On the Consistency of the Jurisprudent

Translation © 2002 Mark Reynolds

[1] You are aware, most distinguished Francesco Ventura, that the Roman jurists defined jurisprudence in the same way as the Greek philosophers defined wisdom. Wisdom moreover was solemnly described by Plato as the "perfecter of man."

The parts of the inner man -- From a true mind an upright spirit.

[2] Now, the inner man is comprised of two parts, mind and spirit, commonly called by the schoolmen 'understanding' and 'will'. Moreover, we have shown that each part was corrupted by original sin, the mind deceived by errors, the spirit rent by desires, and that the desires of the spirit arise from the errors of the mind, and that these are the sources of all human unhappiness. And yet we have shown too that even in corrupted man there is an impulse of the mind for truth, and that from a clear knowledge of truth there arises a will for justice: which is as much as to say that from a true mind proceeds an upright spirit.

How does wisdom perfect man? -- What is the source of the wise man's consistency?

[3] Wisdom purifies the mind with eternal truths, and by these truths furnishes the spirit with virtues, so that in each inner part wisdom completes man and brings him to perfection. Therefore, just as it is characteristic of fools to err constantly, to repent continuously, to be always pulled in different directions, to be forever dissatisfied with themselves (whence we have called them folly's 'self-punishers'), so too is it a feature of wisdom to be always consistent in thought, from which it follows that the wise man is always consistent in life.

The arrangement of the subjects to be discussed -- The two main classes of disciplines: philosophy and philology -- The method of the discussion.

[4] So then, that we might in this second book accord to jurisprudence a consistency of its own, let us demonstrate that whatever has been said or written anywhere about the principles of divine and human learning is true if it agrees with the principles we set forth in the first book, and is false if it disagrees; and let us demonstrate this through the following corollaries which are derived from these same principles of ours and which form the third part of the whole treatise. And since all disciplines fall under these two main categories, some of them dealing with the things of nature which happen of necessity, and others with the decisions of the human will, let us for the sake of our argument assign the former subjects to philosophy and the latter to philology; but let us do it in such a way that philology is not detached from philosophy, as has been done up to now by all the Greek and Latin writers, but rather that the one follow the other as a necessary consequence, as is proper. And in this way we shall try to form and establish the consistency of the jurisprudent in each of the two functions he performs when interpreting the law, on the one hand examining eternal reason as a philosopher, and on the other weighing the language of the law as a philologian.

Part One

On the Consistency of Philosophy

[Principle]

So then, in the order in which we demonstrated the principles of divine and human learning in the previous book, in the same order, I say, let us discuss the propositions derived from these principles so as to establish the consistency of the jurisprudent.

Chapter I

The true method of discussing divine and human matters comes from a proper knowledge of one's own nature

Within man is the principle of the sciences and virtues, not their buried memory.

[1] First of all, since we have derived the principles of all human and divine learning from a most definite understanding of our own nature, which is the knowledge, will, and power in each of us, these exist in man as the principles not only of the sciences, but of the virtues as well. Socrates accordingly said that neither sciences nor virtues could not be taught, but that they could be drawn from students by their teachers: he accordingly proclaimed himself "a midwife of minds," who could stimulate that impulse for the truth we mentioned, but could not instill it. As evidence of this, by asking the proper questions he drew geometrical proofs from boys scarcely seven years old and entirely ignorant of geometry: and so he declared that half of a science is contained by properly formed questions. The Platonists followed his lead and defined dialectic as "the art of asking questions." All of which leads to the conclusion that the truest method of discussing divine and human matters comes from a proper understanding of one's own nature.

In the quest for truth the vices of the spirit are more damaging than the errors of the mind.

[2] Although the vices of the spirit arise from the errors of the mind, yet in the quest for truth the vices of the spirit are the greater impediment; for from corrupt morals proceeds a passion for sects or factions, our favorite intellectual pastime, by which we cause the errors of the mind to become entrenched. Aristotle therefore sought to keep adolescents from studying ethics, because they are of the age most disturbed by the emotions, and do not yet possess the first principle of that discipline.

Chapter 2

Skepticism must be eliminated from every branch of learning, especially ethics

Continuing on then in the order in which we began, with metaphysics, the mother of all sciences, since we have demonstrated that the whole human race possesses certain common concepts of eternal truth, and that those who do not share in these concepts seem to be completely lacking in basic human understanding, let us banish from the entire range of human and divine learning skepticism, an enemy of every religion, a blight on every state, with its inability to comprehend the truth, and that vile suspension of judgment, which causes a man to be so uncertain of right and wrong that even if his own father were in mortal danger he would not go to his aid. And as for those Carneadeses, who on one day argue that there is justice in human affairs and on the following day argue with equal force that there is not, let them be publicly expelled from every state, just as in olden times Carneades himself was expelled from Rome.

Chapter 3

On the truth of Christian metaphysics

God is true being - The double life of man: in God divine, in the body brutish - For a Christian, civil theology is the same as the natural theology of the Platonists.

We have seen that through the idea of an eternal order men know the principles of the sciences in God, and accordingly that the principles of the things themselves [that the sciences treat of] are from God. And from this we have understood that God is infinite power, knowledge, and will, and, because these three things are one, is true being. Therefore Christian metaphysics is true, by which God defined himself to Moses: "Who is sent me; I am who am"; wherefore the divine Plato, when he says "being," means God, as if all created things have no real existence in comparison to God. This is the source of that metaphysical analysis of the apostle: "In God we live, and move, and have our being." And indeed in God we live in accordance with truth and reason, which is the divine life of man; just as in the body we live from the falseness of the senses and from desire, which is the brutish life of man. Therefore we have demonstrated too the Christian criterion for truth, which divine wisdom itself teaches us: "I am truth" and "God is the father of light."

Chapter 4

On the truth of the Christian religion

What is true religion?

[1] We demonstrated at the very beginning that Adam, created man by God and of an uncorrupted nature, fell by his own sin: whence we demonstrated the principles of sacred history, and accordingly the principles of revealed theology. And since God himself is truth and the one true thing, and we know the truth not by sense but by mind, it follows that true religion is the worship of the one God, perceived by mind.

The duty of a true grammarian, according to the weighty example of Varro.

[2] Varro, commonly eulogized as "the most learned of the Romans," who in his capacity as perfect grammarian wrote the books On divine and human things and On philosophy, by subordinating philology to philosophy perceived this to be the true religion, and, if he had been given the power to decide religious matters, would maintain that in accordance with a "formula of nature," that is from an idea of truth, one God should be worshiped in the form of no image.

Of true divine worship . . .

[3] The uncorrupted Adam contemplated God with a pure mind, and loved Him with a pure spirit. This is the worship of God which was conjectured by Varro.

. . . there are two parts: purity of mind and piety of spirit, whence truth of life and love for man.

[4] So then there were two parts of this worship: purity of mind, which was undefiled by the errors of the senses and the perturbations of the spirit; and piety of spirit, which is properly termed 'love for God'. Through purity of mind it was a characteristic of uncorrupted man to live in truth with all throughout his days; through piety of spirit it would have been his habit also to love the elderly as parents, those his own age as true brothers and sisters, younger folk as sons and daughters, all without exception. As a result piety later came to be spoken of as something directed not only toward God, but toward parents, relatives and homeland as well. It was in misguided pursuit of this piety that Plato in his Republic proposed that wives be held in common.

Complete or heroic wisdom - Philosophical wisdom and civil wisdom in corrupted man.

[5] And this purity of Adam's, this piety toward God was complete and truly heroic wisdom, which later, when nature had been corrupted, was divided; and the term wisdom was applied to the contemplation of the highest things, which had been but a single part of uncorrupted human wisdom, namely the contemplation of God from a pure mind. And wisdom was also used to describe the exceptional prudence of statesmen, by which they preserve the human race to the greatest possible extent, as for instance those who establish commonwealths with excellent laws or govern them with wise counsel, or aid men with useful precepts for the conduct of their lives. This civil prudence had been the second part of uncorrupted wisdom, by virtue of which uncorrupted man, animated by piety for God, loved all men. The Greeks consider their Seven Sages to be of this type, like Solon, who by his laws established the liberty of the Athenians; and the Roman people called Sempronius Sophos, wise, because of his vast knowledge of law, and called Scipio Nasica, judged to be the wisest of mortals by the senate, as Socrates was by the oracle, Corculum, or wise heart.

A passage of Polybius interpreted in a good sense - The uncorrupted Adam alone was truly wise - Justice is greater than valor - Friendship is greater than justice.

[6] And we should quote here that statement of Polybius, which the impious twist to their own purpose: "If all men were wise, there would be no need of these laws and religions." Surely it is better to believe that this very wise historian was speculating on true human wisdom, of the sort possessed by the uncorrupted Adam. For indeed if Adam, in his uncorrupted state the only possessor of true human wisdom, had not sinned, we would be living united with God by a pure mind, and by contemplating God we would not hear the troubling voices of desire; and so we would be living, not only a blameless life, but even a blessed one. And so Polybius was speaking in the very same fashion as Themistocles when he said: "If men cultivated justice, there would be no need of valor"; and as Aristotle when he said much more forcefully in his Ethics: "If the human race cultivated friendship, which ordains that all property be held in common by all, we would need not even justice itself, and so neither laws nor state." Therefore these prayerful utterances of the wisest men can only be speculations concerning the uncorrupted human nature created by God. In other respects Polybius acted in the manner of men, and judged all religions false on the basis of his own false religion.

When man was corrupted, piety was replaced by religion, and purity of mind by purity of body, which took both a permanent and temporary form for the Hebrews, for the gentiles only a temporary one.

[7] But when nature was corrupted through the sin of Adam, piety was replaced by religion, which is properly defined as 'fear of the supreme deity', the fear in fact arising from a consciousness of guilt. In this sense that statement of the poet is true, which the impious claim as their own: "It was fear that created the first gods on earth." Moreover, purity of mind was replaced by purity of body, which took a permanent form for the Hebrews in the practice of circumcision, which scholars note was adopted by a number of gentile peoples for hygienic reasons; but purity of body was sought too by these same Hebrews by the practice of ritual baths before offering sacrifice. The only means by which the gentiles sought purity of body was by washing before making sacrifice, from which rite Cicero derived that rule in De legibus: "Approach the gods in purity." The second part of the injunction - "observe piety" - was transferred from uncorrupted nature to corrupted nature, where piety was held to be the fear and awe of the gods.

Honor properly belongs to God - What is it? and where does it come from? - Its difference among Hebrews and gentiles.

[8] And because as a result of fear piety for the Deity, or love for God, in uncorrupted nature was replaced in corrupted nature by honor, a word which Aristotle teaches is properly used in reference to the gods; and because honor is a sign, made by altars, temples and sacrifices, of our own weakness and the divine power, the Law of the Twelve Tables, as quoted by Cicero, after commanding piety, which we have interpreted as 'honor', immediately adds: "Leave riches behind." And so the gentiles, in place of the true worship of God from a pure mind, instead gave honor to the gods only with a pure body. The Hebrews gave honor with a body purified by both circumcision and ritual baths, but especially with a "broken spirit" and a "humble and contrite heart," and therefore with purity of mind more than of body they made sacrifice to the true God.

The contemplative life provides the pattern for the active life - Contemplation is the mother of divination - The Hebrew people were founded on the basis of no divination - The twin birth of idolatry and divination.

[9] And since uncorrupted man used to contemplate eternal truth with a pure mind, men in a corrupted state began to contemplate the heavens with their sight, which is the original meaning of contemplatio, from the augural term templa caeli, that is the regions of heaven that the augurs marked out before taking the auguries (and extemplo is used in the sense of immediately, because when they had taken the auguries they came down from the augural tower without delay). And since in former times man by contemplating eternal truth from a pure mind learned the proper conduct of life from God himself, the human race later sought to discover the proper conduct of life by contemplating the heavens. For this reason the Hebrew people, who worshiped the true God, were founded on the basis of no divination, which is the chief reason why they lived segregated from the gentiles, among whom divination sprang up at the same time as its twin sister idolatry. In Asia among the Chaldeans the planets, because of their unusual movement and luminosity, were regarded as gods, and the future was foretold from viewing them. This practice was called magia and its adepts magi, or wise men. In Europe, as among the Greeks and Romans, divination consisted of the taking of auspices.

The true in uncorrupted nature was replaced in corrupted nature by the certain - Civil divine matters - Natural divine matters - How metaphysics is the material of religions - How the parts of uncorrupted wisdom, divided by the corruption of nature, coalesced.

[10] And yet the worship of God with a pure mind from a knowledge of eternal truth would have been eternal in uncorrupted man, for it would have always been uniform. Hence, when man through sin forfeited the knowledge of truth from a pure mind in the conduct of his life, the true was replaced by the certain; and certain gods, certain ceremonies, certain verbal formulas were established by the laws, so that the religions might be, as far as was allowed in human affairs, eternal. These are the divine things the laws prescribe, and among the masses correspond to the divine things which the philosophers teach by reason, and are the primary eternal truths that metaphysics establishes. Therefore those things that metaphysics deals with were established by the peoples as religions: a true religion by the Hebrews, who worshiped a single uncreated Creator in the form of no image; false religions by the gentiles, who worshiped in the guise of idols the world, and the soul of the world, and the mind of that soul, or a moving force coeval with the world, acting of necessity and divided among the parts of the world, just as for example Jove was the moving force of the air, and Neptune of the sea. And so the two parts of uncorrupted wisdom, as far as was permitted through corrupted nature, again coalesced: the contemplation of the highest things and the taking thought for the preservation of humanity. And so the peoples were founded, and the human race propagated by religions.

The religion of the deists is demonstrated to be false.

[11] Furthermore, because original sin corrupted human nature, since it could no longer be restored by nature, it could only be restored by the provision of divine aid superior to nature. But I have said "as far as was permitted through corrupted nature": for the civil religions of the gentiles prove well enough of themselves that they are false; the religions of the gentile philosophers are confuted in accordance with our principles as follows: -- I perceive that my mind is finite, for I do not understand an infinite number of things: but through the idea of an eternal order I recognize eternal truths, through which I could communicate with infinite intelligences, were there any such. Therefore the idea of an eternal order is not the idea of a finite mind; and yet it must belong to mind, since through the idea of body I understand that I am bounded and limited. It therefore belongs to an infinite mind, and an infinite mind is God. And yet that mind is not my mind, which I comprehend to be finite. Therefore all deists are wrong, who think that God, an infinite mind in an infinite body, assumes in me when I think a form peculiar to a part.

A demonstration of Christian faith.

[12] Furthermore, because original sin corrupted human nature, since it could not be restored by nature, it had to be restored by the provision of divine aid superior to nature. By original sin man forfeited a pure knowledge of eternal truth: therefore eternal truth, that it might be recovered by the human race, had to be restored by the provision of a reason superior to nature, not by arguments, but through a single virtue of the mind - faith.

A demonstration of the incarnation - The superiority of Christian virtue to that of the pagans - A demonstration of Christian charity.

[13] Hence the Word invested human nature with divine wisdom, and it laid down a law - one contrary to the law of the members, and truly heroic - which set forth the obligations imposed by a virtue far superior to that taught by any of the gentile philosophers: infinite love for God, and from that love charity of all for all, whether strangers, or the deserving, or the undeserving, or even enemies. This, as we have said, had been the God-given piety of the uncorrupted Adam.

A demonstration of divine grace - A demonstration of the sacraments of baptism and penance.

[14] And since human nature in its fallen state could not provide precepts unaided, the Word by its supernatural aid restored to it not purity of the body, but purity of the mind, which was in uncorrupted nature the second part of divine worship. This was not indeed the same purity of mind as was in uncorrupted nature, since nature had now fallen, but it was of the same kind. And this purity was composed of two parts: the one a perpetual purity, the mystery of circumcision, restored by the establishment of baptism, which provides us with a sure knowledge of the true God and of all things revealed by Him, and thus cleanses the mind of errors; and the other a temporary purity, restored by the establishment of penance, through which we grieve for having wounded His infinite godhead, and which thus cleanses the spirit of passions.

A demonstration of the Christian hero.

[15] Hence that pleasure of the spirit, which the pagan philosophers teach is felt by their hero in curbing the pleasures of the body from his now strongly developed state of virtue (though they themselves do not experience it, for because of the corruption of nature they cannot, and they ease their pain by striving for earthly glory, like that won by Codrus, Scaevola, Curtius, and Decius); that pleasure of the spirit, I say, is engendered for the glory of God by divine grace in the Christian hero as he bears up under hardships with contempt of self.

A demonstration of the New Covenant.

[16] For indeed, because the infinite will of God was violated by the sin of Adam, the Word took human form, and, serving as both eternal priest and eternal lamb, offered itself up to the Father in an eternal sacrifice of infinite honor, so as to reconcile God to the human race. By the merits of this divine sacrifice divine grace draws men to God, for, just as St. Augustine teaches, quoting most aptly from the poet, "each man is drawn by his own pleasure."

A demonstration of eternal blessesedness, and hence of Christian hope.

[17] Finally, man through original sin forfeited the enjoyment of eternal goodness in this life. Therefore eternal blessedness had to be restored from the merits of Christ to those who, aided by the virtue and example of Christ and trusting in divine hope, do battle with desire in this life and bear up under hardships.

God is the beginning and end of Christian charity.

[18] And so that piety toward God, and through Him the whole human race, which would have reigned in uncorrupted nature, was transformed into the charity which Christ commanded above all else. This charity prescribes rules in accordance with the law of nature with such earnestness that the duties it enjoins belong to a virtue far superior to the virtue of the pagans: and by this virtue, and his law and example Christ restored corrupted nature, so that the divine life of man, which began with the contemplation of God with a pure mind, might by the same kind of contemplation return at length to God after this life.

The principle of the new jurisprudence is the same as that of Christian metaphysics.

[19] Moreover, because religion is the foundation of the laws, since the religion of the Romans was a false one the Law of the Twelve Tables, the source of all ancient law, began with purity of the body. Once true religion spread to the Roman government, the imperial regulations, which founded a new law on the basis of the natural order, began with purity of the mind, which is to say a true knowledge of divine nature, that is, with the title On the supreme Trinity and the Catholic faith: so that what the philosophers of the gentiles classified as duties in accordance with the power of truth and judged on the basis of shame, the Christians performed in accordance with laws prescribed by the dictates of conscience. And so it is a duty imposed by philosophy itself that a philosopher be Christian.

Chapter 5

The metaphysical doctrines of Plato which should be accepted

[1] And since uncorrupted nature enjoyed the pure contemplation of eternal truth, and was corrupted by the sin of Adam, as we have demonstrated, three doctrines of Plato are true:

On eternal ideas.

[2] First, the doctrine on the class of things which are beyond the corporeal, and therefore eternal, and are not perceived by sense but by understanding, in other words the doctrine of ideas, insofar as these communicate eternal truths to the mind. But the conclusion drawn from this, that men's spirits exist prior to their conception, is false. For God either implants ideas in the mind when he creates it, as René Descartes believes, or through occasional causes either creates ideas in the mind, as Antonio Arnaldo holds, or displays them to the mind, as Malebranche.

On the immortality of spirits.

[3] Second, the doctrine on the immortality of spirits, since the spirit is the foundation of the human mind, and the mind is the abode and dwelling place of eternal truths, and it is impossible for the eternal to be founded on the temporal.

On divine providence.

[4] Third, the doctrine on divine providence, or an eternal mind, which dispenses and guides all by the eternal order of things, in the idea of which eternal order we know eternal truths.

Chapter 6

How must the metaphysical doctrines of the Stoics be regarded?

In what way is their doctrine on fate false? In what way true?

Therefore the doctrine of the Stoics on fate is false, insofar as they hold that it is a necessary course of events which by its power sweeps along all things with it, even the free will of man; but insofar as they teach that fate [fatum ] is the word with which God speaks [fatur] eternal truth to the human mind, whence the philosophers called later natural law fas, their opinion is entirely true, since that law is completely immutable.

Chapter 7

The war declared on metaphysics by Epicurus an unjust one

The void is nothing.

[1] Epicurus then was wrong when he taught that there exists a single class of things, namely body, and that what is not body is void, or nothing; whence he decreed that there were two principles of all nature, body and void. By this doctrine he declares an impious and destructive war on the mind and all that consists of mind.

The doctrine of chance a product of weak minds.

[2] And since he recognized nothing but body and void, he was led to that highly improbable and completely ridiculous doctrine on chance, which holds that all things arise from the fortuitous collision of atoms in the void and are governed by blind lot. Thus in the judgment of Horace, himself a member of the epicurean sect, "while steeped in mad wisdom he wandered astray," he eliminated divine providence.

Autopsia is an uncertain guide to the truth.

[3] And with the same impious consistency of doctrine he all too ambitiously established autopsia, or the evidence of the senses, as the criterion for truth, proclaiming that things are such as they appear to each person. And so he rejects eternal truths, on which there is the most steadfast agreement among all men, though they are vastly different, and sometimes even opposite and antagonistic in their perceptions, temperaments, habits and pursuits.

Chapter 8

On the truth of Christian morality

What is the Christian life? - What is Christian virtue?

After demonstrating with the aid of metaphysics that the principles of the Christian religion are true, we moved on to Christian morality, the principal offshoot of Christian metaphysics and revealed theology; and we saw that virtue is the power of truth which does battle with desire. Therefore Christian ethics is true, which teaches that "the life of man on earth is one of warfare," and along with the Apostle defines virtue as "the law of the mind, which does battle with the law of the members."

Chapter 9

Every pagan philosophy is wrong concerning the ends of the good

There is no human blessedness - The hero of the philosophers a conjecture concerning the uncorrupted Adam.

Therefore that human blessedness extolled by the pagan philosophers is a deceptive fantasy born of human misery. For since they could not divine the grace of Christ, that hero of theirs, who refrains from the pleasures of the body with pleasure of spirit, and bears with joy terrors and hardships even unto death, is a conjecture of superior minds concerning uncorrupted man.

Chapter 10

None of the virtues of the pagans is perfect

Self-love is the stimulus to gentile virtue - The impious pride of the Stoics.

And the very thing that the pagan philosophers teach, that no true virtue exists in isolation, but where one is truly present, there all its companions are as well, is their public admission of the imperfection of their pagan virtues, which are all based on self-love, for they arose from a desire for earthly glory. Whence that impious pride of the Stoic sage, who is inferior to almighty God only in the eternity of His blessed life.

Chapter 11

Divine grace alone can bestow true virtue

A demonstration of divine grace.

[1] But self-love has its source in our fallen nature: therefore a virtue that can overcome it is a virtue greater than human. This is divine grace, the vanquisher of human desire, which produces in us contempt and abasement of self, through which we might recognize that all good comes from above.

Abasement of self is the foundation of Christian virtue.

[2] Therefore humility of spirit is the basis of all Christian virtues.

Chapter 12

The moral doctrines of Plato which agree with our own Christian doctrines

How is philosophy the contemplation of death?

[1] Hence the definition of philosophy handed down by Plato is true, that it is the "contemplation of death," by which we suppress as much as possible our senses and desire, that we might more easily live in accordance with truth and reason.

The end of philosophy is the union of the mind with God.

[2] This is likewise true: the principal, nay rather the supreme fruit of philosophy is the union of the mind with God.

What is the divine life of man? the human life? the brutish life?

[3] And so too is the following true: the divine life of man is to contemplate eternal truth; the human life is to do all things in accordance with eternal truth; the life of the brute it to do all things in accordance with the falsity of the senses.

Honestas is the beauty of virtue. How great is it?

[4] Finally, this too is true, which follows as a consequence of all we have said: man must live with honestas, which is to say in accordance with eternal reason. Plato calls this honestas the beauty of virtue; and he perceives this beauty to be so great that, if it could be seen with the eyes of the body, all men would be consumed by a burning love for virtue.

Chapter 13

Which moral doctrines of the Stoics agree with Christian teachings

What things do the Stoics consider good, what bad, what neither?

[1] The Stoics agree with Plato on this point, for they define the good in terms of beauty, the bad in terms of ugliness; as for everything else - belonging to the nature of the body and to fortune - they proclaim to be adiaphora, which is to say, indifferent things; that is, good for those who know how to use them, bad for those who do not.

What it means "to follow God."

[2] And that celebrated phrase of theirs, "to follow God," means to live in harmony with rational nature.

For the ancient interpreters of the law and the Stoics, the principles of ethics are the same.

[3] For the Stoics, these principles are what they call consequentia naturae, natural consequences, which we have demonstrated are exactly the same as the later natural law of the ancient interpreters, which is to say, natural reason, which rules and guides the adiaphora. In these adiaphora are the prima naturae, the primary objects of nature, as the Stoics themselves call them, with which the earlier natural law of the ancient interpreters concerned itself.

What is the meaning and derivation of officium? - Where the grammarians are censured.

[4] And they call that which is in harmony with rational nature officium [duty], a word which the grammarians wrongly believe is, by antiphrasis, quod non officiat [that which does not obstruct], when in fact it is derived from the particle ob, which denotes perfection to the highest degree, and facio, I do, so that officium is something done perfectly (or correctly, or well).

The vanity of apathy.

[5] And as for apathy, or the freedom from passions, had this too not been a conjecture of the sharpest philosophers of that sect concerning the kind of uncorrupted man who must surely have been created by God, it would clearly be but an empty hope born of human frailty.

Chapter 14

The error of Epicurus in his moral teachings

Epicurus's procedure was correct, but his premise was flawed - Bodily pleasure is not the end of the good.

[1] Epicurus then was wrong in his belief, when he recognized only body in nature and nothing beyond nature, and so was compelled by doctrinal consistency, or I should say wretched necessity, to maintain that the spirit was either body or a modification of the body; and hence judging the truth of things by the senses, he defined human felicity as bodily pleasure; yet comparison and choice are required, as he says in that glorious canon of ethics, when he prescribes that the wise man pursue those pleasures which bring the least pain and those pains that bring the most pleasure.

Epicurus is confuted by Epicurus.

[2] But he did not recognize that this choice, this comparison are not performed by the senses, but by the mind. For the comparison and choice of bodies are not themselves bodies, nor are they void, or nothingness; nor is comparison a property of void, since nothingness has no attributes; nor in turn is it a property of body, for it would then be possessed by the bodies themselves, and everyone who was endowed with sense would be wise.

[3] For example, measurement is a comparison of a body, but it is not performed by that body. For it is a characteristic of a body to be able to be measured, just as it is a characteristic of a body to be able to be moved. But the ruler belongs to the craftsman, just as it requires the agency of another to be moved: unless perhaps, as the chance swerve of an atom created the universe, so too does chance create a wise man. Let Epicurus admit then that philosophy is the creation of a thing other than body and void, which is not a modification of body and void; and that it is this thing that is the creator of so splendid and clearly divine a work as philosophy.

[4] And let us not argue with Epicurus and his followers over the meanings of the words 'spirit', 'mind', and 'God', since they admit that these things are exactly as we perceive them to be.

Chapter 15

Aristotle's doctrines on ends are corrected

Aristotle is refuted by Aristotle himself.

[1] Aristotle too is proved to be wrong by those golden thoughts on the felicity of the contemplative life, which he presented in his books on ethics.

Compared to the moral life, the metaphysical life is far the more blessed.

[2] For he says that that life is the most blessed of all, which is centered entirely on the activity which is deepest in man; the activity which is most tranquil, most continuous and always available; which is not impinged on, as is the activity of the senses, nor sought by the senses from without; which gives us a certain knowledge of ourselves, not uncertain, as does the activity of the senses; is the least dependent on body; and finally, unites man to God: whence he calls the contemplative life of man 'divine'. All of this he learned from Plato. And yet he establishes something else as the supreme end of life, namely, activity in accordance with virtue, which he says is toilsome, is known to us by the testimony of the senses (he beautifully explains this as the reason we take such delight in the senses), and requires the body and the senses of the body and even fortune; for one needs the keenness of the senses to exercise prudence, the enticement of pleasure to exercise temperance, bodily strength to exercise fortitude, political office to exercise justice.

As metaphysics is the source of every truth, so is it the end of every good.

[3] And yet activity in accordance with virtue is not an end, but a means to felicity, whereby through the frequent exercise of virtue we extinguish desire, and so are able more easily to contemplate eternal truth with a pure mind, and thus earn that which is not vouchsafed us in this life, eternal blessedness, which is nothing other than the contemplation of God with a pure mind. For if there is a single truth, there must also be a single true good; and, if there is a single eternal truth, there must also be a single eternal felicity which we should strive for.

With every distinction between metaphysical, moral and civil good eliminated, there is a single true blessedness, which is eternal.

[4] Metaphysics then does not have one end, and ethics another and politics a third; rather let us make the end of ethics and politics the same as that of metaphysics. We might then be led to a true and clearly eternal felicity by reflecting on eternal truths, to the degree possible given the corruption of nature and our enfeebled minds, and so be able to do all things in accordance with eternal truth, whereby we might in turn contemplate eternal truth with a pure mind in the afterlife. Of course, if men did this, not just separate individuals, not just the citizens of a single state, but the whole human race would live a life of supreme blessedness, to the degree allowed by corrupted nature.

Christian charity alone teaches the practice of metaphysical good.

[5] Therefore, the one end proposed by Christian wisdom, which we spoke of earlier, prescribes a virtue far surpassing any virtue of the pagans; and, as we have said, enjoins charity, of God and through God, toward all, whether strangers, or the deserving, or the undeserving, or even enemies.

The end of Christian ethics is superior not only to every ethical but even every civil end of the pagans.

[6] Therefore, if Aristotle considers the end of political philosophy to be superior to that of moral philosophy for this reason, because the end of politics spreads the good over a broader area than does the end of ethics, then the end of Christian ethics is superior to all, for it spreads the good to the entire human race.

Chapter 16

On the superiority of Christian civil doctrine

The divine origin of civil power.

[1] Civil doctrine emerges from moral doctrine, like a shoot from the bud of a vine. In our treatment of civil doctrine we demonstrated that man is by nature social, and that this social character of ours was implanted in us by God through the eternal idea of equal justice. It was in pursuit of this justice that men assembled in communities and founded states. The Apostle therefore rightly called the highest powers "the ordinances of God."

Commonwealths originate from a desire for equal justice.

[2] Commonwealths have their origin from God in the desire for equal justice. For we proved in the previous book that it was due to the secession of the primitive clients, who were being treated unfairly by the heroes, that the first commonwealths, those of the optimates, arose on earth. Therefore Christian civil doctrine is true, which teaches that commonwealths should likewise be administered with equal justice. This is in accord with that well-known precept of the political philosophers, which maintains that kingdoms and empires, if they are to be preserved, must be ruled by the same arts by which they are founded.

The benefit of the Christian religion.

[3] And indeed if we survey the whole of history, we will not find more peaceful commonwealths or milder princes than among the Christians; and whenever we read of Christian princes who were tyrants, or of Christian peoples beset by civil war, it was in those times when the moral teachings of the Christian religion, at least as regards the practice of those teachings, suffered greatly because of the sinfulness of Christians.

Chapter 17

On the principles of law that are in conformity with the Christian religion

The new jurisprudence is in conformity with the Christian religion.

[1] The spirit of the commonwealth is equal justice for all, the eternal idea of which we have demonstrated is from God. From this we concluded that the eternal form of states is the natural order; and accordingly that the spirit of the state is just, not on the basis of civil justice, but of natural justice. This justice was not founded or interpreted by the followers of Capito, that is the political jurists, but by the followers of Labeo, or the moral jurists.

Remarks on conatus.

[2] Moreover, along with the ancient interpreters of the law, philosophers highly skilled in investigating natural equity, we have divided natural law into two parts, earlier and later; and we have said that both consist of a certain power, or conatus. But we have denied all conatus to bodies: for conari, the verb from which conatus is derived, means nothing more than to resist the movement of something else. A curved branch bent back on itself is indeed in a state of conatus, but the conatus does not belong to the branch, but to the hand that keeps it from moving back in the opposite direction. Therefore in our Metaphysics, and in the letters which we appended to that book, we banished conatus entirely from physics and assigned it to metaphysics: for that which can resist the movement of a body is the same thing as that which can impart movement, namely the mind and God. And clearly no philosopher would deny that the conatus of bodies are their true movements. For conatus is of the body, but not by the body; and one who attributes conatus to bodies would also attribute to them the secret designs of nature, personalities, aspirations, sympathies and antipathies.

[3] It was for this reason that we denied earlier natural law to brute animals, which is a power of the body that is activated by desire, and brute animals do not possess desire, but only a certain likeness of it, which men term "appetite." This is not true desire, since brutes don't have a principle of freedom which can resist their own movements. But the later natural law is the power of truth and reason, which holds desire in a state of conatus, that is, it resists the movement of desire; and we have said that later natural law gives the form of law to the earlier, because it gives to it the quality of immutability in that which cannot be done through nature, that the former is not permitted through nature.

The principles of law of the ancient interpreters are in conformity with the sounder doctrine of God's grace.

[4] These principles of law are in close conformity with the sounder doctrine of grace. They are in fact natural reason, by which the peoples themselves are their own law: they are equally the light of the divine visage shining on all, and immutably preserve the freedom of the human will, so that we can, if we choose, resist the movements of desire. But the peoples, even Christian peoples, lacking divine grace, do not so much resist the movements of desire as deflect them with other desires, like the desire for human glory, and so they perform acts of imperfect virtue. Only the victorious grace of Christ grants us the power, through the glory of God, to make the proper choices; and only the virtue of God provides all virtues in a single virtue, which we have said is the mark of true virtue.

Chapter 18

Epicurus is baneful to Christian jurisprudence

Epicurus is both a materialist and hostile to geometry, and accordingly ignorant of natural justice.

Hence you see how baneful Epicurus is to Christian jurisprudence. Just as in his hostility to metaphysics he denied the class of eternal things beyond the corporeal, so too in his scorn for mathematics he ignored the fact that eternal truth forms the basis of the demonstrated sciences of measurement, arithmetic and geometry, which we have demonstrated are the foundation of commutative and distributive justice. And so he thought that the law does not exist in nature, and he placed it in the category of opinions. He did not base his assessment on eternal honestas, but on the transient needs of the body; and he figured that since these needs vary, the law too varies. He was therefore obedient to the senses, and so found ready followers in Macchiavelli, Hobbes, Spinoza and Bayle. But this was perhaps the weightiest proof that all were in error, especially Spinoza, who judges the truth of things by the mind, not the senses, and rejects anything that has not been clearly demonstrated, and in these opinions he agrees with Epicurus, and the skeptics agree with the both of them.

Chapter 19

The Platonists are well-suited to matters of jurisprudence

The metaphysics of law rests on the metaphysics of the Platonists.

And let the followers of Vinnius see for themselves whether it is in fact true what they say in jest, that laws are Platonic ideas. Plato demonstrated the immortality of the human soul, which the jurists teach is the seat and residence of universal law, and further demonstrated that the reason the human soul is immortal is because it belongs to the class of things beyond the corporeal: whence it is clearly established that laws belong to the class of eternal things by reason of the fact that they are not bodies, nor do they belong to bodies. The metaphysics of universal law rests on that distinction which the jurists make between corporeal and non-corporeal things, establishing that the corporeal consist entirely in sense and the non-corporeal in understanding, and we have given strong confirmation of this in the previous book.

Chapter 20

The jurists are more useful to the Christian religion than the philosophers

The metaphysics of indivisible laws confutes the deists.

But the jurists are superior to the philosophers for this reason, for, as we have demonstrated that by the power of truth they have reached the same conclusions as the Platonists, quite unawares, while engaged in another activity, namely interpreting the law; for the same reason they are more useful to the Christian religion than the philosophers themselves. For when they judge laws to be indivisible, they deny that they can ever assume the form of a part, but answer that they, in whole or in common, pertain to the allies of some law, because laws are spiritual things, or the modes of a spiritual thing: and we would accede to that false doctrine of the deists, that God is an infinite mind in an infinite body, and assumes separate forms peculiar to parts, reason in man, sensation in animals, life in plants, extension in bodies.

On the Consistency of Philology

There are two sources for all that is knowable: understanding and will.

Now, as man is comprised of understanding and will, all that is known to man is derived either from the human understanding or the human will; accordingly, all that is knowable can be ascribed either to the necessity of reason or to the choice of authority. Philosophy establishes the consistency of reason; let us try to have philology establish the consistency of authority, just as we have said that authority is a part of reason.

Chapter I

A New Science Is Attempted

What is philology? - The two parts of philology: the history of words and the history of things.

[1] Philology is the study of language, the activity which deals with words. It recounts the history of words by explaining their origins and development and assigning them to the various stages of the language, so as to understand their literal and figurative meanings and their usage. But since attached to all words are the ideas of things, it is primarily the responsibility of philology to understand the history of things as well.

Its auxiliary arts: epigraphy, numismatics, chronology - The vast resources of the philologist provide a vital service to the state.

[2] It is proper then for philologists to write commentaries on commonwealths, the customs of nations and peoples, laws, institutions, the branches of learning and works of art. They devote careful attention to epigraphy, numismatics and chronology, which enables them to provide weightier evidence concerning ancient times. The purpose of all this is so that they can explicate all writers of learned tongues, whether orators, or philosophers, or historians, and especially the poets. They thus confer on the commonwealth this vital benefit, the ability to interpret the ancient language of its laws and religion.

[3] But before we begin to treat of historical matters, it might be useful here to present a chronological scheme which is accepted by all, that we might have a display of those facts that are relevant to establishing our principles of history.

[Chronological chart]

What is history?

[5] History is the witness of time.

Varro's divisions of time.

[6] Up to now, men have followed Varro in indentifying three periods of time: the dark age, the mythical age and the historical age.

[7] The history of the dark age has up to now been despaired of, and because the history was despaired of, the age is dark.

The division of the mythical age in accordance with our principles.

[8] The history of the mythical or heroic age can be conveniently divided into two parts, that of the greater gentes and that of the lesser gentes. And since Hercules established the Olympic games, which for the Greeks was their most celebrated epoch, the history of the mythical age of the greater gentes, which recounts the story of their twelve gods, must extend all the way to Hercules.

Why has mythology, the first history of things, up to now been so barren?

[9] But students of this mythical period have believed that it was not so much the customs and commonwealths of the age that have been veiled in fable, as the nature of the gods, so that divine matters might be concealed from the common people. Consequently, they presume that after so long a span of time, it is excusable that their mythology is so uncertain, so contradictory, and so utterly barren.

[10] Moreover, the history of the mythical age, which concluded with the founder of the Olympic games, includes the Argonauts. And because it recounts the rest of the fables which took place after the assumption of Hercules into heaven, it embraces the Trojan War, the wanderings of Ulysses and the landing of Aeneas in Italy. Both these periods we refer to as 'the mythical age of the lesser gentes', properly called by all scholars 'the heroic age'.

An oversight common to all scholars.

[11] There is vigorous debate among the more sagacious scholars as to whether the events of even this period truly took place, and whether the heroes of this age were realistically portrayed. I am indeed amazed that those scholars with their sharp memories, who know the exact number of years by which Hercules preceded Theseus and Theseus Nestor, accept so tamely certain chronological monstrosities. They believe, for example, that Theseus was the same age as Amphitryon, whose wife was the mother of Hercules, and at the same time that Theseus was inspired by the glory of Hercules, and performed such noble deeds in imitation of him that Plutarch reports he was called "a second Hercules." They include Orpheus among the Argonauts, and must convince themselves that the Greek race suddenly went from being the wild beasts that Orpheus tamed with the music of his lyre to achieving such a sophisticated society that they were knowledgeable about shipbuilding and navigation and the long routes over the Aegean and Pontic seas to Colchis. And they make that same Orpheus a contemporary of Castor and Pollux, the brothers of Helen; so that within a single human lifetime the Greeks went from living like savages to having such powerful states that they could fight a war on land and sea and overthrow the wealthiest kingdom of Asia.

The error of all learned ages: that it was from choice that poetry arose and from choice that poetic speech differed from common speech.

[12] Moreover, up to now everyone has thought that poets concocted the fables by their own special divine talent, and invented a poetic language for themselves by their own art. Two things follow from this. One, if Homer, the father of all poets and, as Plutarch has it, of all philosophers as well, had been fathered by his own talent and formed by his own art, in a time ignorant of all philosophy, why, after humanity had been graced with all the arts of philosophy, did Homer's closest rival lag so far behind him? It is incredible that so great a man was suddenly created by his own efforts. Which leads to a question disturbing to pious minds: Were the various races each destroyed by its own special flood, and did the members of each race who had by chance survived in the high mountains preserve the antediluvian wisdom? This question, which suggests that the world is eternal, must be confronted by the Christian philosopher.

The reasons why principles of history are needed.

[13] The second conclusion that can be drawn is this: If poetic inventions and poetic speech arise from the special talent and artistry of poets, and if languages are the witnesses of history, then the poets cannot provide evidence concerning the common customs and commonwealths of the entire heroic period. And so, just as the history of the dark age is unknown, so too is the history of the heroic age false. But all respected authors, especially Plato, constantly cite the poets as witnesses of remotest antiquity.

[14] Moreover, the principles of the historic period are very few, and lie scattered about like a heap of rubble from the ancient world. For instance, there is the famous Tanaus, who set out from Scythia and subdued all the Orient and even Egypt. And likewise there is that Egyptian Sesostris, who repaid the Scythians in kind by conquering the Orient and even subdued a great part of Europe and Africa, conquests whose monuments Herodotus says he saw scattered throughout Asia. And yet both of them, like Hercules, returned home with nothing to show for their victories save a glorious reputation for having conquered the world.

The principles of profane history are incompatible with sacred history - Roman history confutes the false principles of profane history, as they have been formulated up to now - And the law of the gentes supports Roman history.

[15] These things, were they true, would provide the Chinese with proof that the world is incredibly old. This must not be ignored by the Christian philosopher, but completely denied and refuted. This will be easy to do, because we have learned the truth from Roman history. The Romans came to know foreign peoples through the injuries those peoples inflicted on them, and foreign peoples came to know the Romans through the wars the Romans waged to avenge those injuries; and the punishments of war were always captivity and slavery. And that custom, which began with the founding of the first communities on earth, persisted for a very long time, that the peoples dwelled in seclusion from one another without any communication, as the war with the Tarentines sufficiently teaches us, waged 475 years after the founding of Rome. Although the Romans were from the same small peninsula of Italy and had already subdued a great part of it in war and were now the masters not only of the Tyrrhenian but even the Adriatic Sea, when they sailed with their fleet to Tarentum they were insulted by the Tarentines and prevented from landing, because the Tarentines, to use the words of Florus, "did not know who they were or where they came from."

The Greeks were ignorant of ancient times.

[16] The Egyptians forbid us to trace the principles of profane history from the Greeks, for when the Greeks were boasting that they were the original founders of civilization, the Egyptians corrected the notion with the witty response, "The Greeks have always been children." Therefore Plato in the Timaeus used this incident of the Egyptian priests as an occasion to censure the Greeks for their grave ignorance of antiquity. And Aristotle in his Politics is critical of the Greeks for relating fabulous accounts of Assyrian history, which is as much as to say that they were ignorant of the history of the greatest empire on earth. And of course Ptolemy records a long list of Assyrian kings completely unknown to the Greeks. But why wouldn't the Greeks be ignorant for so long of the Assyrians, since they were known to them neither by peace nor by war, and from the most ancient times it had been the habit of peoples to become acquainted with one another either through war or alliances of friendship.

The Greek character took the greatest delight in falsehoods.

[17] But why do we expect the Greeks to have knowledge of foreign matters when they were quite ignorant of their own ancient history? For how many fantastic tales surround Plutarch's Theseus, with whom Greek history begins? Therefore, before we published in Italian the synopsis of this work, we not only without reluctance, but right willingly took heed of that line from the satirist: ". . . whatever outrageous thing the lying Greeks write in their histories."

[18] Rome, moreover, was founded a long time after even the lesser gentes; and that custom long persisted among the Romans, which Sallust relates in the Conspiracy of Catiline: "They wished rather to perform noble deeds that others might praise than to relate the accomplishments of others."

The writers of history deny in word what they confess in fact: that history does not have principles - What would they be?

[19] So then we must conclude that profane history up to now does not have principles, though these are advertised in the grandiose titles of books written on the subject. The writers on history confess as much when they openly admit that profane history has neither certain origins nor a certain sequence of events. If it had, the events of the dark age would have been brought to light, and the events of the heroic age would have been extracted from the fables; and if we knew the events of the heroic age, we would know the causes from which the events of the historical age arose.

Etymology has been weak up to now: why so? - The first proof of weakness - The second proof.

[20] And following from this is another conclusion, which I present as a reproach to all philologists: Up to now their etymology has been quite weak. If history had provided us with the true origins and sequences of things, etymology would have provided us with the true origins and evolution of words. As a result philologists often, from the similar sound of a single syllable or even a single letter, and a most general resemblance between the things represented, fancy that they have explained the origins of Latin words, for example, by deriving them from Greek or Hebrew or some other distant tongue. But they did not realize that among those words which must by nature have been the first words in the Latin language, none of them has anything in common even with the nearby Greek: not pronouns, not even interjections. Which means the Latin and Greek peoples used different words to express fear and sorrow, and to give vent to their joy and wonder and similar passionate feelings. For the more erudite grammarians of the Greek language maintain that the word Dios was not used until a later period.

The two errors of all philology - The first: that the poets spoke improperly.

[21] Hence those absurd beliefs of all philologists: the first, that words belonging to prose speech are proper, for example, to be born, live, die, see, hear, fear, rage; and that the equivalent expressions of the poets are improper: to issue into the realms of light; to inhale the heavenly breezes or the spirit guides the limbs; the soul retreats into the breezes; to possess a thing with the eyes; to imbibe speech with the ears; a chill runs through the bones; the blood boils in the vitals. And in turn they maintain, and with good reason, that poets are much more ancient than writers of prose. This suggests that in the time of Homer, and still more in the time of Hesiod, or even Orpheus, that is in the heroic age, the Greek peoples spoke that language which after an extremely long interval of time was used by the writers of prose speech. Whereas among the peoples, especially seafaring peoples who have trade relations with foreigners, a language, even within a span of 500 years, undergoes such significant change that it seems an entirely different tongue.

The second error: Homer, Hesiod, and Orpheus spoke their own special language.

[22] With the same perversity they share these two contradictory beliefs: One, that the poets spoke "in a different tongue," to use the expression of Cicero, than the people, and accordingly that Homer, Hesiod and Orpheus did not speak in the common tongue of their race, but in their own peculiar language; two, that the poets were the first founders of commonwealths. If in fact the poets took a mob of savages living in the woods and formed them into a civil society, why did they use a language so remote from common speech that grammar was invented primarily to interpret their meaning?

A grave doubt: Has the true origin of poetry been unknown up to now?

[23] These two things, so very contradictory and yet so very true, cause me to seriously wonder whether the true origin of poetry has up to now lain hidden and unknown.

Why are philosophers averse to the studies of philology? Is this right?

[24] And for all these reasons I, who throughout my life have always been one to take more pleasure in exercising my reason than my memory, discovered that the more I learned in philology the more ignorant I seemed to be. And so not without reason René Descartes and Malebranche said that it was unsuitable for a philosopher to devote much time and effort to philology. But if this dictum were taken too far, with the endorsement of such great authorities, it would certainly come to destroy Christian commonwealths. For the laws in each part of our Bible were written in other tongues, those of the Old Testament in Hebrew and other eastern tongues, those of the New Testament in Greek; and the laws in the Corpus of Justinian Law were formulated in Latin, and these in turn are greatly illuminated by the Basilica and other books on eastern law written in Greek. Theology and jurisprudence depend in large measure on a knowledge of these languages, and translators do not have the authority of the original authors.

It is an appropriate task for a Christian philosopher to reduce philology to the form of a science - Why was Plato's Cratylus unsuccessful?

[25] And so those two preeminent philosophers, had they been more devoted to the common glory of the Christian name than to the personal glory of philosophers, would have so advanced philology that the philosophers might see whether it was possible to relate philology to the principles of philosophy, following the weighty example of Plato, who tried to do this in the Cratylus. Yet Plato met with poor success, because he didn't know the specific language which had been introduced by the first laws. This of course was the language which had been a living tongue in the age of the poet heroes, who were the first to found commonwealths with laws. And the reason he didn't know this language was because at Athens the laws had long been couched in a modern idiom, since they were revised every year by the nomothetes, or legislators.

The attempts made by Julius Caesar Scaliger and Sanchez and Schoppe contain more cleverness than truth.

[26] The quite capable philosopher Julius Caesar Scaliger, followed later by Sanchez and Schoppe, sought to investigate the causes of the Latin language by means of philosophical reasons, but the reasons were derived from Aristotelian philosophy, which arose many centuries after languages were first established, and which cannot be considered a philosophy of the entire human race, since it was not accepted even by the other philosophical sects in Greece.

[27] Therefore, embarking on a perhaps ill-fated but certainly pious venture, we have decided to discuss in this book the principles of humanity, the study of which is philology, using necessary arguments drawn from the nature of corrupted man, so that in this way we might bring philology into conformity with the standards of a science.

Chapter 2

On the Principles of Humanity

What is humanitas? - Why are language studies called studia humanitatis?

[1] Humanitas, humanity, is man's inclination to help man. This help is rendered mostly through speech, in the form of advice, admonition, exhortation, consolation, criticism, and the like, and for this reason, I think, language studies came to be called studia humanitatis, or studies of humanity. It could be though that they were called this because humanity is chiefly acquired through language.

The two parts of humanity, shame and liberty, which together give birth to liberality.

[2] But humanity, in the broader sense in which we are using the word here, consists of two principles, shame and liberty. These unite to form liberality, the virtue which directs and perfects this quality of man's. For man helps man either by word or by service or by thing, and if these three types of aid are to be properly rendered, it is necessary that both shame and liberty be present in unison. For example, servile shame is a characteristic of fawners, who not only do not aid the human race, but utterly ruin it, for they transform men from fools into utter madmen, who are then subjected to the gravest ills. On the other hand, harsh and bitter reproof serves more often to provoke men than to deter them from evil deeds or wicked schemes. Moreover, service, unless it is freely given, is forced labor, like that of farm animals. Finally, unrestrained liberty in aiding others is prodigality, which most often lavishes a thing on the undeserving, and ruins giver and receiver alike.

Shame the form, liberty the matter of humanity.

[3] Therefore, taking as our starting point the power of human nature itself, let us examine these two principles of humanity, one of which, shame, will serve as a kind of form, and the other, liberty, will be the matter, as it were, in accordance with those statements we made in the previous book concerning the form and matter of voluntary universal law.

Chapter 3

On One Principle of Humanity: Shame

[1] We said in the previous book that desire arises from finite things, and that it is a defect of the spirit contracted from the body through the sin of Adam, and for corrupted man is the fomenter of all sins.

Why did the angels and the uncorrupted Adam sin for the sake of the false and infinite goods of the mind?

[2] For there is clearly no theologian who would deny this statement: The reason that the angels, though incorporeal, nevertheless sinned, was not only because they wanted to sin in complete freedom and with no impulse of desire, but at the same time because - since they had felt no impulse of desire from body, which is finite - they sinned for the sake of something infinite, that is, they sought to be as God. Therefore they suffer the just punishment of infinite unhappiness, for they wish that God did not exist, who is infinite good, and thus they hold every good in eternal hatred, and love nothing except falsehood, which is nothing. The sin of Adam was almost of the same kind, for in his uncorrupted state he could, if he wished, have paid no heed to desire, but an evil demon tempted him, not with any good of the body, which would have necessarily been finite, but with an infinite good of the spirit, the very wisdom of God. The demon said, "You will be as gods, knowing good and evil."

Shame is the consciousness of wrongdoing - The first divine punishment visited on man by God.

[3] So then, since man scorned his own knowledge, which he enjoyed through the kindness of God, and longed to obtain infinite knowledge, God gave him a most appropriate punishment, a consciousness of error or wrongdoing, which is nothing other than shame for not having known truth. And this was the first punishment of all, and a truly divine one. For the Latin word for punishment, poena, is properly derived from the verb poenitere, to regret, which Plato judged to be the single punishment inflicted by Nemesis, that is, divine vengeance.

The greatest proof of the supreme wisdom of God - Shame, the source of natural law, was put in the place of uncorrupted simplicity.

[4] But because God rules all things and does everything by the simplest possible means, since he had foreseen that the first parent would sin, and that in him the nature of the human race would be corrupted, and that desire would oppress reason, and consequently that the senses would deceive the mind, he created man in such a way that he would be afflicted with shame, which is the source of all natural law. And so as soon as man lost his simplicity it was immediately replaced by shame. This is why immediately after the Fall our first parents became aware of their nakedness.

Shame was the inventor of religion.

[5] It was because of shame that, to replace the lost piety, which is love toward God, there came into being religion, that is, fear of the divine will; and the reason for this fear is that shame tells us that we have violated the divine will.

Whence the phrase rei stipulandi et promittendi?

[6] It is my guess that the phrase rei stipulandi et promittendi, 'guilty of the stipulation and promise', goes back to this earliest period of antiquity, and that this wording was used to warn both parties to fulfill their obligations at the proper time; and that if they failed to do so, they would be rei pudoris, subject to shame. You would say that this phrase applies to all who follow the strict letter of the law in disregard of equity and are thwarted by a plea, as though by an action of natural law. This type of plea was called by the Romans exceptio doli, 'the plea of deceit', which we said in the earlier book was prescribed by temperance.

Infamy, the second divine punishment.

[7] And from shame comes a respect for public opinion [sensus communis], which leads to a second divine punishment awaiting the reckless, infamy, which is the common judgment of men that condemns wrongdoing.

The glorious progeny of all the virtues are said to have sprung from shame - What is infamia facti?

[8] Similarly, from shame comes frugality and probity, which are the noble arts of the spirit that strengthen temperance; from shame too comes faith in keeping promises, honesty of speech, respect for what belongs to others, which are the noble arts of the spirit that strengthen justice; and from a concern for public opinion comes the suppression of wickedness, impudence, and recklessness, which are the sources of all crimes and wrongs. Those who commit these are subject by natural law to infamia facti, 'infamy of the deed', as the jurists call it, that is, they are convicted by public opinion.

The most ancient origin of the words arbitrari and decernere - What is the proper meaning of arbiter? - What is the origin of the expression decernere armis? - The history of the two words decidere and iudicare.

[9] Shame also taught the human race to conceal all that is foul and ugly in life, and to observe [arbitrari] and determine [decernere] by sight inequalities of useful things, at a time when all commerce was conducted by barter and, since a common system of measurement had not yet been developed, men assessed things by their bulk. I assign to those ancient times these two words along with their proper meanings. For arbiter properly means an observer, and one who judges a thing by observation is called an arbiter, as can be seen in the expression remotis arbitris, 'in the absence of arbiters'. So the term was later used in courts of good faith, which are chiefly based on shame, just as the term iudices, judges, was used in courts of strict law, as can be seen in the familiar formula inter iudices arbitrosque. Decernere, moreover, means to determine the equality of utilities by close observation. For cernere means to see with discrimination, so to speak, and decernere means to do this perfectly: therefore decernere belongs to those ancient times as well. Since later according to the law of the greater gentes this determination was made by violence, the expression decernere armis, to determine by arms, was used, which is properly rendered in Italian as vederla con l'armi. The proper expression for this was decidere, 'to determine by bloodshed', as it were. Finally, when civil law [ius] was introduced and courts [iudicia] were established, the word iudicare, to judge, was used.

A sense of shame was the first parent of fallen humanity and all civil life.

[10] Finally, it was at the bidding of shame that men in their lawless state, fearing the gaze of the sky, which they thought to be a god, ceased to couple promiscuously like beasts, and selected certain women to be their permanent consorts, chosen in obedience to the divine will, which they sought by auspices. And they ceased to wander like idle vagrants wherever there was pasturage, but settled in fixed abodes, determined by auspices, and began to cultivate the lands they occupied. Whence first families arose, then the greater gentes, next clientships were established, which led at last to the birth of commonwealths and empires, which in turn gave rise to the lesser gentes.

Shame is a stimulus to virtue.

[11] And with the same simplicity God the Best and Greatest, since he had created man of body and spirit, bestowed on man's spirit conatus, which we have demonstrated belongs to spirit. He did this so that when man had fallen, shame might exert this power of the spirit, whereby the spirit might command the mind and body.

Curiosity, the third divine punishment, by which corrupted man could be purified and invested with prudence - The derivation of delicta and vitia.

[12] For shame for not knowing the truth exerts that power which the spirit wields over the mind, causing the mind to persist in its search for truth until it has a full knowledge of it. This is the third divine punishment, curiosity, visited upon man that he might be purified by the very thing that caused him to sin. And from curiosity comes prudence, which causes its possessor to avoid rashness and its offspring delicta, offenses, a word which is properly derived from delinquere, which means 'to be deficient'. Prudence thus also causes man to avoid vitia, vices, the term that the Latins applied to the deficiencies themselves, as if the depraved habits of the spirit become ingrained by repeated offenses, which is to say, deficiencies in the effort necessary to seek out the truth.

The origin of human wisdom.

[13] From this power of the mind to seek out the truth, there arose wise men, who formed a higher conception of virtue than that possessed by the common folk. In conformity with this virtue and guided by the rule by truth, the philosophers prescribe duties of a higher order than those required by the law.

The fourth divine punishment, industry (which produced the strong men who founded states), has enriched the human race with all of life's benefits.

[14] Finally, with that same simplicity God in His supreme wisdom, because He had foreseen that fallen man, weak and alone, would be reduced to complete deprivation, formed him in such a way that strong men would emerge, who, living separated from the lawless mob out of shame for bestial sex, would exercise the power of spirit over body as well as mind, and cultivate the fields they had taken possession of, and receive the weak and destitute under their protection, so that commonwealths might be formed comprised of both strong and weak, the strong to rule, the weak to obey. Thus from the fourth divine punishment, industry - which God enjoined on the fallen Adam when He said "You will earn your bread by the sweat of your brow" - there arose on earth all the commodities of human life, which industry by its discoveries introduced to the human race, so that both those who were rich in these resources and those who lacked them were impelled to dwell in human societies.

In carrying out his designs God the Best and Greatest shows a woundrous simplicity . . .

[15] And so God the Best and Greatest used a single natural method of the greatest simplicity, that of shame, composed of a blending of the human body and the human spirit, and the same shame with which He punished the sin of our first parent, that very shame, I say, he made the basis of all natural law. From shame was born that power of the spirit which governs the mind and body, and through that power God brought forth in fallen man all the noble arts, with which He formed human societies, and sustained and preserved them in a natural way.

. . . and providence.

[16] Let the impious dismiss divine providence and deny, if they can, this order, everywhere self-consistent and of the utmost simplicity, which through the very things that would bring the human race to ruin, has blessed and enriched it with all the advantages of social life that we enjoy, so that it preserves man entirely by natural means. Consider the many great and various commodities of human life which lie scattered across the wide globe, are conveyed to a single market by sailors at huge risk and toil, are then refined by the labors of countless craftsmen, and finally put up for sale for the benefit of others. Who is it who is offering these things? Let Epicurus, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Spinoza and Bayle answer the question. Is it this person, or that one, who like a wild beast seeks only his own advantage?

An invincible demonstration of divine providence, against the philosophers of Necessity and Chance.

[17] For when did wild beasts ever contribute anything to their own common good? But of course these things are offered by man: although not this man or that one, yet surely man. For neither did this man or that one contribute everything, nor did my mode of perception produce this huge display of merchandise; nor did void, or nothingness, ever provide anyone with the least little thing, much less things of such number, value and variety. Therefore it is man, who is neither this one or that one, nor a mode, nor nothing. This is the nature of man, which does not make this man or that one a wolf to man, but commands that he be a God to man. And if so many great goods have come together from a single principle solely for the well-being of the human race, and this was not done randomly, or by blind Chance: was it then blind Necessity that assembled these things? If it was not blind, but intelligent, it was not necessity, but eternal providence, which divides and assigns the private activities of men, in such a way that, in addition to and even contrary to men's purposes, they might in the end come to reveal the infinite goodness of providence.

Chapter 4

On the second principle of humanity: liberty

Man alone is free, all other mortal things are slaves.

[1] To continue, man alone was created by God with liberty: all else are slaves without authority. Therefore as soon as God created Adam He granted him supreme authority over all other mortal things.

Dominion, corrupted when man was corrupted, must be moderated by shame.

[2] But just as human nature, though weakened by the Fall, was not entirely destroyed, so too this part of human nature, namely man's authority over things, was not lost, but corrupted, so that it had to moderated by shame. It was for this reason that God, since He had known that man would sin and, due to the weakness of his corrupted nature, would be reduced by poverty and solitude from a life of eternal goodness to one of acquiring the transient utilities of life, bestowed upon him shame, by which he might moderate these utilities.

What is natural liberty? - How is man by nature suus? - The servitude of nature is defined.

[3] This moderated authority over useful things is natural liberty, by virtue of which man is called suus, belonging to himself: just as what is under the power or dominion of another is called alienum, belonging to another. Whence comes the servitude of nature, whereby man becomes a bondsman to money, lust, and honor and lives as a slave.

What is suitas originaria? - Commerce was derived from liberty, and humanity from commerce.

[4] From this suitas of man, the quality of being his own person, which one might elegantly call originaria, original, and which we have defined as natural liberty, there arose commerce, from which, as though from a river flowing from a second source - liberty - humanity was derived. This is why we see that those communities celebrated for their commerce are the most humane, and those to whom commerce is unknown are quite savage.

The two parts of liberty: dominion and defense - The three primary sources of laws and commonwealths.

[5] There are two parts of this natural liberty, which branch off from it as though from a tree trunk, dominion and defense. For one who is free at least has dominion over his own liberty; and one who cannot defend himself against injury is a slave. These are the three primary rights from which, as we have seen, all laws and commonwealths arose, and on which all humanity was founded.

Natural authority.

[6] It is by virtue of liberty that man is his own person, which we have said is natural authority.

Chapter 5

On One Part of Liberty: Dominion

Dominion, or proprietorship.

[1] And we have said that dominion is that part of authority which is specifically called proprietas, proprietorship.

Dominion is divided into use and enjoyment - The two main types of things: those for use, those for enjoyment.

[2] Dominion thus defined has two subdivisions, use and enjoyment. And in fact there exist in nature only two categories of things over which man has dominion in this universe, the things which can be used and the things which can be enjoyed.

Things useful by nature - What is the proper meaning of utilitas? - How do things common by nature belong to no one? - What was the first dominion on earth?

[3] Utenda natura, things useful by nature, are those things which by their use confer some utility, utilitas, a word which most properly derives its name from these things. Things of this category include the air for sight, running water for bathing, the sea for sailing, and the shores of the sea for landing ships, and it is for these reasons that rivers and their banks are public property. These things are accordingly said in Roman law to be common in use to all and under the proprietorship of no one. The word proprietorship of course was being used with its current meaning, when the ownership of the land had been divided, not that primitive proprietorship of which we are speaking here. This communal dominion Grotius rightly defined as "use common to all mankind."

How is the land common by nature even now? - How are the rights of passage, drive, and way parts of dominion?

[4] And it follows from this that -- since the land itself belongs to the category of things useful by nature, insofar as it can be used to stand upon and travel over - sovereign princes, when the forces of other kings wish to make a journey through their domains, are most often obliged to provide them with safe passage, just as they are obliged to provide them an open sea and the right to land their fleets on the shores; and, if the kings should be prohibited from doing so, they can assert their right of passage through arms. In private affairs too the rights of passage, drive, and way are part of the dominion of those to whose estates these rights are attached, and if they should be impeded from exercising them, by the power of dominion they can claim their rights by an actio confessoria, which is a type of claim of dominion.

What are things that are useful according to the human will? - Why have they been assigned to the class of enjoyable things?

[5] But men have chosen to assign those useful things that are made by art, that is, all things that pertain to clothing and shelter and other human uses, except food, to the second type of dominion, the dominion over enjoyable things, since these are by nature superfluous, whereas use by nature applies only to necessities. This is the reason for the distinction commonly made by jurists and philosophers between usus and fructus.

What things are enjoyable by nature? - What is the derivation of frui? - Abusus properly means fructus.

[6] Moreover, those things are enjoyable by nature which by their enjoyment provide growth, as do fruges and fructus, fruits and produce, from which the word frui, to enjoy, properly derives. If Julianus had considered this he would not have entirely faulted the man who had defined fructus as those things that a man eats. For from these things comes the original signification of proprietas, because by fructus, enjoyment (we now use the term abusus, consumption), they become propria, our very own, and most properly of all pass into our substance.

What usufruct would truly be caussalis?

[7] And these things which I am saying are confirmed by the ancient interpreters of the law, when they say that dominion is the usufruct which they call caussalis, causal. If by caussalis they mean that dominion that is the most ancient of all, which the earliest men exercised, nothing can be said more elegantly. Nothing indeed prevents even barbarians from sometimes saying things elegantly, as the Latins did often, and the Athenians always. I say this to correct those who have believed elegance to be synonymous with Latin, not knowing that among the desiderata of Francis Bacon was a dictionary composed of the elegancies of all languages.

What is the true proprietorship of things? - What is the proper meaning of meum and tuum? - What is the derivation of mutuum?

[8] And so originally proprietorship was of those things which become our own by consuming: and this is the most proper meaning of meum and tuum, mine and thine, from which according to the jurists the word mutuum, loan, is derived. And so we have established the reason why this dominion over the property of another given in loan is acquired by consumption.

The words meum and tuum originated before there was a division of ownership - Meum and tuum, though a source of discord when property was held in common, after the division of ownership gave rise to human society, through the power of commerce.

[9] Therefore these two words, meum and tuum, which Plato said were the seed-bed of all discord, arose before there was a division of ownership. For when the desire that was the result of Adam's sin grew stronger, and humanity could no longer be preserved among men by communal ownership, which had been the most proper form of ownership for them, and meum and tuum began to sow discord, which threatened to destroy the human race, the division of land was introduced by divine providence, and meum and tuum gave rise to commerce, which we have said fosters humanity.

The metaphorical uses of proprietas.

[1] But the term proprietas was not immediately transferred to real property; this was rather a gradual process which happened by stages, which we shall now describe from the very nature of things.

First, the word was applied to the fruits separated from the soil - The gathering of fruits was the first act of appropriation that took place on earth, and was introduced by natural law, not the law of the gentes.

[11] First the term proprietas was transferred to the fruits separated from the soil by our labor, when the earliest men made the fruits of the earth their own by gathering them. This was the first type of appropriation that took place on earth, and the very first means of dividing ownership, and was introduced by natural law. Note I say "dividing," not acquiring ownership, and "by natural law," not the law of the gentes. This is because this appropriation of fruits was initiated by single individuals, before the gentes were established, and was done according to the right of dominion, which was born at the same time as man himself, and accordingly was called by Grotius dominium universale, universal dominion. The gathering of fruits then did not create ownership, but divided it.

How is liberty fostered by nature?

[12] And at this stage, as a result not of natural reason, but rather owing to the rich abundance of resources and a very sparse human population, men were temperate and courteous and took from the common store only what was enough; and so nature itself fostered liberty, which thrives in those places where men exercise temperance in their use of common goods.

The derivation of the expression frugi homines? - Among the Romans frugalitas encompassed every virtue.

[13] Hence, thrifty men were later called frugi homines, "fruit men," and the quality of temperance itself frugalitas. According to Cicero this word as used by the Romans encompassed every virtue, because in every virtue there exists a mean, "departing from which righteousness cannot abide." A vestige of this ancient usage survives even today, when we call a virtuous, temperate man homo frugi.

How the first foundation of justice, moderation, was established among men.

[14] And by this means, dictated by the circumstances themselves, moderation, the foundation of all virtues, was established among men by divine providence. For man had been deprived of divine aid so that he could not live an upright life on the basis of rational deliberation, and the occasions of common utility had not yet arisen to advise man of just and unjust.

The transfer of moveable goods, a method of acquiring ownership introduced by natural law, was adopted into the law of the gentes - The first occasion of utility to arise among men, which made them mindful of justice.

[15] And from what we have said so far it is clear that the transfer of moveable goods is a means of acquiring ownership, introduced by natural law, but adopted into the law of the gentes. For it is necessary, or at least possible, that before the founding of the gentes it happened that one person had an abundance of a particular kind of essential commodity, and another was in need of it. Shame would then dictate that the needy man receive the thing with the consent of the possessor, and promise to give in return either an equal amount of the same commodity, or some other thing that the other by chance lacked. This was the first occasion of utility that arose among men, which made them mindful of justice.

Exchanges were the first contracts on earth - Promises were in common use before the founding of the gentes - The transfer of real property was introduced by the law of the gentes.

[16] And in like manner we can infer that exchanges were the first contracts among men, and promises were commonly employed before the founding of the gentes, but only as regards moveable goods. But after the ownershop of the land was divided by the gentes, the concept of transfer was expanded and came to be applied to acquiring ownership of real property as well.

What is the derivation of industria? - What was man's first labor? - When did custodia begin to be used in the sense of proprietas? - What is the derivation of dominium?

[17] The word proprietas then took on a broader meaning, when men of foresight began to gather fruit and wood in the summer and store them for the winter. For this reason the men were described as industrii, and the quality they displayed industria, from the verb struere, to pile, because the noun struix, pile, was originally used of a stack of wood. And industria acquired the meaning of "labor," because this was man's first labor. At this stage custodia began to be used in the sense of proprietas; and dominium is perhaps derived from domus, house, because men preserved their ownership of goods by keeping them in the house, that is, by custodia.

When did the intention of the owner (spiritus domini), as soon as it was made known, begin to be equivalent to proprietas? - In what sense are the terms usus and auctoritas used by the law of the gentes? - To whom was the term auctores first applied?

[18] Later proprietas took on an even more improper meaning, when men increased in number and began to reserve for themselves plots of land, which the jurists call fundi, by setting up boundary markers, and the intention of the owner, signified by the erection of these boundary markers, established proprietas. From this time usus was understood in the sense of possession, and auctoritas in the sense of ownership. These two terms, belonging to the law of the gentes, were part of the formula appearing in the section of the Law of the Twelve Tables entitled De usucapionibus: Usus et auctoritas fundi biennium esto [Let there be possession and ownership of the farm for two years]; and in Roman law auctores are those from whom we receive the right of ownership, who are most often called venditores, sellers. The word auctor is not derived, as those most learned interpreters of the law wrongly believe, from augere or auctio.

Hermogenianus illustrated.

[19] These things that we have said concerning the history of auctoritas, or proprietorship, are in agreement with what Hermogenianus writes, namely, that ownership was divided by the law of the gentes, not introduced by it. For in accordance with natural law, ownership, born with man, was held in common. Then, through the stages we have described, it was divided by the law of the gentes, who established boundary markers in the fields, divided ownership, constructed buildings and founded kingdoms, as Hermogenianus recounts in the same passage. These were the gentes maiores, the greater gentes, by whom kingdoms were founded, not the gentes minores, the lesser gentes who emerged from those kingdoms that were founded, as we have demonstrated throughout the previous book

What is the proper meaning of "greater" and "lesser gentes"? What is their transferred meaning?

[20] This passage offorded us for the first time an opportunity to understand the origin of that expression, "the gods of the greater and lesser gentes," which I had previously heard many scholars use, but never learned from them what these words conveyed. To be sure, unless they are understood as we have distinguished them, neither this passage of Hermogenianus, nor countless other passages dealing with Roman history can be properly explained, as we shall see below. But the Romans transferred the meanings of these terms, as they did so many others, to signify something similar, and applied them to the patricians of the greater and lesser gentes. The patricians of the greater gentes were the descendants of the senators chosen by Romulus, before the founding of the Roman race, while those of the lesser gentes were of course the descendants of those senators chosen after the founding of the Roman race. These two terms have up to now been commonly understood in their tranferred, rather than their proper meaning, making much of Roman history extremely obscure, as we shall see.

Finally, proprietas was sufficiently indicated by the mere intention of the spirit - The spirit itself, and the things belonging to the spirit were called by the jurists substantia hominis.

[21] Finally, after the establishment of societies, proprietas, or auctoritas, acquired its most improper meaning of all, when rights became our own special property not by some physical occupation, not by custody, not by any permanent physical sign of our spirit, but rather were sufficiently indicated by the mere intention of the spirit; and the entire patrimonium was called substantia patris, a father's substance, and this substantia was termed hereditas. These were not bodies that were inherited, but a right, which belongs to the understanding.

How rights gradually and by degrees returned to their own incorporeal and eternal origin - Nothing is more man's own than his will - An extremely brief but highly interesting history of universal law.

[22] But from this history of the word proprietas you can see that while the term acquired improper meanings, the thing itself by its own power approached its own most proper nature, so that rights were transferred from the body to the spirit; and each man's property, which is the same as each one's right, passed first from consumption, then gathering, later occupation, next custody, afterwards boundaries, and finally returned to the will, which is man's most personal possession; and beginning from earlier natural law, and passing by these stages first through the law of the greater gentes and then through civil law, rights finally arrived at later natural law, which is to say, shame alone. You could elegantly say that all rights were introduced by the natural law of primitive man, refined by the natural law of the greater gentes, reduced by the natural law of the lesser gentes, and finally purged of almost all corporeality by the natural law of the philosophers.

Chapter 6

On the second part of liberty: defense

What is defense? - Defense is a power born with man.

[1] It remains to speak of tutela, defense. We have defined it as the freedom to defend oneself and one's own through the use of force, which is to say, it is a natural power born with man, whereby one who kills an unjust aggressor to defend himself and his property, if he cannot defend them otherwise, kills by the right of the superior.

Why was virtus originally a property of the body? Why was it then applied to the mind? - Actions and accusations: types of defense.

[2] Virtus took its name from vis, force, and originally meant that which might oppose with bodily force an outside force and overcome it: but later, when laws had been passed, it was transferred from a force of the body to a force of the spirit, and the force returned to its own nature, and is the right of claiming one's own or exacting retribution in court. In civil proceedings it is called actio, or action, in criminal proceedings accusatio, accusation. While formulas were in use, each of these defenses of our rights was formulated by statute. But when the natural law of the philosophers flourished, the defense of our rights was dictated by reason.

What is the origin of civil liberty? of truly civil dominion, which is commonly called 'eminent domain'? of civil power, that is, supreme power? of civil authority? Civil authority is the philosophy of the common people.

[3] But in the foundation of commonwealths, as we said in the earlier book, the liberty of individuals gave rise to civil liberty, which flourishes most when all are subject to the law. The dominion of individuals combined to form dominium eminens, eminent domain, in which, as if it were a kind patrimonium of the commonwealth, the rights of all private individuals are contained; and from the defense of individuals there arose supreme power, which defends all citizens with the armed force of the law; and from the authority of individuals arose civil authority, which, besides the duties required by nature, can enjoin the honorable duties of nature as well, and can prohibit those things that are permitted by nature. And so this humanity by which we are civilized must be ascribed to civil authority, a sort of philosophy of the common people.

What would the principles of profane history be?

[4] So that we might know the reasons by which this civil authority evolved from the lawlessness of earliest man to these commonwealths in which we now abide, the history of the dark age must be reconstructed according to our principles. These of course would be the principles, which up to now have been lacking, of universal profane history. If we fail in our attempt, our desire at least of aiding the human race with such important knowledge is surely worthy of some praise.

Chapter 7

On the principles of universal history

The two parts of history: the history of things and the history of words.

[1] Universal history is comprised of the history of things and the history of words; and it is clear that the history of words is derived from the history of things, just as there can be no doubt that things exist prior to their symbols.

The history of words: etymology - The first history of things: mythology.

[2] The history of words, etymology, is uncertain, because the earliest history of profane things, which is to say, mythology, or the history of the mythical age, has neither a certain origin nor a certain sequence. And the reason why its origin and sequence are uncertain, is because up to now a knowledge of the events of the dark age has been considered beyond all hope of recovery.

The certain origin and sequence of universal history must be sought from sacred history.

[3] So then, if sacred history presents us with an account of events which took place during the dark age and the mythical, or heroic age of profane history, we will then have a way to link the history of these two periods with true history. Therefore, just as it is true what has been said concerning the measurement of the natural world, that it derives its certainty from the certain measurement of the heavens, so too can it be said concerning the truth of the civil world, that the truth of profane history can only be sought from sacred history.

Chapter 8

A demonstration of the antiquity, continuity, and truth of sacred history.

[1] And so let us establish these three propositions concerning sacred history:

[2] One: that it is more ancient than all profane histories.

[3] Two: that it alone provides profane universal history with certain origins and a certain sequence.

[4] Three: that the events described by sacred history - even setting aside divine faith, though this is greater than any demonstration - are demonstrated by human arguments, and approach geometric truth as closely as the subject matter allows.

The antiquity of sacred history.

[5] The following three facts prove the antiquity of sacred history:

[6] One: No profane history clearly relates that both before and after the Flood, prior to the founding of commonwealths and the passage of laws, the human race lived unbound by law under a theocracy. The poets alone in their fables hinted, albeit very obscurely, that this was the most ancient state of affairs.

[7] Two: The Hebrew commonwealth itself was in the beginning founded as a theocracy by the laws of the Decalogue, which proposed no humanly ordained penalties; and it is related in a number of places in the Holy Bible that this theocracy lasted from the time of Moses all the way down to the kings, a span of 499 years. It was under a theocracy too that the twelve gods of the greater gentes, which is to say the most ancient of the gods, were consecrated by false religions, and that the greater gentes, which is to say the most ancient of all, were constrained by their faith in them.

[8] Three: As others too have noted before us, Homer, without a doubt the first of all profane writers, describes his kings as having pastoral customs very similar to those of the first Hebrew kings of sacred history; and yet the kingdom of the Hebrews was founded 500 years after Moses, the author of sacred history.

The continuity of sacred history.

[9] That sacred history alone can provide us with the certain origin and certain sequence of profane history is proved by that most ancient custom of the peoples that we mentioned earlier, that they took no interest in foreign peoples. The reason why this was so was because they remained confined within their own boundaries, and became acquainted with foreign peoples only by the occasions afforded by war, whose punishments were always captivity and slavery. The Hebrews endured these punishments at the hands of the Assyrians at a time when the Greeks, though already civilized, were almost completely ignorant of Assyrian power, and were to remain so for a long time afterward; and so the Hebrews can teach us the certain origins and certain progress of profane history, which among the profane writers begins with the monarchy of the Assyrians.

The truth of sacred history.

[10] The following three arguments provide solid proof that what sacred history hands down to us is true:

[11] One: The Hebrew people were so faithful to their law and ancestral customs, even to the point of obstinacy, that it must be thought that they preserved inviolate their ancient historical records and excluded from them all that was foreign.

[12] Two: Their history itself preserved for them the continuity of their language, which is proved by the fact - previously unnoticed by scholars of the Hebrew tongue when dealing with this question - that the proper form of the verb, which in Greek and Latin is in the present tense, in Hebrew is in the preterite tense, the tense proper to historians, and is even in the third person.

[13] The third (others before us have advanced this argument from Jerome's Commentary on Daniel, but nevertheless it follows from our principles) is that Xenophon -- who was the first Greek historian to write of foreign affairs, for he wrote a firsthand account of the encounters the Greeks had with foreigners, and was likewise a most distinguished philosopher, and played a major role in the events he describes, and on his expedition into Persia he penetrated further than previous military commanders - wrote an account of Persian history that closely conforms with sacred history.

Chapter 9

A demonstration of giants, who provide a link between antediluvian and postdiluvian history.

The principles of history, when unsupported by rational explanations, generate wonderment rather than knowledge.

[1] But the great scholar Hugo Grotius, displaying more zeal than judgment, demonstrates the truth of sacred history by confirming its origins, not by any irrefutable explanations, but by a generous interpretation of certain passages found in pagan writers. For instance, he says that a common tradition among the gentiles attests to a universal flood, and that the chance exposure of tombs provides evidence for the existence of giants. These two statements, because he does not support them with rational explanations, contribute nothing, except to excite the same wonderment among the learned as they do among laymen.

Principles not firmly established generate absurdities.

[2] The physical explanations moreover, which others use to prove the existence of giants, are scarcely worth listing. For since we know for certain that the humans who lived two or even three thousand years ago were no taller than the men of today, those who maintain that men become shorter and smaller with time had best beware lest they be forced unwittingly into some very absurd reasoning. Because if this shrinking of our bodies has been imperceptible over such a long span of time, we would have to go back at least a hundred thousand years to reach the time of the giants. Why then were the giants, "the mighty men of old," as sacred history calls them, contemporary with pious believers? Why weren't the earliest humans, Cain and Abel, giants? Why is it that giants weren't born immediately after the Flood, but Nimrod is reported by sacred history to have been of gigantic stature a full two hundred years after the Flood? Why did men shrink so suddenly and remarkably from so great a size to their current small stature? Or are we to say, like many interpreters of sacred history, that angels gathered human seed and, like incubi, sired giants from pagan women? Men with more shrewdness than piety have been compelled by these difficulties to deny entirely the literal existence of giants, and regard them as a metaphor for the tyrants of the gentiles. These are the well-established principles with which up to now men have begun universal history, because they did not seek to ground authority on unshakeable reason, of which authority is surely a part.

Nine philological axioms.

[3] First off then, let me propose in advance a number of axioms of philology, which are both very well-known and can be said without danger of contradiction.

I

[4] A year after the Flood, before the confusion of tongues in Babylon, Shem, Ham and Japheth, unbound by law, divided the earth among them; and Shem remained in Assyria, Ham migrated to nearby Phoenicia and Egypt, Japheth to Europe.

II

[5] The civilized arts reappeared in the East very early, so that within 200 years of the flood there arose among the Chaldaeans astrology, which otherwise, since it depends on the observation of the stars, would have required a much longer time to be reduced to an art, not to mention a science.

III

[6] In the West the type of divination that arose was as crude as that in the East was learned. The divination practiced in the West held that thunder, lightning, the flight and cries of birds, and the propitious or inauspicious entrails of sacrificial victims were messages from the gods.

IV

[7] From the earliest times there persisted among the Greeks the belief, noted by Homer, that their ancestors once lived like wild beasts, and that they left the bodies of their dead to be devoured by crows and dogs.

V

[8] Mythologists are in agreement that these were the wild beasts which Orpheus tamed with the music of his lyre, and were the stones which Amphion assembled, also with the music of the lyre, to form the walls of Thebes.

VI

[9] And all philologists, when they recount the origins of languages, show that interjections were the first human utterances, which burst forth at the onset of strong emotions; later pronouns were developed, with which men could express things with a very few number of words. What is more, in all languages almost all of these are monosyllables. And we have already demonstrated that the first proper words to arise among the Latins, nouns, were also all monosyllables.

VII

[10] This too is beyond doubt: the more esoteric disciplines were brought to Egypt and Greece from Asia.

VIII

[11] And this is an established fact as well: poetic speech originated long before prose speech.

IX

[12] Finally, the first founders of commonwealths were poets.

An observation.

[13] A person considering our chronology might be amazed that within 200 years after the Flood the population of the human race had grown so large that Nimrod could construct a tower of enormous height. But let him grant this, which no one at