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| Concerning Virtue and Faith, Which the Pagans Have Honored with Temples and Sacred Rites, Passing by Other Good Qualities, Which Ought Likewise to Have Been Worshipped, If Deity Was Rightly Attributed to These.
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Chapter 20.—Concerning Virtue and
Faith, Which the Pagans Have Honored with Temples and Sacred Rites,
Passing by Other Good Qualities, Which Ought Likewise to Have Been
Worshipped, If Deity Was Rightly Attributed to These.
They have made Virtue also a
goddess, which, indeed, if it could be a goddess, had been
preferable to many. And now, because it is not a goddess, but a
gift of God, let it be obtained by prayer from Him, by whom
alone it can be given, and the whole crowd of false gods
vanishes. But why is Faith believed to be a goddess, and why does
she herself receive temple and altar? For whoever prudently
acknowledges her makes his own self an abode for her. But how do
they know what faith is, of which it is the prime and greatest
function that the true God may be believed in? But why had not
virtue sufficed? Does it not include faith also? Forasmuch as
they have thought proper to distribute virtue into four
divisions—prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance—and as
each of these divisions has its own virtues, faith is among the
parts of justice, and has the chief place with as many of us as
know what that saying means, “The just shall live by faith.”175
But if
Faith is a goddess, I wonder why these keen lovers of a multitude
of gods have wronged so many other goddesses, by passing them by,
when they could have dedicated temples and altars to them
likewise. Why has temperance not deserved to be a goddess, when
some Roman princes have obtained no small glory on account of
her? Why, in fine, is fortitude not a goddess, who aided Mucius
when he thrust his right hand into the flames; who aided Curtius,
when for the sake of his country he threw himself headlong into the
yawning earth; who aided Decius the sire, and Decius the son, when
they devoted themselves for the army?—though we might question
whether these men had true fortitude, if this concerned our
present discussion. Why have prudence and wisdom merited no place
among the gods? Is it because they are all worshipped under the
general name of Virtue itself? Then they could thus worship the
true God also, of whom all the other gods are thought to be
parts. But in that one name of virtue is comprehended both faith
and chastity, which yet have obtained separate altars in temples of
their own.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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