§ 1. It is agreed that without a true understanding and worship of God, without religion, without justice, prudence, temperance, fortitude, and—in one word—without true, solid, and genuine virtue, no commonwealth can be happy for long, but must struggle with many seditions, wars, and disadvantages; and that it experiences these the more greatly the more it departs from virtue, but experiences lesser evils if it somehow maintains possession of certain virtues.
First let us hear God concerning this matter: the holy divinity, the God whom we believe both to exist and to be a rewarder; but those who do not believe this will experience him as avenger. Yet I maintain this: kingdoms are not always given on account of justice, since I see that the most savage of human beings have commanded; but there are only the most wretched kingdoms in which great vices rule, and kingdoms are overthrown through vices. The Lord warns the Israelites, Deuteronomy 9:4: “Do not say in your heart, when the Lord your God has destroyed them in your sight: ‘Because of my justice the Lord has brought me in to possess this land,’ when those nations have been destroyed because of their impiety.
“For you do not enter to possess their land because of your just deeds and the equity of your heart; rather, because they acted impiously, they were destroyed as you entered.” The crimes of the Israelites were serious, so that they deserved death, much less the best of all lands; but on account of Abraham and the patriarchs, with Moses interceding, pardon and Palestine were given, while very numerous and very powerful nations were destroyed because of impiety that was now complete. For the same oracle teaches that it had not yet been completed in Abraham’s time, Genesis 15:16: “But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquities of the Amorites are not yet completed up to the present time.”
§ 2. To this pertains that whole speech of Moses which is in Deuteronomy 11, 12, and 13, and especially chapter 28: “But if you will hear the voice of the Lord your God, so that you do and keep all his commandments which I command you today, the Lord your God will make you higher than all the nations that dwell upon the earth. And all these blessings will come upon you and overtake you—if only you will hear his precepts. Blessed shall you be in the city and blessed in the field. Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your land, and the fruit of your beasts, the herds of your cattle and the folds of your sheep. Blessed shall be your storehouses, and blessed your remnants. Blessed shall you be when entering and when departing.
“The Lord will give your enemies who rise against you falling down in your sight; by one way they will come against you, and by seven they will flee from your face. The Lord will send blessing upon your cellars and upon all the works of your hands, and will bless you in the land which you will have received. The Lord will raise you up as a holy people to himself, as he swore to you, if you will keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in his ways. And all the peoples of the earth will see that the name of the Lord has been invoked over you, and they will fear you. The Lord will make you abound in all goods: in the fruit of your womb, the fruit of your beasts, and the fruit of your land which the Lord swore to your fathers that he would give you. The Lord will open his best treasure, the heaven, that he may give rain to your land in its season; and he will bless all the works of your hands. And you will lend to many nations, and you yourself will receive a loan from none. The Lord will establish you as the head and not the tail; and you will always be above and not beneath—if only you will hear the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you today, and will keep and do them, and will not turn aside from them either to the right or to the left, nor follow foreign gods or worship them.
“But if you will not hear the voice of the Lord your God, so that you keep and do all his commandments and ceremonies which I command you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you. Cursed shall you be in the city, cursed in the field. Cursed your storehouse, and cursed your remnants. Cursed the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your land, the herds of your cattle and the flocks of your sheep. Cursed shall you be when entering and cursed when departing. The Lord will send upon you famine and hunger and rebuke in all your works which you perform, until he crushes you and destroys you swiftly because of your most wicked inventions in which you abandoned me. May the Lord join pestilence to you until he consumes you from the land which you enter to possess. May the Lord strike you with want, fever, and cold, with burning and heat, with corrupt air and blight, and may he pursue you until you perish. May the heaven above you be bronze, and the earth you tread iron. May the Lord give dust as the rain of your land, and may ash descend upon you from heaven until you are crushed.
“May the Lord deliver you falling before your enemies; by one way may you go out against them, and by seven may you flee, and may you be scattered through all the kingdoms of the earth. And may your corpse be food for all the birds of heaven and beasts of the earth, with no one to drive them away. May the Lord strike you with madness and blindness and fury of mind, and may you grope at midday as the blind man is accustomed to grope in darkness, and may you not direct your ways. At every time may you endure calumny and be oppressed by violence, and have no one to deliver you. May you take a wife, and another sleep with her. May you build a house and not dwell in it. May you plant a vineyard and not harvest it. May your ox be slaughtered before you and you not eat from it. May your ass be seized in your sight and not be returned to you. May your sheep be given to your enemies and there be no one to aid you. May your sons and daughters be delivered to another people while your eyes see and fail at the sight of them the whole day, and may there be no strength in your hand. May a people whom you do not know eat the fruit of your land and all your labors; and may you always endure calumny and be oppressed all your days, and be stupefied at the terror of the things your eyes will see. May the Lord strike you with the worst ulcer in your knees and calves, so that you cannot be healed from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head. The Lord will lead you, and the king whom you establish over yourself, into a nation which neither you nor your fathers know, and there you will serve foreign gods, wood and stone.
“And you will be lost, as a proverb and a tale among all the peoples to whom the Lord will lead you. You will cast much seed into the earth and gather little, because locusts will devour everything. You will plant and dig a vineyard, but you will not drink wine nor gather anything from it, because it will be laid waste by worms. You will have olive trees in all your boundaries and will not be anointed with oil, because they will shed their fruit and perish. You will beget sons and daughters and will not enjoy them, because they will be led into captivity. Blight will consume all your trees and the crops of your land. The stranger who dwells with you in the land will rise above you and become higher, but you will descend and be lower. He will lend to you, and you will not lend to him. He will be the head, and you will be the tail.
“And all these curses will come upon you and, pursuing you, will overtake you until you perish, because you did not hear the voice of the Lord your God nor preserve his commandments and ceremonies which he commanded you. And they will be signs and wonders in you and in your seed—in joy and gladness of heart because of the abundance of all things. You will serve your enemy whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger and thirst and nakedness and every want; and he will place an iron yoke upon your neck until he crushes you. The Lord will bring upon you a nation from afar and from the outermost boundaries of the earth, like an eagle
“flying with violence, whose language you cannot understand: a most insolent nation which will not show regard for an old man nor pity a little child, and which will devour the fruit of your beasts and the crops of your land until you perish, and will not leave you wheat, wine, and oil, herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, until it destroys you and crushes you in all your cities, and your strong and lofty walls in which you had confidence throughout all your land are destroyed. You will be besieged within your gates throughout all your land which the Lord your God will give you; and you will eat the fruit of your womb and the flesh of your sons and daughters, whom the Lord your God gave you, in the straitness and devastation with which your enemy will oppress you.
“The delicate and exceedingly luxurious man among you will begrudge his brother and the wife who lies in his bosom, lest he give them any of the flesh of his sons which he will eat, because he has nothing else in the siege and want with which your enemies have laid you waste within all your gates. The tender and delicate woman who was not able to walk upon the ground nor set down the print of her foot because of her softness and excessive tenderness will begrudge her husband who lies in her bosom concerning the flesh of her son and daughter, and concerning the uncleanness of the afterbirth which comes forth from the midst of her thighs, and concerning the children who were born at that very hour; for they will eat them secretly because of the want of all things, in the siege and devastation with which your enemy will oppress you within your gates.
“Unless you will keep and do all the words of this law which are written in this volume, and fear his glorious and terrible name—that is, the Lord your God—the Lord will increase your plagues and the plagues of your seed, great and persistent plagues, the worst and perpetual infirmities; and he will turn upon you all the afflictions of Egypt which you feared, and they will cling to you. Moreover, the Lord will bring upon you every illness and plague not written in the volume of this law until he crushes you; and you will remain few in number, who before were like the stars of heaven because of your multitude, since you did not hear the voice of the Lord your God. And just as the Lord formerly rejoiced over you, doing good to you and multiplying you, so will he rejoice in destroying and overthrowing you, that you may be taken away from the land which you enter to possess.
“The Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from the summit of the earth to its boundaries; and there you will serve foreign gods, which neither you nor your fathers know, wood and stone. Among those nations also you will not rest, nor will there be rest for the sole of your foot. For there the Lord will give you a fearful heart, failing eyes, and a soul consumed by sorrow; and your life will be as though hanging before you. You will fear by night and day and will not trust your life. In the morning you will say, ‘Who will grant me evening?’ and in the evening, ‘Who will grant me morning?’ because of the fear of your heart by which you will be terrified and because of the things you will see with your eyes. The Lord will lead you back by ships into Egypt by the way of which he said to you that you should see it no more. There you will be sold to your enemies as male and female slaves, and there will be no one to buy.”
If the world believed these things, if these sounded privately and publicly in the ears of kings and counselors, we would now possess the matter as settled. Those cunning devices and prudence of counsels would melt away at this thunder. I am not ignorant that the impious have reigned, for the Canaanites also already ruled in Abraham’s time; but as morals slipped toward worse things, calamities, the companions of impiety, increased until they were utterly destroyed. Nor were the kingdoms of others due to merit, but in order that they might punish the wicked. “Kingdoms,” says Cyprian in On the Vanity of Idols, “do not fall to anyone by merit, but are varied by chance. Furthermore, before them the Assyrians, Medes, and Persians held command, and we know that the Greeks and Egyptians reigned. Thus, in the alternations of powers, a time to command befell the Romans also, just as the rest. But if you return to their origin, you blush. A people is gathered from criminals and the guilty, and, when an asylum has been established, impunity for crimes creates their number. In order that the king himself may possess primacy in crimes, Romulus becomes a fratricide. And in order to make marriage, he inaugurates a thing of concord through discords.”
§ 3. The wicked punish the wicked; the impious are dashed against the impious, and both are broken. Nor is it remarkable, for it is a battle of potsherds and clay. “This is the portion of an impious man with God and the inheritance of violent men which they will receive from the Almighty. If his sons are multiplied, they will be for the sword, and his grandsons will not be satisfied with bread. Those who remain of him will be buried in destruction, and his widows will not weep. If he heaps up silver as though earth, and prepares garments as though clay, he will indeed prepare them, but the just man will be clothed in them, and the innocent will divide the silver. Want will seize him like water; a tempest will oppress him by night. A burning wind will take him up and carry him away, and like a whirlwind will snatch him from his place.”
“God,” says David, “will destroy you unto the end, and will pluck you out and remove you from your tabernacle, and your root from the land of the living.” And Psalm 91: “When sinners have sprung up like grass and all who work iniquity have appeared, it is that they may perish for ever and ever.”
The impious therefore perish, although they blossom most splendidly with swift germination. But there is no need to remain upon this passage: the whole of Scripture indicates this to us. Abraham, an exile from his fatherland, follows God when he calls and is defended; even his increase is a terror to kings. The same God is given as a possession to Isaac and Jacob. That commonwealth was happy when Joshua and pious judges administered it; but when they did evil in the sight of the Lord, they were delivered into servitude to neighboring kings.
Let us read the history of the kings, and the fortune corresponding to each one’s morals. David, a man according to God’s heart, raised the kingdom to its highest summit, although it suffered disasters on account of his sins. Solomon administered it peacefully and most happily until by his vices he stirred up Hadad the Edomite and resigned ten tribes to Jeroboam. As the deeds of Rehoboam and Abijah were rash and impious, so too their calamities were new: the city was captured, the temple plundered, and royal dignity transferred from gold to bronze. Asa, pursuing virtue, removed the impure and reduced his mother to her proper station; he defeated Zerah the Ethiopian, who was drawing one million men with him, but at last, turning away from God and afflicted by arthritis, he died through his own fault alone. Asa’s son Jehoshaphat was pious, brave, and renowned, but he had as heir the degenerate Jehoram, who defiled the kingdom with fratricide and idolatry; therefore the Edomites and other tributary nations revolted.
But it is preferable to hear from Scripture itself the vengeance of God upon the impious king, 2 Chronicles 21:12: “Letters were brought to him from Elijah the prophet, in which it was written: ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of David your father: Because you have not walked in the ways of Jehoshaphat your father and in the ways of Asa, king of Judah, but have proceeded along the way of the kings of Israel and have made Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fornicate, imitating the fornication of the house of Ahab; moreover, you have killed your brothers, your father’s house, who were better than you: behold, the Lord will strike you with a great plague, together with your people, your sons, your wives, and all your substance. But you will fall sick with the worst disease of your belly until your vital parts come forth little by little on each successive day.’
“The Lord therefore stirred up against Jehoram the spirit of the Philistines and of the Arabs who border upon the Ethiopians; and they ascended into the land of Judah and laid it waste, and plundered all the substance found in the king’s house, and moreover his sons and wives; nor did a son remain to him except Jehoahaz, who was youngest by birth. And beyond all these things the Lord struck him with an incurable disease of the belly. And as day succeeded day and the spans of time rolled by, the cycle of two years was completed; and thus, consumed by a long wasting disease, so that he even discharged his entrails, he was deprived alike of disease and life. And he died in
“the worst infirmity; and the people did not make funeral rites for him according to the custom of burning, as they had done for his ancestors.”
After him Ahaziah, Athaliah, Joash, and Ahaz obtained wretched ends, with the shaking of the whole kingdom. Hezekiah restored all things by his piety; Manasseh lost them. Josiah, again imitating his grandfather, restored the former happiness; his descendants perished by impiety.
§ 4. It would be easy to object that the lot of other nations was happy amid the greatest crimes; but I appeal to the whole of history. Success exists in some one matter; happiness in the whole commonwealth does not. If it pleases, let us examine the kingdom of Macedonia, which is accustomed to be adduced as an example of human happiness. After war had been waged in Greece and his brothers and relatives killed, Alexander entered Asia; he passed twelve years most calamitously in the greatest care, pain, many wounds, fury, the blood of his household, conspiracies, and fear, until he perished through drunkenness or poison. A little later all his posterity was cut off—and not only it, but also his commanders and the Silver Shields whom he had burdened with the spoils of the East. But it is no happiness to rage for twelve years so that the whole nobility may obey. He who reads history with prudence will understand that the kingdom of Macedonia, while King Alexander and his commanders strove together, was unhappier than the kingdom of Israel, even when it paid penalties for evil morals. In this it is also memorable that so many commanders, apart from the Ptolemies and Seleucids, were cut off together with their entire families.
But here we are treating of the kingdom of Israel and Judah, concerning which 4 Kings 17:6 says thus: “In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of the Assyrians captured Samaria and transferred Israel into Assyria. He settled them in Halah and in Habor beside the river Gozan, in the cities of the Medes. For it came about, when the children of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had led them out of the land of Egypt, from the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, that they worshiped foreign gods. And they walked according to the rite of the nations which the Lord had consumed in the sight of the children of Israel, and of the kings of Israel, because they had acted similarly.
“And the children of Israel offended the Lord their God with words that were not right, and built themselves high places in all their cities, from the watchmen’s tower to the fortified city. And they made themselves statues and groves upon every high hill and beneath every leafy tree; and there they burned incense upon altars according to the custom of the nations which the Lord had transferred from before their face. And they did the worst things, provoking the Lord; and they worshiped uncleannesses concerning which the Lord had commanded them not to do this thing. And the Lord testified in Israel and in Judah by the hand of all the prophets and seers, saying: ‘Return from your most wicked ways, and keep my precepts and ceremonies according to all the law which I commanded your fathers and as I sent to you by the hand of my servants the prophets.’
“They did not hear, but hardened their neck according to the neck of their fathers, who were unwilling to obey the Lord their God. And they cast away his statutes and the covenant which he made with their fathers, and the testimonies by which he testified against them; and they followed vanities and acted vainly, and followed the nations that were round about them, concerning which the Lord had commanded them not to do as they did. And they abandoned all the precepts of the Lord their God, and made themselves two molten calves and groves, and adored the whole host of heaven; and they served Baal, and consecrated their sons and daughters through fire; and they devoted themselves to divinations and auguries, and delivered themselves up to do evil before the Lord, so that they provoked him.
“And the Lord was exceedingly angry with Israel and took them away from his sight, and none remained except the tribe of Judah alone. But not even Judah itself kept the commandments of the Lord its God; rather, it walked in the errors of Israel which it had committed. And the Lord cast away all the seed of Israel and afflicted them and delivered them into the hand of plunderers until he cast them from his face.” Divine wisdom, therefore, which is the fountain of all goods, defines happiness by religion and virtue.