Cyprian of Carthage, An Address to Demetrianus
I have often held you in contempt, Demetrianus, because you blaspheme the one true God with a sacrilegious mouth and impious words. I judged it more decent and better to scorn the ignorance of the erring in silence than to provoke the madness of the demented by speaking. I did not do this on my own authority, but on that of divine teaching, for it is written: "Do not speak to a fool, for he will despise the wisdom of your words" (Proverbs 9:7-8), and again: "Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you will be like him yourself" (Proverbs 26:4). We are also commanded to keep what is holy within our conscience and not to cast pearls before swine and dogs, as the Lord says: "Do not give what is holy to dogs; do not throw your pearls to pigs, or they will trample them under their feet and turn and tear you to pieces" (Matthew 7:6). You came to me often, more intent on contradicting than on learning, and with loud voices you insisted on imposing your own views impudently rather than listening to ours patiently. Engaging with you seemed pointless, since it would be easier to calm a stormy sea with shouts than to restrain your rage with discussion. Offering light to the blind, speech to the deaf, or wisdom to a brute is labor in vain and without effect; a brute cannot perceive, the blind cannot receive light, and the deaf cannot hear. Weighing this, I often kept silent and overcame your impatience with patience, since I could neither teach the unteachable, nor restrain the impious by religion, nor calm the raging with gentleness.
But now you claim that many complain of wars breaking out more frequently, of plagues and famines raging, and of long droughts withholding rain — and you blame us because your gods are no longer worshiped. I can no longer stay silent, lest my silence look not like modesty but like diffidence, and lest my refusal to refute false charges seem like an admission of guilt. So I answer you, Demetrianus, and the others you have stirred up with your slanderous voices, sowing hatred against us and gathering a crowd from the root and stock of your own kind. Yet I believe they will accept the reason of our words, for whoever is driven to evil by deceit will be driven even more powerfully to good by compelling truth.
You say these disasters happen through us and should be imputed to us because we do not worship your gods. Since you are ignorant of divine knowledge and a stranger to the truth, you must first understand this: the world has grown old. It no longer stands with the strength it once had, nor does it thrive with its former vigor. Even without our testimony from Scripture or divine preaching, the world itself testifies to its own decline. Winter rains no longer nourish the seed abundantly; summer sun no longer ripens the crops with such heat; spring sowings are no longer so joyful; autumn harvests are no longer so rich in fruit. Less marble is quarried from exhausted mountains; less silver and gold are mined, for the veins are spent and dwindle daily. The farmer fails in the field, the sailor at sea, the soldier in camp; innocence fails in the forum, justice in the courts, concord among friends, skill in the arts, discipline in morals. Do you think a thing grown old can retain the substance it had when it was new and flourishing? Whatever nears its end and declines into extreme old age must diminish. The setting sun casts its rays with less clear and fiery splendor; the waning moon shrinks with worn horns; a tree once green and fertile becomes sterile and deformed in old age, its branches withering; a spring that once flowed abundantly now barely trickles as its veins fail. This is the sentence given to the world, this is the law of God: all that has arisen will decline, all that has grown will age, the strong will be weakened, the great diminished, and when weakened and diminished, they will end.
You blame Christians for the diminishing of individual things in an aging world. What if the old blamed Christians for their own failing strength — for hearing, running, eyesight, vigor, moisture, and mass not holding as they once did? Human life once exceeded eight or nine hundred years; now it scarcely reaches a hundred. We see gray hair on children; hair falls out before it grows. Age does not end in old age — it begins with it. From its very birth, nativity hastens to its end; whatever is born now degenerates because the world itself is old. No one should wonder that individual things in the world begin to fail when the whole world is already in decline and at its end.
Latin
OBLATRANTEM te et adversus Deum, qui unus et verus est, ore sacrilego et verbis impiis obstrepentem frequenter, Demetriane, contempseram, verecundius ac melius existimans errantis imperitiam silentio spernere, quam loquendo dementis insaniam provocare. Nec hoc sine magisterii divini auctoritate faciebam, cum scriptum sit: In aures imprudentis noli quicquam dicere, ne, quando audierit, irrideat sensatos sermones tuos. Et iterum: Noli respondere imprudenti ad imprudentiam ejus, ne similis fias illi. Et sanctum quoque jubeamur intra conscientiam nostram tenere, nec inculcandum porcis et canibus exponere, loquente Domino et dicente: Ne dederitis sanctum canibus, neque miseritis margaritas vestras ante porcos, ne inculcent eas pedibus, et conversi elidant vos. Nam, cum ad me saepe, studio magis contradicendi quam voto discendi, venires, et, clamosis vocibus personans, malles tua impudenter ingerere quam nostra patienter audire, ineptum videbatur congredi tecum, quando facilius esset et levius turbulenti maris concitos fluctus clamoribus retundere quam tuam rabiem tractatibus coercere. Certe et labor irritus et nullus effectus, offerre lumen caeco, sermonem surdo, sapientiam bruto; cum nec sentire brutus possit, nec caecus lumen admittere, nec surdus audire. Haec considerans, saepe conticui, et impatientem patientia vici, cum nec docere indocilem possem, nec impium religione comprimere, nec furentem lenitate cohibere. Sed enim, cum dicas plurimos conqueri quod bella crebrius surgant, quod lues, quod fames saeviant, quodque imbres et pluvias serena longa suspendant nobis imputari, tacere ultra non oportet; ne jam non verecundiae sed diffidentiae esse incipiat quod tacemus, et dum criminationes falsas contemnimus refutare, videamur crimen agnoscere. Respondeo igitur et tibi, Demetriane, pariter et caeteris quos tu forsitan concitasti, et adversum nos odia tuis maledicis vocibus seminando, comites tibi plures radicis atque originis tuae pullulatione fecisti; quos tamen sermonis nostri admittere credo rationem: nam qui ad malum motus est mendacio fallente, multo magis ad bonum movebitur veritate cogente. Dixisti per nos fieri et quod nobis debeant imputari omnia ista quibus nunc mundus quatitur et urgetur, quod dii vestri a nobis non colantur. Qua in parte, quia ignarus divinae cognitionis et veritatis alienus es, illud primo in loco scire debes, senuisse jam mundum, non illis viribus stare quibus prius steterat, nec vigore et robore eo valere quo antea praevalebat. Hoc etiam, nobis tacentibus et nulla de Scripturis sanctis praedicationibusque divinis documenta promentibus, mundus ipse jam loquitur et occasum sui rerum labentium probatione testatur. Non hyeme nutriendis seminibus tanta imbrium copia est, non frugibus aestate torrendis solis tanta flagrantia est, nec sic vernante temperie sata laeta sunt, nec adeo arboreis foetibus autumna foecunda sunt. Minus de effossis et fatigatis montibus eruuntur marmorum crustae, minus argenti et auri opes suggerunt exhausta jam metalla, et pauperes venae breviantur in dies singulos et decrescunt, deficit in arvis agricola, in mari nauta, miles in castris, innocentia in foro, justitia in judicio, in amicitiis concordia, in artibus peritia, in moribus disciplina. Putasne tantam posse substantiam rei senescentis existere quantum prius potuit novellu adhuc et vegeta juventa pollere? Minuatur necesse est quicquid fine jam proximo in occidua et extrema devergit. Sic sol in occasu suo radios minus claro et igneo splendore jaculatur; sic, declinante jam cursu, exoletis cornibus luna tenuatur, et arbor quae fuerat ante viridis et fertilis, arescentibus ramis fit postmodum sterili senectute deformis; et fons qui, exundantibus prius venis, largiter profluebat, senectute deficiens, vix modico sudore distillat. Haec sententia mundo data est, haec Dei lex est, ut omnia orta occidant et aucta senescant, et infirmentur fortia, et magna minuantur, et cum infirmata et diminuta fuerint, finiantur. Christianis imputas quod minuantur singula, mundo senescente. Quid si et senes imputent Christianis quod minus valeant in senectute, quod non perinde ut prius vigeant auditu aurium, cursu pedum, oculorum acie, virium robore, succo viscerum, mole membrorum; et cum olim ultra octingentos et nongentos annos vita hominum longaeva procederet, vix nunc possit ad centenarium numerum perveniri? Canos videmus in pueris, capilli deficiunt antequam crescant; nec aetas in senectute desinit, sed incipit a senectute. Sic in ortu adhuc suo ad finem nativitas properat; sic quodcumque nunc nascitur, mundi ipsius senectute degenerat: ut nemo mirari debeat singula in mundo coepisse deficere, quando totus ipse jam mundus in defectione sit et in fine.