XIII. What barbarian confession shows: universal natural consensus; true light overlaid with false, vain, and impious additions
XIII. This confession of the barbarians shows: 1. That concerning the immortality of the soul and its beatitude or misery after death there is a constant opinion among all nations, drawn from the principles of nature (as discussed in pneumatology), which may seem not so much learned as connate. For in every matter the consensus of all nations is to be counted the law of nature, as Cicero authorizes in Tusculan Disputations book 1; of which common consensus the vulgar opinions of the Gentiles, or the fables of shades, the Elysian fields, and Tartarus sung by the poets — Homer in Odyssey book 11, Virgil in Aeneid 6, and Ovid in Fasti book 2 — also give faith, which rest upon the immortality of the soul as a foundation from which they were born and without which they could not have been born.
2. That upon those things which are indeed true and legitimately deduced from the light of nature, the darknesses of the nations have built false, vain, and impious additions. It is true that souls are immortal, and that after their departure from the body it will go well or ill with them. It is false that happiness comes on account of victory won over external enemies. It is vain that household goods should be buried as if they would be of use in another world. And it is also impious and more than superstitious to slaughter human beings to that end, that provision may be made for the comforts of the dead in eternal life.
Latin
XIII. Hac barbarorum confessio ostendit, 1. Quod de immortalitate animae & hujus post obitum beatitate aut miseria constans ubique gentium sit sententia, e principiis naturae, de quibus in pneumatologia, hausta, quae videri possit non tam addisci quam connasci. Omni enim in re consensus omnium gentium lex naturae putanda est, authore Cicerone 1. Tusc. de quo communi consensu etiam fidem faciunt opiniones vulgares gentilium sive fabulae de manibus, campis Elysiis, tartaro a poetis, Homero Odys. λ. Virgilio Aeneid. 6. & Ovidio 2. Fast. decantatae, quae immortalitatem animae tanquam fundamentum, ex quo natae sunt, & sine quo nasci non potuissent, subiternunt. 2. Quod iis, quae vera quidem sunt, e lumine naturae legitime deducta, gentium tenebrae superstruxerint falsa, vana, impia. Verum est, animas esse immortales, iisque post suum a corpore discessum bene fore aut male. Falsum est, felicitatem ob victoriam ab externis hostibus reportatam obvenire. Vanum est, supellectilem quasi in altero orbe sui futuram contumulari. Impium vero etiam est & plus quam superstitiosum, homines eo fine trucidare, ut defunctorum in aeterna vita commodis prospiciatur.