THE DE CIVITATE DEI AS RELIGIOUS SATIRE

EVERYBODY KNOWS
that the
Fathers of the Church were salty characters, one need hardly be blamed for
surprise at the saltiness of St. Augustine
in so solemn a work as the De civitate
Dei. That work, superfluous to say, is not
only solemn; it is sublime; and it is the
solemn and sublime parts that would seem
to be the best known. The reason for this
is clear enough. It is in those parts that
St. Augustine chiefly develops the political and historical doctrines which for generations influenced the thought, feeling,
and activity of Western man.
Foreshadowings of these famous doctrines do, to be sure, appear in the De
civitate Dei before the eleventh book; but
it is with that book that development of
them begins in earnest. As Augustine himself there tells us, the task yet awaiting
him is to explain the origin and destiny
not only of the City of God but of the
earthly city as well. He will start, he
adds, by telling how the beginnings of
both cities were prefigured in the diversity
of the angels.'
This diversity took its origin from
pride, the sin of Lucifer, who before this
had been sinless and of all the angels the
most exalted. All these beings God had
created beings of light when he had created light; and he had made them sharers
of the eternal light which Augustine calls
the immutable wisdom of God and identiTHOUGH

1De civitate Dei 11.1 (Teubner text 1.462). The

Dombart-Kalb edition is used throughout this article.

fies with the second person of the Godhead. Sharers of that light those angels
ceased to be who following Lucifer turned
away from God to become beings of darkness and unclean spirits.2 They were cast
down from Heaven with their leader to
whose awesome fall Augustine alludes
with a citation of a text from Isaiah:
"How art thou fallen . . O Lucifer, son

of the morning! How art thou cut down

to the ground . . . for thou hast said in

thy heart I will exalt my throne above the

stars of God .

. I will ascend above the

heights of the clouds: I will be like the

Most High."3
The sequel to Lucifer's fall was Adam's,
which was compassed by Lucifer himself
out of envy and in revenge for his own.
Augustine tells the familiar tale briefly
and refers to it often.4 Adam's sin like
2 11.9 (Teub.1.474): Cum enim dixit Deus: Fiat
lux,
et facta est lux, si recte in hac luce creatio intellegitur
angelorum, profecto facti sunt participes lucis aeternae,
quod est ipsa incommutabilis sapientia Dei, per quam
facta sunt omnia, quem dicimus unigenitum Dei filium
. . Lumen quippe verum, quod inluminat omnem hominem venientem in hunc mundum, hoc inluminat et omnem angelum mundum, ut sit lux non in se ipso, sed in
Deo; a quo si avertitur angelus, fit inmundus, sicut sunt
omnes, qui vocantur inmundi spiritus, nec iam lux in
Domino, sed in se ipsis tenebrae, privati participatione
lucis aeternae.
S11.15 (Teub.1.482-3): Ambulasti in diebus tuis sine
vitio. Quae si aliter convenientius intellegi nequeunt,
oportet . . . illud . . . quod ab initio diabolus peccat,
non ab initio, ex quo creatus est, peccare coeperit esse
peccatum.
Augustine cites the text in Isaiah thus: Quo modo cecidit Lucifer, qui mane oriebatur. Cf. the Vulgate rendering in Isaiah 14.12.
4 14.11, the line beginning Postea vero quam superbus
ille angelus . . . (Teub.2.29-30).

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JOHN T. HORTON

Lucifer's he imputes to pride.5 Indeed he

ascribes all sin to the same source: initium enim omnis peccati superbia est.6
This primal taint produced grim results
even in the immediate progeny of Adam.
Cain slew Abel. To this fratricide Augustine attaches great significance. His explanation of God's acceptance of Abel's
sacrifice and His rejection of Cain's is that
Abel offered his gift to God without selfish motives; Cain his out of love of self.
He offered his gift to bribe God to satisfy
his cupidity.7 It is from the diversity of
motive and character of these two brothers that the division of mankind takes its
rises as the earthly counterpart of that
division of the angels which had once
occurred in Heaven. Righteous men
throughout human history, looking back
to Abel as their prototype, compose the
City of God. The earthly city is composed
of the progeny of Cain who worship God
or gods to obtain temporal advantages.9
The wickedness of Cain notwithstanding, Augustine concedes that the earthly
city seeks through government an earthly
peace which is so necessary to temporal
well-being that the citizens of the heavenly city, though mere pilgrims in this
world, must make use of that peace for
their mortal existence. Captive throughout the reach of time to the earthly city,
the citizens of that other city will yet obey
its laws if they do not hinder the worship
of the true God.1o At this point, however,
there arises a difficulty. The citizens of
the earthly city prefer their own gods to
the true God.11 They may therefore try
to hinder true worship.
Of such efforts many of the ancient
Jews, those early citizens of the City of
God,12 had had experience at the hands

of the Babylonians and other heathen.

Their successors in the sacred citizenship,
the Christians, had the same experience at
the hands of the Romans.
Augustine alludes to the tradition that
the Romans persecuted the Christians ten
distinct times. He holds that number to
be insufficient.'3 Of the ten, at any rate,
the third persecution was ascribed to Trajan. Augustine makes mention of it;14
but it deserves more notice than he gives
it, since the sense of legal restraint with
which it was managed makes it a more
plausible instance of the earthly city's
preference for its own gods than the gruesome outbreaks of anti-Christian violence
characteristic of some other emperors.
One would only carry coals to Newcastle
should he quote at length Pliny's famous
epistle to Trajan recounting the methods
which as propraetor he had been using in
Bithynia to stamp out Christianity. Trajan's rescript is sufficient to illustrate in a
vivid manner what the City of God had to
contend with even in an Emperor who
prided himself on being humane as well
as just:
". .. In handling the causes of those
who have been accused as Christians you
have followed the course which you should

Porro malae voluntatis initium

5 14.13 (Teub.2.32):
quae potuit esse nisi superbia?

City of God before Christian times: 18.47 (Teub.2.330).

Devout Jews in those times were, however, the most obviously so. See also 4.34 (Teub.1.188-9).
1318.52 (Teub.2.338): Primam quippe computant a
Nerone quae facta est . . . decimam a Diocletiano et
Maximiano.

Loc. cit.

7 15.7 (Teub.2.68).
s

15.1

(Teub.2.58-9);

cf. below 15.7.

9 14.28 (Teub.2.56); 15.6 (Teub.2.68-9).

19.17 passim (Teub.2.384-6).
o10
1211.1 (Teub.1.461).
12Others than Jews may have been also citizens of the

have. . ..

They are not to be sought out;

but if they are accused and convicted,

they must be punished; provided however
that he who shall have denied that he is a
Christian and shall have proved this by
worshipping our gods shall win pardon for
his repentance, howsoever much suspect
he may have been in the past."'5
Damnable though Augustine judged
Rome's anti-Christianpolicy to be, he was
yet too much steeped in Latin culture

14

18.52

(Teub.2.338).

1s Karl Mirbt, Quellen zur Geschichte des Papsttums

und des Riimischen Katholizismus, 8-9.

195

RELIGIOUS SATIRE

wholly to suppress his admiration of the

Roman state whether as republic or empire. He praises it sincerely in passage
after passage of De civitate Dei.16 All this
notwithstanding, in what might seem complete inconsistency, he condemns Rome in
the severest language; and in spite of the
fact that Roman law had contrived the
happiest definition of justice in the world,
he declared that the Romans themselves,
until the reign of Constantine, had been
so impiously unjust that they did not deserve even to be called a people. Relying
on Cicero's authority, he defines a people
as "a multitude associated in the consent
of law and a community of advantage."
What Cicero calls "the consent of law"
Augustine depends on Cicero to explain.
The explanation involves justice without
which "law cannot exist." Therefore
where justice does not exist "there cannot
be a coming together of men associated in
the consent of law and therefore there
cannot be a people. ..

."

Augustine accepts the Romans' definition of justice, and by means of that very
definition charges them with injustice:
"Justice, then," he says, "is that virtue
which distributes to each his own;" and
he asks forthwith, "what therefore is the
justice of man which takes man himself
away from the true God and subjects him
to unclean devils? Is this to distribute to
each his own? Is he unjust who takes the
property of him by whom it has been
bought and hands it over to him who has
no right to it, and is he just who withdraws himself from the authority17of God
by whom he has been created and serves
evil spirits?" That by unclean devils and
evil spirits he means the gods whom
Roman emperors had tried to compel the
Christians to worship, Augustine leaves no
5.12 passim (Teub.1.211-16), Quibus moribus antiqui Romani meruerint, ut Deus verus, quamvis non eum
colerent, eorum augeret imperium. Also 5.21 (Teub.1.
232-3); 4.33 (Teub.1.188); 4.15 passim (Teub.1.164-5),
An congruat bonis latius velle regnare.
17 19.21 (Teub.2.389-90).
16

doubt. He is emphatic here to the point

of rudeness."'
From dread of persecution for the purpose of perpetuating the cult of these false
deities, Christians had been enjoying a
respite for years when Augustine began to
write the De civitate Dei. Indeed they
had been enjoying more than a respite:
the effect of the legislation of such orthodox emperorsas Theodosius the Great had
been to establish Catholic Christianity as
the official religion of the empire and to
impose severe penalties for either heretical or pagan dissent.19 Augustine of
course applauded a revolution which made
Rome at last just by his standard of justice; and he had words of high praise for
Theodosius who, he says, "commanded
the idols of the heathen to be everywhere
destroyed" and "more rejoiced that he
was a member of the church than that he
reigned over the earth."20
In spite of Theodosius' zeal, paganism
lingered on; and as a result of the calamities in Italy early in the fifth century
showed symptoms of reviving strength.
The pagan historian Zosimus remarks that
as Alaric and his Goths threatened Rome,
the Romans, despairing of earthly help,
thought upon that help from the gods
"which had hitherto accompanied the
State through all her tribulations and they
perceived how they were now abandoned
thereby, in consequence of having deserted
the religion of their forefathers."21 Certain Tuscan emissaries held out to the
18Ibid. (Teub.2.391-2): Si enim dicunt non spiritibus
inmundis, sed diis bonis atque sanctis in sua re publica
servisse Romanos . .. qui dubitare adhuc possit malis et
inpuris daemonibus servisse Romanos, nisi vel nimium
stolidus vel inpudentissime contentiosus?
19Codex Theodosianus, Lib.16 tit.1 de fide catholica;
ibid. tit.4, 5, chs.1,3,4,6,9,14,28; Mirbt, op. cit., pp.56,
80-81. Cf. Charles N. Cochrane, Christianity and classical culture, 329-35.
20 5.26
(Teub.1.240).
2 Quoted by Thomas Hodgkin,
Italy and her invaders,

vol.1, pt.2, 772. This calamity seemed to justify premonitions that had been deepening among the nobility of
Rome since the legislation of Theodosius. Cf. Cochrane,
op. cit., 331-2, who remarks: "by a curious coincidence,
these premonitions were soon to be fulfilled when, for the
first time since the raid of Brennus exactly eight hundred
years before, Alaric and his Gothic host marched triumphant through the streets of the sacred capital."

196

Prefect of Rome some hope that the gods

might yet be placated, by reporting that
at Narni the ancient sacrifices had been
followed by thunder and a fire from
heaven; and that these portents had so
affrighted the barbarians that they had
raised the siege. Official leave for similar
rites in Rome was asked and given, but
they were not performed.22 Instead gold
and silver ornaments were torn from surviving statues of the gods; and the statues
themselves, if gold or silver, were melted
down to help provide a ransom for the
city.23 The sacrilege proved vain. Indeed
a faithful pagan may well have believed
that those who perpetrated it brought on
the very doom which they had sought to
avert. In any event it was clear enough
that this affront to the ancient gods had
in no way moved the God of the Christians to avert that doom.
The ensuing attitude toward Christianity aroused the concern of Augustine. He
took note that the pagans blamed Alaric's
siege and sack of the city24 on that religion, and that as a result they had begun
to blaspheme the true God more harshly
and bitterly than usual.25 Proposing to do
something about it, he began to write the
De civitate Dei. Without waste of time
he ridicules this pagan blasphemy in his
first chapter.26
Fierce and destructive as he believed
the Goths to have been, he nevertheless
observed that they had spared not only
the Christian basilicas but also the people
who had fled thither for refuge.27 But for
that fact, he reminds his readers, many
would not have survived to "wag their
22Hodgkin, op. cit., vol.1, pt.2, 772-3.
23Ibid., vol.1, pt.2, 775.
24Perhaps the extent of the destruction has been exaggerated. See Ferdinand Gregorovius, History of the city
of Rome in the Middle Ages (tr. Hamilton), 1.158-63.
25Augustine wrote on the subject an essay entitled De
urbis excidio. See also Libri II retractationum, Ch.69,
inserted in the Teubner text of De civ. Dei 1.1-2 as an
introduction.
26De adversariis nominis Christi, quibus in vastatione
Urbis propter Christum barbari pepercerunt, passim
(Teub.1.4).
27 Loc. cit.

JOHN

T. HORTON

tongues"28 against the City of God today.

An ungrateful lot, "many escaped who
now detract from Christian times and
ascribe to Christ the evil which that city
endured; but impute to fate and not to
Christ the good which befell them to be
alive because of the honor shown to
Christ."29 Among these detractors Augustine notes many who insult the servants of
Christ; and he adds with sarcastic satisfaction that these same insolent fellows
would never have escaped slaughter "had
they not slyly pretended to be servants of
Christ themselves."30
If Augustine flays the pagans as pusillanimous and hypocritical ingrates, still he
lets them off more lightly than he does
their gods. These beings, he points out,
had proved so powerless that when cities
fell whose tutelary deities they were believed to be, the victorious foe had desecrated their temples and captured or slain
their votaries within their very walls. Citing Vergil, Augustine shows that at the
fall of Troy Priam himself had been cut
down at the altar sanguine foedantem
quos ipse sacraverat ignes. He notes also
that Diomedes and Ulysses on the same
occasion had perpetrated sacrilege with
impunity:

caesis summae custodibus arcis

Corripueresacram effigiem manibusque
cruentis
Virgineas ausi divae contingere vittas.31
Indeed the fall of Troy had been accompanied with multiplied sacrilege, and
nowhere more flagrantly than in the temple of Juno. Again relying with relish on
Vergil's authority, Augustine indicates
that temple as the place where the sacri28Loc. cit.
29Loc. cit.: Sic evaserunt multi, qui nunc Christianis
temporibus detrahunt et mala, quae illa civitas pertulit,
Christo inputant; bona vero, quae in eos ut viverent
propter Christi honorem facta sunt, non inputant Christo
nostro, sed fato suo.
301.1 (Teub.1.5): Nam quos vides petulanter et procaciter insultare servis Christi, sunt in eis plurimi, qui
illum interitum clademque non evasissent, nisi servos
Christi se esse finxissent.
31 1.2 (Teub.1.6).

197

RELIGIOUS SATIRE

legious spoil was piled up which had been

snatched from the burning temples of the
other gods and where captive women and
children awaited terror-stricken the pleasure of their captors.32 "There freedom
was lost," says Augustine, "here (in the
basilicas) it was preserved; there captivity was consummated, here it was forbidden; thither by arrogant enemies captives
were driven to be possessed, by compassionate ones they were led hither to be set
free."33 The contrast thus drawn between
the value of Christian and that of pagan
asylum Augustine emphasizes with dry
malice by hinting that more might have
been expected of Juno. Her asylum, after
all, was "not that of a divinity of the
common sort . . . , but rather that of the
sister and spouse of Jove himself and of
the queen of all the gods."'34
If such deities could not protect their
own temples, it should not have been an
occasion for wonder that they could not
protect cities, states, or empires. Embellishing his treatment of this theme with
further quotations from Vergil, Augustine
remarks that the poet calls the gods whose
cult Aeneas brought from Troy into Latium victos penates, victos deos, "vanquished gods";35 and raises the query how
deities that had failed to avert the ruin of
Troy could be trusted to warrant the security of Rome. The Romans, he implies
should have been incensed with Vergil for
calling these deities "vanquished gods";
instead they paid teachers public stipends
32
1.4: De asylo lunonis in Troia, quod neminem liberavit a Graecis, et basilicis apostolorum, quae omnes ad se
confugientes a barbaris defenderunt.
33Loc. cit.: Ibi amissa, hic servata libertas; ibi clausa,
hic interdicta captivitas; ibi possidendi a dominantibus
hostibus premebantur, huc liberandi a miserantibus ducebantur.
34Loc. cit.: Compara nunc asylum illud non cuiuslibet
dei gregalis vel de turba plebis, sed lovis ipsius sororis et
coniugis et reginae omnium deorum cum memoriis nostrorum apostolorum. Of course Augustine says nothing about
Troy's having long since lost the favor of Juno and Minerva. But then sacrilege is sacrilege even when committed by the Greeks!
3 Aen.1.68; 2.320; quoted in Book 1 Ch.3, the caption
of which is: Quam inprudenter Romani deos penates, qui
Troiam custodire non potuerant, sibi crediderint profuturos.

to teach his poetry to their children. Gleefully involving the Romans in self-contradiction, he adds that they are incensed
with the Christians for saying of their
gods the same things that the poet himself
does.36
Sallust and Cicero, as well as Vergil, are
cited to furnish proof of the futility of
pagan worship. They are made to testify
to the evils that afflicted Rome while that
worship still prevailed.3" If their testimony is to the effect that these evils resulted from the decay of the pristine
Roman virtues, Augustine craftily twists
it to prove that since the gods have no
interest in preserving those virtues or indeed virtues of any kind whatever,38 the
gods themselves are the cause of the evils
which their worship is supposed to prevent. They are no more concerned to save
the state when morals are sound than
when they are rotten. The sack of the
City by the Gauls in 390 B.C.is offered in
evidence:39

"Where then," asks Augustine, "was

this crowd of deities when, long before the
ancient manners were corrupted, Rome
was taken and burnt by the Gauls? If the
gods were present, were they perchance
asleep? For at that time the whole City
had been subdued to the enemy's power,
the Capitoline hill alone excepted; and
this would have been taken also if over
the sleeping gods sentry-duty had not
been done by geese."
That geese were better guardians than
gods is a point that Augustine takes delight in making more than once. In describing the domestic calamities with
which Rome had been visited in pagan
times, he dwells at length on the civil war
361.3 (Teub.1.6-7): Et nobis suscensent, cum de diis
eorum talia dicimus.
a72.3,18,21.
38 2.4,6,22 passim.
392.22 (Teub.1.84): Sed tamen haec numinum turba
ubi erat, cum longe antequam mores corrumperenturantiqui a Gallis Roma capta et incensa est? An praesentes
forte dormiebant? Tunc enim tota Urbe in hostium potestatem redacta solus collis Capitolinus remanserat, qui
etiam ipse caperetur, nisi saltem anseres diis dormientibus
vigilarent.

198

JOHN T. HORTON

between Marius and Sulla. In this connection he alludes again to the fall of
Troy. It is not, however, the fall of the
ancient but of the more modern city that
concerns him in this context, a city which
in support of Sulla closed its gates to
Marius' general, Gaius Flavius Fimbria,
who thereupon commanded that it be
given to the flames.40 But if ever the gods
had favored Rome, they should at this
juncture have guarded Troy; for, as Augustine urges, Troy at the time had been
loyal to a Roman general who had hitherto had the best interests of Rome at
heart.
"What better thing therefore could the
citizens of that city do," he asks, ".. .than

to hold [it] for the better cause of the

Romans and close their gates against the
parricide of the Roman republic? But let
the defenders of the gods take note how
great a catastrophe for them this turned
out to be. The seductive gods . . . abandoned Ilium to the flames of the Greeks
so that out of her ashes a purer Rome
might be born: why then afterward did
they abandon the same city . . . keeping

to the juster party [of Rome] a most

steadfast . . . faith and leave her to be
wiped out not by the valiant men of the
Greeks but by the basest of Romans? Or
if the gods were displeased with Sulla's
party in serving which the hapless people
had closed their gates, why then did the
gods promise and foretell such great good
fortune to the selfsame Sulla? Are these
deities then identified as flatterers of the
fortunate rather than protectors of the
unfortunate?"41

Deities who twice had treated Troy so

shabbily and, in the second instance, had
treated Rome herself likewise, were obviously not deities who deserved to have the
safety of Rome committed to their care.
But someone, says Augustine, may urge
"that when under Fimbria's assault Ilium

fell, the gods were already accustomed to

abide at Rome. . . . If then they were at
Rome when Fimbria wiped out Ilium, they
were forsooth at Ilium when Rome was
captured and burnt by the Gauls; but as
the gods are very keen to hear and very
swift to move, they returned quickly at
the cackling of the geese, so that at any
rate they might protect the Capitoline hill
which had held out; they were warned too
late to return to protect anything else."42
Augustine derides not only the GraecoRoman deities for their faithlessness as
guardians of the State; nor is it alone
from classical history that he draws examples of states betrayed through misplaced trust in false religions. He touches
briefly upon the Assyrian Empire and, observing that it lasted so long that even
Rome has not yet attained so great an age,
raises the question whether the duration
of Assyria should be ascribed to the Assyrian gods' assistance.43 If not, why then
should the duration of Rome be ascribed
to the Roman gods'? If, on the other
hand, it is contended that the duration of
the Assyrian Empire ought to be ascribed
to the gods' assistance, then, says Augustine, "I ask, to the assistance of what
gods?"44 Skeptically he goes on to say:
"For the other nations whom Ninus
(the Assyrian) tamed and subjected did
not at that time worship different deities.
Or (if they did) and the Assyrians had
their own peculiar ones as more expert
artificers for building and maintaining an
Empire, did then those deities die when
the Assyrians themselves lost their Empire? Or was it that the price these deities
asked was not paid them or that some
other greater thing was promised that they
preferred to go over to the Medes; and
thence again to the Persians when Cyrus
invited them and promised them something still more advantageous? This
42

passim (Teub.1.103-5), De eversione Ilii, quod

dux Marii Fimbria excidit.
4032.7
413.7

(Teub.1.104).

3.3 (Teub.l.105).
4a 4.6 (Teub.1.153).

~ 4.7 (Teub.1.153): Si autem et illud deorum adiutorio tribuendum esse contendunt, quaero quorum.

RELIGIOUS SATIRE

199

The Romans might well have blushed

(Persian) nation after the extensive but
short-lived empire of Alexander the Mace- not only from a sense of shame but from
donian has endured over a broad region one of folly also, if they had heeded at all
in the East right down to the present. If the ridicule which Augustine poured upon
this is so, either the gods are faithless and them for distributing as they did among
abandon their own worshippers or . . . their deities their several powers and
they are not so strong as it beseems gods functions. Cannily citing Varro to indito be; and they can be won over by mere cate just how these functions were distribmortal power and wisdom. Or if it is that uted and how they were divided and subsince the gods wage war among them- divided,46 he leaves the reader wondering
selves, they are overcome not by men but whether on Varro's own showing any of
by other gods who are the particular dei- the gods could have been equal to so
ties of certain states.. . a state ought not great a task as that of defending the City.
therefore to worship its own gods more Even if they had been, other and pettier
than others by whom their own might in tasks would have interfered; and of the
this way be aided."45 Bringing this pas- greater gods no more could have been
sage to a close with a renewed thrust at expected than of the lesser; since as high
offices were entrusted to the humble as to
pagan Rome, Augustine observes:
"Finally, in whatever way it may have the exalted gods and as mean offices to
been that this transit or flight or migra- the exalted as to the humble. To none was
tion or defection of the gods in battle very much entrusted; even in the same
took place, the name of Christ had not operation a little was entrusted to many.
yet been preached in those times and in "We laugh indeed," says Augustine,
those regions of the earth when through "when we see the gods assigned through
great slaughter of war those realms were human invention to a mutual division of
lost and taken away. For if it is a thou- labor, as if they were little farmers of the
sand and two hundred years and more revenue or workers in the silversmiths'
since the Assyrians were deprived of their quarter where one small dish, although it
dominion, if at that time the Christian could have been wrought entire by one
religion had preached there an eternal master craftsman, nevertheless in order to
kingdom and forbidden the sacrilegious go out entire yet passes through the hands
worship of false gods, what else would the of many artificers."47
foolish people of that nation have said but
Asking whether this minute division of
that their dominion so long preserved had offices does not comport rather with farciperished for no other reason than that cal buffoonery than with divine dignity,
their own religion having been deserted, the author observes:
another had been received? In this ex"If anyone should hire two nurses for
pression of vanity, which could well have an infant, one to give it only food, the
occurred, let those who are similarly quer- other only drink, just as those pagans
ulous see themselves reflected as if in a have had two goddesses, Educa and Pomirror; and if they have any sense of tina, for that very purpose, surely he
shame let them blush." (In qua voce vani- would seem to be crazy and to be
carrying
tatis, quae poterat esse, isti adtendant on something like a comedy in his housespeculum suum, et similia conqueri, si ullus in eis pudor est, erubescant.)
46Books 6-7 passim.
7.4
Ridemus
cum
vide454.7 (Teub.1.153-4): On the winning over of the
tutelary gods of a hostile city, cf. Fustel de Coulanges,
The ancient city (Anchor books ed.), 3, Ch.6, esp. pp.
152-5.

eos
(Teub.1.279):
47
quidem,
mus figmentis humanarum opinionum partitis inter se
operibus distributos, tamquam minuscularios vectigalium
conductores vel tamquam opifices in vico argentario, ubi
unum vasculum, ut perfectum exeat, per multos artifices
transit, cum ab uno perfecto perfici posset.

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JOHN

T. HORTON

hold."48 The comedy begins indeed even

before a man has established a household,
even before he has a wife and while he is
still sowing his wild oats; for although
Venus and Juno are the goddesses respectively of love and marriage, even they are
incompetent to direct all the operations
related to their spheres of authority.49
Juno especially seems to be in need of
help. As Augustine puts it:
"When a man and woman are joined in
matrimony (coniunguntur), the god Iugatinus is applied to. But she who is married has to be brought home (domum est
ducenda). So the god Domiducus is also
made use of; that she may be in the home
(in domo sit) the god Domitius is employed; that she may remain with her
husband (ut maneat cum viro) the goddess Manturna is added. What beyond
this is asked for?" In a praeteritio Augustine makes a gesture of refusal to pursue
the subject further. "Let human modesty
be spared," he says, and then proceeds
with zestful indignation to flout it. One
by one he names the petty gods and goddesses that preside over the various
stages of the cubicular mysteries; and he
asks why so many are required. Why
would not one suffice? "Why would not
Venus alone be equal to the task?" He
implies that none is necessary. When man
is involved in this operation, divine help
is superfluous. Furthermore,so many deities of both sexes crowding around would
be a positive hindrance because they
would embarrass both the principals: ita
pudore adjiciuntur, ut et ille minus moveatur et illa plus reluctetur.50

Nor is it only the division and subdivision of labor among the gods that excites Augustine's risibility. His mirth is
equally ministered to by means of still
other arrangements in the pagan pantheon. He notes, for example, that the
great gods, those whom he calls dii selecti,51 may even be hindered in their
office by the petty and plebeian ones.
Mars of course is the god of war; but
what if the humble divinity named Felicitas should grant a prayer for lasting
peace? "Mars would then be out of a
job," says Augustine.52 But why should
Felicitas be one of the plebeian crowd of
divinities and Mars belong to the select
few? Peace and felicity are better than
war; and if the divine dignity be measured by dignity of function, then Mars
should be a plebeian and Felicitas should
be ranked among the high and mighty.
The same should hold true of the relative ranks of the select god, Janus, and of
two of the most obscure of all gods, the
partners Vitumnus and Sentinus. Janus,
the deity who according to Augustine presides over the beginnings of things and
cannot always logically be distinguished
from Jove himself,53 has it as one of his
functions to be in partial charge at least
over the start of human life.54 But at
childbirth it is Vitumnus who actually
imparts life and Sentinus who bestows
feeling. In office, therefore, Augustine
would value these two little plebeians
much more than he would Janus. "They
are far more excellent," he says, "although
they are much less renowned than so
many of those chief and select deities.

nonne scurrilitati mimicae quam divinae conso48...

nant dignitati? Si duas quisquam nutrices adhiberet infanti, quarum una nihil nisi escam, altera nihil nisi
potum daret, sicut isti ad hoc duas adhibuerunt deas,
Educam et Potinam: nempe desipere et aliquid mimo
simile in sua domo agere videretur (6.9 [Teub.1.262-31).
49Loc. cit.
50 6.9 (Teub.1.264): Cum mas et femina coniunguntur, adhibetur deus lugatinus; . . . additur dea Manturna. Quid ultra quaeritur? Parcatur humanae verecundiae . . . Adest enim dea Virginiensis et deus pater
Subigus, et dea mater Prema et dea Pertunda, et Venus
et Priapus. Quid est hoc? Si omnino laborantem in illo
opere virum ab diis adiuvari oportebat, non sufficeret

aliquis unus aut aliqua una? Numquid Venus sola parum

esset, quae ab hoc etiam dicitur nuncupata, quod sine vi
femina virgo esse non desinat? Si est ulla frons in hominibus, quae non est in numinibus, nonne, cum credunt
coniugati tot deos utriusque sexus esse praesentes et huic
operi instantes, ita pudore adficiuntur, ut et ille minus
moveatur et illa plus reluctetur?
517.2 (Teub.1.274-5ff.).
52

7.14

(Teub.1.292):

. . . Si

ergo

pacem

perpetuam

Felicitas daret, Mars quid ageret non haberet.

538.9-10 passim (Teub.1.285-7).
54 7.3 (Teub.1.275): Confert enim selectus Ianus aditum et quasi ianuam semini . . . Ianus seminis admissor..

RELIGIOUS SATIRE

201

For surely without life and feeling what his kingdom with his guest so that they
is all that matter which is carried in a even established separate capitals, the one
woman's womb but something I know not Janiculum, the other Saturnia. But those
how contemptible composed of dust and who search out every shamefulness in the
slime?"55 He concludes that therefore worship of the gods, when they find one
Vitumnus vivificator and Sentinus sensifi- whose life is less shameful, proceed to
cator, rather than lanus seminis admissor, shame him in the monstrous deformity of
ought to be considered among the select his image, making him now two-faced and
divinities.56 But they are not, any more then even four-faced as if he were a pair
than many other useful and benevolent of twins. Or is it perchance that since
plebeians of the pantheon. Why are they most of the select divinities have lost face
not? "We are free to think," answers by perpetrating abominations, it is deAugustine, "that it is not because of more sired that Janus in proportion to his
exalted roles in the universe that some innocence should have so much more of
gods are called select and distinguished, face?"""58
but that it is rather that it has fallen to
Be that as it may, the Romans think
their lot to be better known to people.""57 that they would themselves lose face if
All in all, the greatness of the great gods they allowed poets and playwrights to
would seem to be a matter of accident, depict them in the same fashion as that in
unless perhaps it is their unseemly be- which they are wont to depict the gods.
havior that accounts for their notoriety.
Here again Augustine entangles his adIn so far as Janus is a deity identifiable versaries in self-contradiction. Alluding
apart from Jove, Augustine finds him in- to a boast of Scipio in the De re publica,
nocent of the malefactions of which most he goes on to say:
of the other Olympians are guilty; but if
"But the Romans . . . have not wished
he alludes to Janus in a complimentary to have their own lives and reputations
way, he does it not so much to glorify his exposed to the poets' slurs and slanders;
decency as to emphasize the others' in- and this they have sanctioned with penfamy:
alty of death if anyone should presume
"Concerning Janus," he writes, "noth- to write a piece of this sort. In regard
ing readily occurs to me which would to themselves they have indeed worthily
have to do with indecency. He may inenough ordained this; but they have done
deed have been such a god as lived rather so
arrogantly and impiously in regard to
harmlessly and pretty far removed from their
gods."59 Apostrophizing Scipio, Aucrimes and abominations. He received in
then queries:
gustine
a kindly way the fugitive Saturn, shared
"So then, Scipio, do you praise the
denial to the poets of a license to slander
Vitumnus et Sentinus, quo55 7.2 (Teub.1.275): ...
rum alter vitam, alter sensus puerperio largiuntur. Et
any Roman although you see that they
nimirum multo plus praestant, cum sint ignobilissimi,
quam illi tot proceres et selecti. Nam profecto sine vita
spare none of your gods? Does then the
et sensu, quid est illud totum, quod muliebri utero geriesteem of your curia seem of more importur, nisi nescio quid abiectissimum limo ac pulveri comparandum?
tance than reverence for the Capitoline;
56 7.3 (Teub.1.275-6): Inter selectos itaque deos Vitumnus vivificator et Sentinus sensificator magis haberi nay more, does reverence for Rome alone
debuerunt quam lanus seminis admissor et Saturnus semito esteem for the whole of
nis dator vel sator et Liber et Libera seminum commotores seem preferable
vel emissores; quae semina cogitare indignum est, nisi ad
that
the
heaven,
poets should be forbidden
vitam sensumque pervenerint, quae munera selecta non
dantur a diis selectis, sed a quibusdam incognitis et prae
istorum dignitate neglectis.
. . . restat arbitrari non
57Loc. cit. (Teub.1.277):
propter praestantiores in mundo administrationes, sed quia
provenit eis, ut magis populis innotescerent, selectos eos
et praecipuos nuncupatos.

5s 7.4 (Teub.1.279-80): An forte voluerunt, ut, quoniam plurimi dii selecti erubescenda perpetrando amiserant
frontem, quanto iste innocentior esset, tanto frontosior
appareret?
592.12 (Teub.1.66-7).

202

by law from wagging their slanderous

tongues against Roman citizens and yet in
abusing the gods . . . be secure against
any prohibition by senator, censor, prince
or pontiff? Was it unseemly that Plautus
or Naevius should traduce Publius and
Gnaeus Scipio or Caecilius M. Cato and at
the same time seemly that your Terence
should excite the profligacy of youths
through the disgraceful behavior of Jove
the greatest and best?"'60
In similar vein Augustine banters the
Romans for their attitude toward actors
and contrasts it bitingly with that of the
Greeks. Alluding once more to Cicero and
the words which he puts into Scipio's
mouth in the De re publica, he touches on
the theatrical impersonation of the gods
in the ludi scaenici, remarks that since the
Romans considered that these impersonations tended to obscenity, they denied the
honors of citizenship to the impersonators
and by the censor's stroke even removed
them from the lists of the tribes. Such a
sense of shame and self-respect was an
admirable thing, the critic conceded, and
then asked, "With what consistency are
these impersonators repelled from every
honor and yet the shows in which they
act yet mingled with honors paid to the
gods?"61 The question, he remarks, is a
controversial one in which the Greeks and
the Romans take opposite sides:
"The Greeks think that they rightly
honor these actors because they worship
the gods who demand these theatrical
presentations; the Romans on the other
hand do not suffer even a plebeian tribe
to be disparaged by these actors, much
less the senatorial curia. The crux of the
question may be logically disposed of in
this fashion. The Greeks propose: if such
gods ought to be worshipped, surely even
such men ought to be honored. The Romans take the position: but such men
60Loc. cit.
612.13 (Teub.1.68): Qua consentanea ratione homines
scaenici ab omni honore repelluntur, et ludi scaenici deorum honoribus admiscentur?

JOHN T. HORTON

ought nowise to be honored. The Christians conclude: nowise therefore ought

such gods to be worshipped."62
That obscenities were involved in the
worship of the gods was a fact that gave
color to Augustine's assumption that these
beings were devils. Far from denying
their existence, he believed them responsible for the religious deception which had
been practiced on mankind since the fall
of Adam and the loss of Paradise. These
devils, he says, have deception as their
business,63for they wish to be worshipped
as gods64 and beguile mankind into worshipping them as such, though in fact
they are nothing more than unclean spirits. When one recalls that Augustine
defines unclean spirits as those former
beings of light who under Lucifer's leadership turned away from God by committing the sin of pride,6"it becomes apparent that the De civitate Dei identifies the
pagan pantheon with the fallen angels of
the Christian epic. Nor is the author content to leave this conclusion to mere inference. Of the false gods, he declares that
they are those proud and impious beings
who, "deprived of the immutable light
once common to all the angels and reduced for this reason to a kind of necessitous authority, look out for their own
private power in whatever way they can
and seek divine honors from their deluded
subjects."66
62Loc. cit.: Proponunt Graeci: Si dii tales colendi
sunt, profecto etiam tales homines honorandi. Adsumunt
Romani: Sed nullo modo tales homines honorandi sunt.
Concludunt Christiani: Nullo modo igitur dii tales colendi
sunt.
6 2.26
(Teub.1.92): Tanta enim vis est probitatis et
castitatis, ut omnis . . . eius laude moveatur humana natura. . . . Proinde malignitas daemonum, nisi alicubi se
.
transfiguret in angelos lucis, non implet negotium
deceptionis.
3.7 (Teub.1.104): Nam daemones ad decipiendum
semper vigilantissimi, quod potuerunt, fecerunt.
64 2.24 (Teub.1.88):
Nempe intelleguntur daemones,
sicut saepe dixi notumque nobis est in litteris sacris resque ipsae satis indicant, negotium suum agere, ut pro diis
habeantur et colantur.
65See above, note 2.
68 11.1 (Teub.1.461-2): Huic conditori sanctae civitatis
cives terrenae civitatis deos suos praeferunt ignorantes eum
esse Deum deorum, non deorum falsorum, hoc est impiorum et superborum, qui eius incommutabili omnibusque
communi luce privati et ob hoc ad quandam egenam po-

203

RELIGIOUS SATIRE

That they do so in ways not only sinister but also absurd may well excite the
mirth of Christians and deserve their ridicule; but Augustine, like any first-rate
satirist, makes his satire all the more pungent by giving it a sober purpose. That
purpose is not merely to explode the notion that Rome fell to Alaric's Goths
because the Romans had forsaken their
ancient deities; it is to show that those
deities were the adversaries of the City of
God and of Christ Himself; and that even
the pettier and more ludicrous deceptions
to which they stooped were prompted by
the pride which moved them to rebel
against the Word in heaven and the envy
which caused them to seek revenge at the
testatem redacti suas quodam modo privatas potentias
consectantur honoresque divinos a deceptis subditis quaerunt . . .

expense of His highest handiwork on

earth.
Thus Augustine's satire, even at its saltiest and most ribald, is inextricably connected with those themes in the De civitate Dei which are of sublime and solemn
import. The satire itself wears a certain
sublime aspect, for its object is that Satanic host
Who durst defy the Omnipotentin arms.
. . . . . those who, from the pit of Hell
Roaming to seek their prey on earth, durst fix
Their seats, long after, next the seat of God,
Their altars by His altar, gods adored
Among the nations round .

yea, often placed

Within His sanctuaryitself their shrines . . .

And with their darknessdurst affront His light.67
JOHN T. HORTON

State University of New York

Buffalo
67Paradise lost 1.43-9, 376-91.