The Adversary They Called Fortune

But let us go back to the subject we set aside. Fortune, then, is nothing in itself, and we must not treat her as though she had any awareness of us, since fortune is simply the sudden and unlooked-for arrival of things that happen. But philosophers, so as never once to fail at being wrong, want to be wise about a foolish thing. Fortune, they say, is not a goddess, as people generally believe, but a god. Sometimes they call this god nature and sometimes fortune — as Cicero puts it, “because he brings about many things we did not expect, owing to our lack of understanding and our ignorance of causes.” Well then: if they do not know the causes for which a thing is done, they cannot know the one who does it either. [a]

The same writer says this in a work of great seriousness, the one in which he was giving his son rules for living drawn from philosophy: “Who can fail to know how great the power of fortune is, in both directions? When we meet a favorable breeze from her, we reach the outcome we wanted; and when she has blown against us, we are dashed on the rocks.” First of all, the man who says that nothing can be known said this as though he himself, and everyone else, knew it. Then the man who works to make even plain things doubtful decided that this was plain — the very thing that should have been most doubtful of all to him. To a wise man it is altogether false. “Who does not know it?” he asks. I do not know it. Let him teach me, if he can, what that power is, and what that breeze is, and what the wind is that blows against us.

It is a disgrace for a man of ability to say a thing he could not prove if you simply denied it. And this, after all, is the man who says that assent must be withheld, because agreeing rashly to what you do not know is the mark of a fool. Yet here he has swallowed whole the opinion of the crowd and the untaught, who think it is fortune that hands out good things and bad to people. They make her image with a horn of plenty in one hand and a rudder in the other, as though she both gave out wealth and steered the course of human affairs. Virgil agreed with them, and calls fortune almighty. So does the historian who says, “But beyond question fortune rules in everything.” Then what place is left for the other gods? Why is she not said to reign by herself, if she has more power than the rest? Or why is she not worshiped alone, if she has power over everything? Or if she deals out nothing but evils, let them produce some reason why a goddess should envy people and want them destroyed, when they worship her so scrupulously; why she is kinder to the wicked and harder on the good; why she plots, afflicts, deceives, wipes out; who appointed her the standing tormentor of the human race; why, in short, she has come by so destructive a power that she makes everything famous or obscure by her own whim rather than by the truth. These are the things philosophers should have looked into, instead of rashly accusing fortune, who is innocent. Even granting that she has some sort of existence, they can produce no reason why she should be as hostile to human beings as they suppose. So all those speeches of theirs, railing at the injustice of fortune and boasting arrogantly of their own virtue against her, are nothing but the ravings of a thoughtless, empty mind.

So let them not begrudge us, to whom God has disclosed the truth. Just as we know that fortune is nothing, so we also know that there is a wicked and cunning spirit, no friend to the good, the enemy of righteousness, who works against God. Why he became an enemy we explained in the second book. He lays traps for everyone. Those who do not know God he blocks with error, buries in folly, covers over with darkness, so that no one may arrive at the knowledge of the divine name — the one place where both wisdom and everlasting life are held. Those who do know God he attacks with tricks and cunning, to catch them by desire and lust, and then, once they have been corrupted by the flatteries of sin, to drive them to death. And if he has not managed it by stratagem, he tries to knock them down by force and violence. This is exactly why God did not thrust him down to punishment at once, at the first transgression: so that by his malice he might train a person in virtue. Unless virtue is kept in constant motion, unless it is toughened by continual harassment, it cannot be complete, since virtue is fearless and unbeaten endurance under evils. From which it follows that where there is no adversary, there is no virtue. So when they saw the force of this twisted power set against virtue, and did not know its name, they invented for themselves the meaningless name of fortune. Juvenal shows how far that is from wisdom, in these lines:

So it was folly, and error, and blindness, and, as Cicero says, ignorance of the facts and of their causes, that brought in the names Nature and Fortune. But just as they do not know their adversary, so they do not know virtue either, since the knowledge of virtue comes from having some idea of an adversary. And if virtue is joined to wisdom, or, as they say, is itself wisdom, then they must be ignorant of the very matters virtue consists in. For nobody can be equipped with the right weapons if he does not know the enemy he has to arm against; and nobody can beat his adversary if in the fight he goes at something other than his real enemy — at a shadow. He will be knocked flat, because with his attention fixed elsewhere he never saw the blow aimed at his vitals, and never guarded against it.

I have shown, as far as my modest abilities allowed, that the philosophers held a course far wide of the truth. I am well aware how much I have left out, since arguing against philosophers was not my proper business. But I had to make this detour, so as to show that so many great minds have spent themselves for nothing on false subjects — in case anyone, finding himself shut out from corrupt superstitions, should turn to the philosophers as though he would find something certain there. So the one hope, the one safety for a human being, lies in this teaching, which we are defending. The whole of a person’s wisdom consists in this one thing: knowing God and worshiping him. That is what we hold; that is our position. And so, with all the force of my voice, I testify, I proclaim, I declare: here, here is the thing that all the philosophers looked for their whole lives long, and were never able to track down, or take hold of, or reach, because they either kept a religion that was corrupt or did away with religion altogether. [i]

Let them all clear out, then. They do not teach human life anything; they only throw it into confusion. What do they teach? Whom do they instruct, when they have not yet instructed themselves? Whom can the sick heal? Whom can the blind lead? Let all of us, then, who have any care for wisdom, take ourselves to this subject. Or shall we wait until Socrates knows something? Until Anaxagoras finds light in the dark? Until Democritus hauls the truth up out of his well? Until Empedocles stretches out the paths of his soul? Until Arcesilaus and Carneades see, and feel, and perceive?

Look: a voice out of heaven, teaching the truth and showing us a light brighter than the sun itself. Why are we unfair to ourselves? Why do we put off taking up the wisdom that learned men, though they wore out their lives chasing it, were never able to find? Let anyone who wants to be wise and happy listen to the voice of God, learn righteousness, understand the mystery of his birth, think little of human affairs, take hold of divine ones, and so gain the chief good he was born for. We have overthrown all the false religions, and refuted every argument that it is customary or possible to bring forward in their defense; and now we have proved the systems of philosophy false as well. So we must come at last to true religion and to wisdom, for the two are bound together, as I shall teach. We must hold it by arguments, or by examples, or by reliable witnesses, and show that the folly those worshipers of gods never stop throwing at us does not exist among us at all, but lies entirely with them. In the earlier books, while I was contending against false religions, and in this one, while I was overturning false wisdom, I did show where the truth is. But the next book will indicate more plainly what true religion is and what true wisdom is.