Chapter XXXIII.—A Statement in Opposition to Those Who Make the Complaint that
the Bliss of Human Life Has Been Impaired by the Entrance of Christian Times.
51. Finally, as to the complaint which they make with respect to the impairing of the
bliss of human life by the entrance of Christian times, if they only peruse the books of their
own philosophers, who reprehend those very things which are now being taken out of their
way in spite of all their unwillingness and murmuring, they will indeed find that great praise
is due to the times of Christ. For what diminution is made in their happiness, unless it be
in what they most basely and luxuriously abused, to the great injury of their Creator? or
unless, perchance, it be the case that evil times originate in such circumstances as these, in
which throughout almost all states the theatres are failing, and with them, too, the dens of
vice and the public profession of iniquity: yea, altogether the forums and cities in which the
demons used to be worshipped are falling. How comes it, then, that they are falling, unless
it be in consequence of the failure of those very things, in the lustful and sacrilegious use of
which they were constructed? Did not their own Cicero, when commending a certain actor
of the name of Roscius, call him a man so clever as to be the only one worthy enough to
make it due for him to come upon the stage; and yet, again, so good a man as to be the only
one so worthy as to make it due for him not to approach it?652 What else did he disclose
with such remarkable clearness by this saying, but the fact that the stage was so base there,
that a person was under the greater obligation not to connect himself with it, in proportion
as he was a better man than most? And yet their gods were pleased with such things of shame
as he deemed fit only to be removed to a distance from good men. But we have also an open
confession of the same Cicero, where he says that he had to appease Flora, the mother of
sports, by frequent celebration;653 in which sports such an excess of vice is wont to be exhib-
ited, that, in comparison with them, others are respectable, from engaging in which, never-
theless, good men are prohibited. Who is this mother Flora, and what manner of goddess
is she, who is thus conciliated and propitiated by a practice of vice indulged in with more
than usual frequency and with looser reins? How much more honourable now was it for a
Roscius to step upon the stage, than for a Cicero to worship a goddess of this kind! If the
gods of the Gentile nations are offended because the supplies are lessened which are instituted
for the purpose of such celebrations, it is apparent of what character those must be who are
delighted with such things. But if, on the other hand, the gods themselves in their wrath
diminish these supplies, their anger yields us better services than their placability. Wherefore
let these men either confute their own philosophers, who have reprehended the same practices
on the side of wanton men; or else let them break in pieces those gods of theirs who have
made such demands upon their worshippers, if indeed they still find any such deities either
652 See Cicero’s Oration in behalf of Roscius.
653 See Cicero, Against Verres, 5.
A Statement in Opposition to Those Who Make the Complaint that the Bliss of Human Life Has Been Impaired by the Entrance of Christian Times.
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A Statement in Opposition to Those Who Make the Complaint that the Bliss…