horrors of killing a parent and of incest are unfolded in acting calculated to give the very image of the truth, so that as the ages go by no crime once committed may be forgotten. Each generation is reminded by what it hears that whatever has once been done may be done again. Crimes never die out as the ages pass; wickedness is never abolished by the passage of time; godlessness is never buried in forgetfulness. Things that have now stopped being actual deeds of vice become examples. [j]

In the mimes, besides, by the teaching of infamies, the spectator is drawn either to think over again what he may have done in secret, or to hear what he might do. Adultery is learned while it is watched; and while the mischief, having the authority of the state behind it, panders to vices, the respectable woman who perhaps came to the show a modest woman goes home from it immodest. Further still, what a wrecking of morals it is, what a spur to disgusting deeds, what food for vice, to be defiled by an actor’s gestures against the covenant and law of one’s own birth, to gaze in detail on the endurance of incestuous abominations! Men are castrated, and all the pride and vigor of their sex is unmanned in the disgrace of a body drained of strength; and the one who pleases most there is the one who has broken the man down into the woman most completely. He grows into praise by virtue of his crime, and the more he is degraded, the more skillful he is thought to be. Such a person is looked at — for shame — and looked at with pleasure.

And what could a creature like that not suggest? He inflames the senses, he flatters the affections, he drives out the sturdier conscience of a virtuous heart. Nor is there any lack of authority for the enticing abomination, so that the mischief may creep up on people with a less noticeable approach. They picture Venus unchaste and Mars an adulterer; and that Jupiter of theirs is no more supreme in his rule than in his vice, on fire with an earthly love in the middle of his own thunders — now turning white in the feathers of a swan, now pouring down in a shower of gold, now breaking out with the help of birds to violate the purity of boys. And now put the question: can a man who looks at such things be healthy-minded, or modest? Men imitate the gods they worship, and for beings as wretched as these, their crimes become their religion.

Oh, if you were set on that high watchtower and could gaze into the hidden places — if you could open the shut doors of bedrooms and bring their dark corners back into sight — you would see things done by shameless people that no chaste eye could look at. You would see what it is a crime even to see. You would see what people brutalized by the madness of vice deny they have done, and yet hurry to do: men with frenzied lusts rushing at men, doing things that give no gratification even to the men who do them. [m]

I am much mistaken if the man who is guilty of such things as these is not the one who accuses others of them. The depraved slanders the depraved, and thinks that he himself, though he knows he is guilty, has got away — as if knowing it were not condemnation enough. The same people who are accusers in public are criminals in private, condemning themselves at the very moment they condemn the offenders. They denounce abroad what they commit at home, doing willingly what they accuse once it is done — a boldness certainly well matched with vice, and an impudence entirely in keeping with shameless people. And I beg you not to be amazed at the things people of this kind say: the offense of their mouths in words is the least of what they are guilty of.

But after all this — the public roads full of pitfalls; battles of every kind scattered over the whole world; shows that are either bloody or infamous; the abominations of lust, whether put up for sale in brothels or hidden inside the walls of a house, abominations whose brazenness grows in proportion to the secrecy of the crime — after all this you may perhaps think that at least the Forum is free of such things, that it is neither open to maddening wrongs nor polluted by the company of criminals. Then turn your gaze in that direction. You will find things there more hateful than any yet, so that you will want all the more to look away, even though the laws are carved on twelve tables and the statutes are publicly posted on bronze tablets. [n]

Yet wrong is done in the middle of the laws themselves; wickedness is committed in the very face of the statutes; innocence is not kept safe even in the place where it is defended. By turns the rancor of the men arguing rages, and when peace is broken among the togas the Forum echoes with the madness of the fight. Close at hand there is the spear and the sword, and the executioner as well; there is the claw that tears, the rack that stretches, the fire that burns up — more tortures for one poor human body than it has limbs. And in a case like that, who is there to help? Your patron? He goes through the motions and cheats you. The judge? He sells his verdict. The man who sits to punish crimes commits them, and the judge turns into the culprit so that the accused may die though innocent.

Crimes are everywhere common, and everywhere, in the many shapes sin takes, the ruinous poison works by means of degraded minds. One man forges a will, another commits a capital fraud by making a false deposition; on the one hand children are cheated out of their inheritances, on the other, strangers are endowed with their estates. The opponent brings his charge, the false accuser attacks, the witness slanders; on every side the venal impudence of hired voices sets about faking the charges, while in the meantime the guilty do not even go down along with the innocent. There is no fear about the laws, no concern about either the investigator or the judge; when the sentence can be bought off for money, it is not worried about. It is a crime now, among the guilty, to be innocent; whoever does not imitate the wicked gives offense to them. The laws have come to terms with crimes, and whatever is public has begun to be permitted. What modesty can there be, what honesty can prevail there, when there is no one to condemn the wicked, and the only people one meets are the ones who ought themselves to be condemned?