1.

10 Wealth-luxury-niggardness-Rank-fear-suspicion.

TREAT. self from his load, still he does but brood over his tormenting wealth, still obstinately cling to his penal gatherings. No bounty thence to clients, no sharing with the needy; and they call that money their own, which they keep immured with solicitous pains, as though it were another's, and from which they impart neither to their friends nor to their children any thing, nor even to themselves. In such sort only are they possessors, that they keep others from the possession; and, oh strange abuse of names! they call that 'goods' which they use for nought but evil.

12. Think you that even those are safe, those with their chaplets of honours and large resources, at least firm-footed and secure, who glitter in the splendour of a royal court, and are circled with the protection of armed sentinels? Greater fears are theirs than other men's; in proportion as one is dreaded, is he compelled to dread. His very greatness exacts from the mighty his proportion of penalties, though he be guarded by a band of satellites, and his person be closed and covered by the frequent retinue around him. The peace of mind which he denies to those beneath him, he is unable to transfer to himself. The power which makes men terrible to others, first is a terror to themselves. It smiles that it may rage, it flatters that it may deceive, it entices that it may slay, it exalts that it may cast down. Arbitrary power exacts usury; the more abundant are the dignities given, the more severe is the interest of their loan.

13. It is then the only placid and sure tranquillity for man, the one solid and firm and perpetual security, to be rescued from the tempests of this troublesome world, and to rest in the settled anchorage of salvation; to lift his eyes from earth to heaven; and, admitted to the benefit of the Lord, and now most near in mind unto his God, to glory that whatever to other men seems lofty and great in human affairs, falls short of the feelings of his own bosom. He has nothing now to seek from this world, nothing to pine after, who is superior to the world. How settled, how immoveable is that protection, how heavenly the blessedness in its never-failing good, to become released from the bonds of earthly entanglement, and emerge out of this nether defilement into the light of the life everlasting! Nothing avails all that the guileful mischief of our

Faith brings grace into effect, obedience keeps it unsullied. 11

assailing foe has in past times done against us: we are brought to love still more what we are to be, by being admitted to see and to condemn what once we were. No need of price, or solicitation, or labour, that the perfection of man, whether in excellence or in power, should be wrought in us with an elaborate travail; it is a gift from God, freely bestowed, and at our hand. As the sun irradiates spontaneously, the day illuminates, the stream irrigates, and the shower bedews, so does the Heavenly Spirit pour itself into us. When once the soul has fixed its gaze on heaven, and recognized its Author, rising off earth, and lifted out of all dominion of the world, it begins to be that, which it believes itself to be. You then, who are sealed in the spiritual camp by a heavenly warfare, do but preserve in integrity and sobriety your exercise of religious virtues; be ever either in prayer or reading; now speak with God, now let Him speak with thee. Let His precepts instruct and form you; whom He has made rich, none will make poor: there will be poverty never more, when once the breast has been satisfied with the heavenly banquetting. Ceilings embellished with gold, mansions encrusted with slabs of precious marble, will seem poor, when you feel, that it is yourself that is rather to be waited on, yourself to be garnished, that that is your better house, wherein the Lord sits as in a temple, and where the Holy Spirit has begun to dwell. Let us array that house with the colours of innocency, and illumine it with the light of righteousness; age will not cause it to decay, the colours on its walls will not change their lustre, nor its gold lose its brightness. All tinselled things are transitory; those inspire the possessor with no sure confidence which are not possessed in substance. But this remains in a dress ever fresh, in honour untarnished, in brilliancy perpetual. It admits neither of wane nor perishing; only, when the body is given back, of fashioning unto perfection.

14. Thus far, most dear Donatus, briefly, for the present: for though a permissive and loving temper, a stedfast mind, a constant faith, finds comfort in wholesome words; and though nothing pleases your ears so well, as what is pleasing to them in God; we ought yet to place a limit upon our converse, as we live hard by one another, and may often talk together. And since this is the quiet of the holidays, and a season of

I.

TREAT. leisure, what remains of the day, now that the sun is descending towards evening, let us enjoy it, not even the time of our repast being unprivileged with heavenly grace. Let psalms keep measure in our temperate feasting, and as you have a ready memory and a melodious voice, take on you that task, as you are wont. Best entertainment will your dear friends have, if we have something spiritual to hear, and our ears be soothed with sweet religious music.

TREATISE II.

ON THE VANITY OF IDOLS.

[The following short Treatise, which some have suspected to be a fragment of a larger work, was written by its author soon after the foregoing, apparently in the beginning of A.D. 247. For passages in it, S. Cyprian seems to be indebted to the writings of Tertullian and Minucius Felix. In this as well as in the foregoing there are no quotations from Scripture.]

1. THAT they are no Gods, whom the common people worship, is known from hence. They were kings in ancient times, whose royal memory obtained for them when dead an after-homage from their people. Hence temples were established to them; and images graved, that the countenances of the departed might be detained in the resemblance; and victims immolated to them, and holidays appointed to pay them honour; and what at first was invented as a consolation, became a sacred rite in the generations after". Let us see whether this truth is sustained in the individual instances. Melicertes and Leucothoë fall headlong into the sea, and presently they become sea-deities. Castor and his brother die by turns, that by turns they may live. Esculapius, the better to mount into a god, is struck by thunder; Hercules puts off the man, by being consumed in the fires of Eta; Apollo was shepherd to Admetus; Neptune built walls for Laomedon, and obtained, unhappy labourer, no wages for his

a Eusebius (Præp. Evang. i. 9.) gives a more detailed account of the origin of Idolatry. He says that Sun and Moon were the first objects of worship, and that among the Egyptians. The Phoenicians worshipped Sun, Moon, Planets, and

Elements, and the phænomena to which they gave rise. The use of temples, images, and the artificial decorations which it involved, came in afterwards when dead men were deified and spirits evoked.

II.

TREAT. Work. Jupiter's cave is still seen in Crete and his tomb shewn. It is notorious too that Saturn was driven away by him, and that Latium received its name from his being latent there. It was he that first taught the imprinting of letters and the stamping of coins in Italy; whence the public treasury is said to belong to Saturn; he too was maintainer of the country life, and is therefore painted as an old man with a sickle. When driven into exile, Janus admitted him to a home; who gave name to the Janiculum, and occasion to the month of January. He is imaged with two faces, as seeming to stand midway, and look both upon the commencing and the departing year. The Mauritanians moreover notoriously worship kings, and make no secret of it.

2. Hence the worship of the Gods receives a variety of change through different nations and provinces; no longer the same god being adored by all, but each preserving religious veneration of their own ancestors. That this was so, Alexander the Great declares, in that famous volume written to his mother: that a priest, under fear of his power, made known to him concerning the Gods a truth which from men in general is concealed, that it is ancestors and kings whose memory is observed, and that the rituals of worship and sacrifice grew up therefrom. If, however, Gods ever were born, why are none born up to this day? Unless indeed Jupiter has aged, and Juno has left bearing. Why again think you that the Gods can do all for the Romans, when you see them availing nothing for their own nations against the Roman arms? for we know that the Gods of the Romans also are home-born. Through the perjury of Proculus, Romulus was made a god; so were Picus, and Tiberinus, and Pilumnus, and Consus, to whom Romulus would have worship paid as god, not of fraud, but of counsel, when the triumph of perfidy was accomplished in the rape of the Sabines. Tatius was inventor and worshipper of a goddess Cloacina; Hostilius of Dismay and Paleness; afterwards, by some one, Fever was consecrated, and Acca, and Flora, who were harlots. To such a pass indeed do the Romans proceed in inventing the names of Gods, that they have even a god Viduus, who widows the body of the soul, and who is too sad and funeral to be admitted within the walls, but is placed