Salvian · 19 of 21

The Seventh Book · Part 3

See then how much legal decrees are worth, what profit we gain from the passage of ordinances which those men most scorn who administer them! The humble and lowly are forced to obey, the poor are compelled to accede to the orders of their superiors, and if they fail in their obedience, they are punished. The same rule is observed in this case as in that of the taxes: the poor are the only ones to obey the public decrees, as they alone pay the taxes. Thus in the laws themselves and in the execution of justice, injustice is most criminally wrought, since the lesser men are compelled to observe as sacred the laws that their betters continually trample under foot as of no importance.

22. Indignation has led me to exceed somewhat the appointed order of my discourse; let me now return to the original topic. I said that the cities of Africa were full of monstrous vices, and especially the queen and mistress of them all, but that the Vandals were not polluted. How unlike the Romans: did these barbarians prove themselves, in cleansing the stains of our disgrace! For they have removed from every part of Africa the vice of effeminacy, they have even abhorred intercourse with harlots, and have not only shunned or done away with it for the time being, but have made it absolutely cease to exist. O kindly Master, O good Savior! How much the desire of discipline accomplishes with your help, through which the vices of nature can be changed, as they have been by the Vandals! Let us see how they have been changed, since it is important to show not only the results of this action, but also the method by which it was made effective. It is difficult to have lewdness removed by a word or order, unless it has been done away in fact, and to have decency required by a command unless it has been enjoined before. Knowing this to be true, they removed unchastity while preserving the unchaste; they did not kill the unfortunate women, lest they should stain their prevention of vice with cruelty, and sin themselves in the very act of destroying the sins they desired to abolish. But they corrected the erring in such a way that the change should be a medicine, not a penalty. They ordered and compelled all prostitutes to marry; they transformed harlots into wives, fulfilling the word and command of the apostle that every woman should have her husband and every man his wife, that since incontinence cannot be restrained without some permissible indulgence of the flesh, sexual desire might have this legitimate outlet without sinful lust. In this, indeed, provision was made not only that women who could not live without husbands should have them, but also that through their domestic guardians those who did not know how to protect themselves should be safe. While the marriage bond constantly bound them, even if the customary unchastity of their former lives enticed them to sin, their husbands’ guardianship should keep them from going astray. The Vandals also added severe requirements of chastity to prevent lust, coercing lewdness by the sword with the obvious purpose of preserving the chastity of both sexes by conjugal affection at home, and the fear of the laws in public. Thus purity should rest on a double basis of love at home and fear abroad. Moreover, the laws they possessed were not at all like those enactments that removed a part of the wickedness without preventing all of its obscenity, or like those Roman decrees that cut off adulterers from other men’s wives but left them free access to single women, forbidding adultery while encouraging houses of ill fame. Those seem to have feared that men would be too chaste and pure if sexual vice were entirely forbidden. Not such are those of whom we speak, who have forbidden loose living as well as adultery, who wish women to be women only to their husbands and men to exercise their male functions only with their wives; who do not permit sexual desires to stray beyond the marriage bed, but order their laws after the pattern of the divine law, so that they think nothing permissible to them in this matter that God did not wish to permit. So they did not think any man should be given license by them to do anything that is not permitted to all by the divine power.

23. I know that what I say may seem to some intolerable, but I must treat these matters, in the light of reason, not of personal prejudices. Let anyone who is angry at what I say tell me this, has not Socrates always been considered the wisest of all men, and that too on the testimony of the Delphic demon, who might be called the prince of philosophers, as he was the prince of demons? Let us then consider what laws Socrates decreed as to chastity and what those men of whom we have been speaking have ordained about it.

Socrates said: “Let no man have a wife of his own, for marriage should be common to all; for so there will be greater harmony among the states, if all men have intercourse indiscriminately with all women, and all women with all men, and if all men become husbands of all women, and all women wives of all men.” Have we ever known any madman, or any possessed or driven out of his senses by any sort of insanity, say such a thing as this? You say, O chief of philosophers, that by the terms of this ordinance all men will be the husbands of all women, and all women the wives of all men, and all their children the offspring of all parents. But I maintain that no man would then be any woman’s husband, no woman the wife of any man, and no child the offspring of any parents, for where all is promiscuous and confused, no one can claim anything as his own. And some men say that it was not sufficient for the wisest of philosophers to teach others such ideas, but he must needs carry them out for himself, handing his wife over to another man, as indeed the Roman Cato, that second Socrates of Italian birth, actually did. See then the examples given us by the Roman and Attic wisdom; as far as in them lay, they made all husbands panders of their wives. Yet Socrates outdid the rest, for he wrote books on the subject, and handed his shameful ideas down to posterity. So he had the more reason to glory in his teachings; as far as his principles were concerned, he made a brothel of the world. He is said to have been unjustly condemned by the judges. That is true, for it would have been better for the whole human race to condemn a man for preaching such doctrines. Without doubt it has condemned him. Since, indeed, as far as this theory goes all have repudiated his doctrines, all have condemned him not only by the authority of the sentence passed at his trial, but even more by their choice of a way of life, and rightly too.

Let us now compare with his statutes those of the men whom God has recently ordered to rule in Africa. Socrates decreed that no one should have a wife of his own, they that no one should have one not his own. He wished every woman to be subject to all men, they that no woman should know any man but her husband. He wished a mixed and promiscuous generation, they one purely born and regulated. He ordained that all houses should be of evil reputation, and they that there should be none such. He tried to build evil resorts in every dwelling, they removed them even from entire cities. He wished to prostitute all maidens, they made the prostitutes chaste.

Would that Socrates’ error had been his alone, and not that of many, or even the majority of Romans! These follow Socrates’ precepts in this matter even if they accept his teachings in nothing else, for many men have more than one wife apiece, and countless women have many husbands each. Are not all our cities full of dens of vice, and reeking with houses of ill fame? When I said all, I meant of course the noblest and loftiest, for such is the prerogative of dignity and honor in our great cities that they excel others as much in indecency as they do in size.

What hope, I ask you, can there be for the Roman state when barbarians are more chaste and pure than the Romans? What I say is all too little: what hope of life or pardon, I ask, can we have in the sight of God when we see chastity in the barbarians and even so are not willing to be chaste ourselves? Should we not feel shame and confusion at this? Already among the Goths you will find none impure except the Romans, none unchaste among the Vandals except the Romans. So much has the desire for chastity accomplished for the barbarians, so much has the severity of their moral code gained, that not only are they themselves chaste, but—though it is so new and strange an event as to be almost incredible—they have even made some Romans chaste.

If my human frailty permitted, I should wish to shout beyond my strength, to make my voice ring through the whole world: Be ashamed, ye Roman people everywhere, be ashamed of the lives you lead. No cities are free of evil haunts, no cities anywhere are free from indecency, except those in which barbarians have begun to live. Do we then wonder that we are wretched who are so impure, that we are conquered by the enemy who are outdone by them in honor, that they possess our properties who abjure our wickedness? It is neither the natural strength of their bodies that makes them conquer nor the weakness of our nature that makes us subject to defeat. Let no one think or persuade himself otherwise—it is our vicious lives alone that have conquered us.