No Authority Without Anger

The most learned men report that there have been many Sibyls, and the testimony of one may not be enough to settle the truth the way I intend to settle it. The books of the Cumaean Sibyl, which contain the destiny of Rome, are kept under seal; the writings of all the others are mostly free for anyone to read. One of these begins by announcing God’s anger against every nation because of human godlessness: [a]

Another Sibyl said that the flood came from God’s indignation against the unrighteous of an earlier age, so that the wickedness of the human race would be put out:

In the same way she foretold a burning still to come, in which human godlessness will be destroyed again:

It is from this that Ovid speaks as he does about Jupiter:

And this must happen at the time when honor and worship of the Most High have died out among men. The same Sibyl, though, testifies that he is appeased when conduct is regretted and life is mended, and she added this:

And a little later:

Then another Sibyl declares that the Father of things in heaven and on earth ought to be loved, so that his indignation does not rise and destroy mankind:

From all this it is clear that the philosophers argue emptily when they imagine a God without anger and count among his other praises the one praise that is of no use whatever. They take away from him the thing that is most healthy for human affairs, the thing that majesty itself is made of. This earthly kingdom and its government break down unless fear guards them. Take anger away from a king, and men will not merely stop obeying him; they will throw him down headlong from his height. Better still, take this feeling away from a man of no rank at all, and who will not rob him? Who will not laugh at him? Who will not do him injury? He will be able to keep neither clothes on his back nor a roof over his head nor food on his table, because other men will strip him of whatever he has. Much less, then, can we suppose that the majesty of the government of heaven can stand without anger and fear.

When the Apollo of Miletus was consulted about the religion of the Jews, he put this into his answer:

If he is as mild as the philosophers would have him, how is it that not only the demons and the ministers of such great power, but heaven and earth and the whole frame of the universe tremble at his presence? For if no one submits to another man’s service except under compulsion, it follows that all government exists by fear, and fear by anger. If a man is never roused against someone who refuses to obey, there will be no way of compelling obedience. Let anyone consult his own feelings, and he will understand at once that no one can be brought under another’s command without anger and punishment. So where there is no anger, there will be no authority. But God has authority; therefore he must have anger too, since authority is made of it.

So let no one, taken in by the empty chatter of the philosophers, train himself into contempt for God, which is the greatest godlessness there is. We are all bound to love him, because he is our Father, and to revere him, because he is our Lord; to pay him honor, because he is generous, and to fear him, because he is severe. Each character in him deserves reverence. Who can keep any sense of duty and still fail to love the parent of his own life? Who can despise the ruler of all things, whose power over everything is real and never ends, and get away with it?

If you consider him as Father, he is the one who gives us our way in to the light we enjoy; through him we live, through him we have come into the lodging of this world. If you consider him as God, he is the one who feeds us out of resources beyond counting, the one who keeps us alive. We live in his house; we are his household. And if we obey less than we ought, and attend to our duty less than the endless kindnesses of our Master and Parent deserved, it still counts for a great deal toward our pardon if we hold on to the worship and knowledge of him — if we lay aside low, earthly business and goods and set our minds instead on heavenly and divine things, which last forever. And so that we may be able to do this, God must be followed by us, God must be adored and loved, since in him is the stuff that things are made of, the reason behind the virtues, and the spring of everything good.

For what is greater in power than God, or more perfect in reason, or brighter in clearness? And since he fathered us for wisdom and brought us out for righteousness, it is not permitted to a man to abandon God, who gives him mind and life, and to serve earthly and breakable things — or, bent on chasing goods that do not last, to turn aside from innocence and piety. A man is not made happy by vicious and deadly pleasures, nor by wealth, which stirs up cravings, nor by empty ambition, nor by fragile honors, by which the human soul is trapped, enslaved to the body, and condemned to eternal death. He is made happy by innocence and righteousness alone, whose lawful and proper wage is immortality. God appointed it from the beginning for holy and uncorrupted minds, minds that keep themselves clean and unstained by vices and by every earthly filth. Men who have fouled their conscience with violence, fraud, robbery and deceit, and who by the injuries they have done to others and by godless acts have burned into themselves stains that cannot be washed out — such men cannot share in that heavenly and everlasting reward. So it is fitting that everyone who wants to deserve the name of wise, everyone who wants to be called a man, should think little of fragile things, trample on earthly things, and look down on low things, so that he may be joined to God in the happiest of all relationships.

Let godlessness and quarreling be put away. Let the violent and deadly divisions be lulled to sleep — the ones that break in on human society and on the divine bond that holds a people together, dividing it and scattering it. As far as we can, let us aim at being good and generous. If we have a supply of money and resources, let it not be spent on the pleasure of one person but given out for the good of many. Pleasure is as short-lived as the body it serves. But justice and kindness last as long as the mind and the soul, which by good works come to look like God. Let God be set apart by us not in temples but in the heart. Everything made by hand can be pulled down. Let us clean out this temple, which is dirtied not by smoke or dust but by evil thoughts, and which is lit not by burning candles but by the brightness and light of wisdom. And if we believe that God is always present in this temple — God, to whose divine nature the secrets of the heart lie open — then we will live in such a way as to have him always favorable to us, and never to fear his anger.