| Keywords |
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| ID |
5882 |
| Text |
De gubernatione dei (439 - 451) Salvian of Marseilles |
| Quotation |
XII. Sed videlicet qui corrumpimur rebus prosperis, corrigimur adversis; et quos intemperantes
pax longa fecit, turbatio facit esse moderatos. Nunquid populi civitatum qui impudici rebus prosperis fuerant, asperis casti esse coeperunt? Nunquid ebrietas quae tranquillitate et abundantia creverat, hostili saltem depopulatione cessavit? Vastata est Italia tot jam cladibus. Ergo Italorum vitia destiterunt?
Obsessa est urbs Roma et expugnata. Ergo desierunt blasphemi ac furiosi esse Romani? Inundarunt Gallias
gentes barbarae. Ergo, quantum ad mores perditos spectat, non eadem sunt Gallorum crimina quae fuerunt? Transcenderunt in
Hispaniae terras populi Wandalorum. Mutata quidem est sors Hispanorum, sed non mutata vitiositas. Postremo, ne qua pars mundi exitialibus malis esset immunis, navigare per fluctus bella coeperunt: quae vastatis urbibus mari clausis, et eversis
Sardinia ac Sicilia, id est, fiscalibus horreis, atque abscissis velut vitalibus venis, Africam ipsam, id est, quasi animam captivavere rei publicae. Ecquid? ingressis terram illam gentibus barbaris, forsitan vel metu vitia cessarunt? aut sicut corrigi ad praesens etiam nequissimi quique servorum solent, modestiam saltem ac disciplinam terror extorsit! Quis aestimare hoc malum possit? Circumsonabant armis muros
Cirtae atque
Carthaginis populi barbarorum; et
ecclesia Carthaginensis insaniebat in circis, luxuriabat in theatris. Alii foris jugulabantur,
alii intus fornicabantur. Pars plebis erat foris captiva hostium, pars intus captiva vitiorum. Cujus sors pejor fuerit, incertum est. Illi quidem erant extrinsecus carne, sed isti intus mente captivi; et ex duobus lethalibus malis levius, ut reor, est captivitatem corporis
Christianum quam captivitatem animae sustinere, secundum illud quod docet Salvator ipse in Evangelio, graviorem multo animarum mortem esse quam corporum. An credimus forte quod captivus animis populus ille non fuerit, qui laetus tunc in suorum captivitatibus fuit? Captivus corde et sensu non erat, qui inter suorum supplicia ridebat, qui jugulari se in suorum jugulis non intelligebat, qui mori se in suorum mortibus non putabat? Fragor, ut ita dixerim, extra muros et intra muros praeliorum et ludicrorum; confundebatur vox morientium voxque bacchantium; ac vix discerni forsitan poterat plebis ejulatio quae cadebat in bello, et sonus populi qui clamabat in circo. Et cum haec omnia fierent, quid aliud talis populus agebat nisi ut cum eum Deus perdere adhuc fortasse nollet, tamen ipse exigeret ut periret?
XIII. Sed quid ego loquor de longe positis et quasi in alio orbe submotis, cum sciam etiam
in solo patrio atque in civitatibus Gallicanis omnes ferme
praecelsiores viros calamitatibus suis factos fuisse pejores? Vidi siquidem ego ipse Treveros domi nobiles, dignitate sublimes, licet jam spoliatos atque vastatos; minus tamen eversos rebus fuisse quam moribus. Quamvis enim depopulatis jam atque nudatis aliquid supererat de substantia, nihil tamen de disciplina. Adeo graviores in semet hostes externis hostibus erant, ut licet a barbaris jam eversi essent, a se tamen magis everterentur. Lugubre est referre quae vidimus, senes honoratos, decrepitos Christianos, imminente jam admodum excidio civitatis, gulae ac lasciviae servientes. Quid primum hic accusandum est? quod honorati, an quod senes, an quod Christiani, an quod periclitantes? Quis enim hoc fieri posse credat, vel in securitate a senibus, vel in discrimine a pueris, vel unquam a Christianis? Jacebant in conviviis obliti honoris, obliti aetatis; obliti professionis, obliti nominis sui, principes civitatis cibo conferti, vinolentia dissoluti, clamoribus rabidi, bacchatione furiosi, nihil minus quam sensus sui; immo quia prope jugiter tales, nihil magis quam sensus sui. Sed cum haec ita essent, plus multo est quod dicturus sum: finem perditioni huic nec civitatum excidia fecerunt. Denique expugnata est quater
urbs Gallorum opulentissima. Promptum
est de qua dicam. Sufficere utique debuerat emendationi
prima captivitas, ut instauratio peccatorum non instaurasset excidium. Sed quid plura? Incredibile est quod loquor. Assiduitas illic calamitatum, augmentum illic criminum fuit. Sicut enim anguinum illud monstrum, ut fabulae ferunt, multiplicabat occisio; ita etiam in Gallorum excellentissima urbe iis ipsis quibus coercebantur plagis scelera crescebant: ut putares poenam ipsorum criminum quasi matrem esse vitiorum. Et quid plura? Ad hoc malorum quotidie pullulantium multiplicatione perventum est, ut facilius esset urbem illam sine habitatore quam ullum pene habitatorem esse sine crimine. Igitur hoc in illa. |
| Translation |
12. But, of course, we who are corrupted by prosperity
are corrected by adversity and we, whom a long peace has
made profligate, strife makes us temperate. Have the peoples
of the cities who were lewd in prosperity begun to be chaste
in adversity? Has drunkenness, which increased with peaceful
and abundant years, ceased immediately with the plundering
done by the enemy?
Italy has already been laid waste by many calamities. Have
the vices of the Italians ceased on that account? The city of
Rome has been besieged and taken by storm. 32 Have the
Romans ceased to be frenzied and blasphemous? Barbarian
nations have overrun Gaul. Insofar as it pertains to evil living, are the crimes of the Gauls not the same as they were?
The Vandals peoples have crossed into Spanish territory. The lot of the Spaniards is indeed changed, but their wickedness is not changed.
Lastly, lest any part of the world be immune from fatal
evils, wars have begun to cross over the seas. 34 They have laid
waste and overthrown cities which were cut off by the sea in
Sardinia and Sicily, the imperial storehouses. The vital blood
vessels, as it were, being cut, they have captured Africa itself,
which is, so to say, the heart of the Empire. And then what?
When the barbarians entered these lands, did the inhabitants
cease in their vices, perhaps in fear? Or, as even the worst
of slaves are wont to be corrected for the moment, did terror
immediately wrest modesty and restraint from them?
Who can judge the enormity of this evil? The barbarian
peoples were sounding their arms around the walls of Cirta and
Carthage and the Christian population of Carthage still went
mad in the circuses and reveled in the theaters. Some were
strangled outside the walls; others were committing fornication within. A portion of the people was captive of the enemy
without the walls and a portion was captive of vice within
the walls.
I do not know whose lot was worse. The former were captive in the flesh outside, but the latter were captive in soul with-
in. Of the two deadly evils, I think it is lighter for a Christian
to bear captivity of the body rather than of the soul, according to that which the Saviour Himself teaches in the Gospel,
that the death of souls is much more serious than the death of
bodies. Do we believe, perhaps, that that people was not
captive in their souls who then rejoiced in the captivity of their
own people? Was he not captive in heart and soul who laughed
amid the punishments of his own people, who did not under-
stand that he was being strangled in the strangulation of his
own people, who did not think he was dying in their death?
AI; I have said, the noise of battle outside the walls and of
the games within, the voices of the dying outside and the
voices of the reveling within, were mingled. Perhaps there
scarcely could be distinguished the cries of the people who fell
in battle and the yelling of the people who shouted in the
circus. When all these things were being done in this fashion,
what else did such people accomplish, unless perhaps, since
God was still unwilling to destroy them, they themselves ex-
acted their own destruction?
13. Why do I speak about things that are far away and
are, so to say, removed into another world, when I know that
in my own native country and in the cities of Gaul almost
all the more excellent men have been made worse by their
misfortunes. Indeed, I myself have seen at Trier men, noble
in birth and elevated in dignity, who, though already despoiled
and plundered, were actually less ruined in property than in
morality. Though they were despoiled and stripped, something of their property still remained to them, but nothing
whatsoever of self-restraint. They were more dangerous enemies in themselves than the enemy outside, so that, though
they were overthrown by the barbarians from without, they
were still overthrown more by themselves.
It is sad to refer to what I saw there. Honored old men,
tottering Christians, the ruin of their city already imminent,
tended slavishly to their palates and lusts. What is the first
accusation here? That they were honored, that they were old,
that they were Christians, or that they were in danger? Who
would believe that actions like these would be possible either
by old men when life was secure, or by boys at a critical moment or ever by Christians?
The leading men in the city were laying down at banquets;
they forgot honor; they forgot age; they forgot religion; they
forgot the dignity of their name. They were stuffed with food,
lax from wine-bibbing, frantic from shouting, frenzied with
revelry. They were bereft of no less than their senses. Indeed,
because they were almost constantly like this, they no longer
had senses. Though these were the actual circumstances, what
I am about to say is much worse. Not even the ruin of their
cities put an end to this waywardness.
The wealthiest city of Gaul was taken by storm four
times. 39 It is easy to know of which one I speak. The first
captivity should have sufficed for amendment, so that the repetition of their sins would not renew destruction.
What followed? What I say is incredible. The continuance
of calamities in that city caused an increase of crimes there.
Like the serpentine monster which multiplied when killed, as
the fables have it, so even in the most excellent city of Gaul
crimes increased by the very blows with which crimes were
checked so that you would think that the punishment of
crime was, as it were, the mother of vice. What next? It has
come to this, through the daily multiplication of corrupting
evils, that it would be easier for that city to be without an inhabitant than for almost any of its inhabitants to be without
crime. This, then, is the condition in that city. |
| Quotation source |
Lib. 6, Cap. 12-13 (pp. 78-80, trans. O'Sullivan, pp. 172-5) |
| Temporal Coverage |
439 - 451 |
| Associated use case(s) |
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| Comment |
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