Lactantius — Divine Institutes 5.17
What belonged to the present dispute I have shown: how justice bears a likeness of folly, that it may appear they are not deceived without cause who think the people of our religion fools, who seem to do such things as that man proposed. Now I sense a greater thing is demanded of me: that I show why God willed to wrap justice in the appearance of folly and take it from human eyes, if I first answer Furius, because Laelius answered too little fully. He indeed, though he was wise as he was called, still could by no means patronize true justice, because he did not hold the head itself and fountain of justice. For us that defense is easier, to whom by heavenly benefit justice is familiar and inwardly known, and who know it not by name but by the thing. For Plato and Aristotle wished with honest will to defend justice and would have effected something if the teaching of divine things also had helped their good attempts, their eloquence, the virtue of their talent. And so that work of theirs lay empty and useless and could persuade no human to live by their prescription, because that discipline did not have a foundation from heaven. Our work must be more certain, whom God has taught. For they painted with words and imagined a justice that was not in sight, nor could they confirm by present examples what they asserted. For hearers could answer that one cannot live as they prescribed by their dispute, so much so that none have yet appeared who followed that kind of life. But we show not by words only but also by examples drawn from the true that what is said by us is true. Carneades therefore sensed what the nature of justice is, except that he did not look deep enough that folly is not... although I seem to myself to understand with what mind he did that. For he did not truly think him a fool who is just, but when he knew he was not and yet did not grasp the reason why he seemed so, he wanted to show that truth lies hidden, that he might guard the decree of his school, whose chief sentence is that nothing can be perceived. Let us see then whether justice can have some treaty with folly.
Is justice then, O Furius or rather O Carneades whose is that whole speech, so empty, so superfluous and so contemptible to God that it can do nothing and have nothing in itself that avails for its own guard? But clearly those who are ignorant of the human's sacrament and therefore refer all things to this temporal life cannot know how great the force of justice is. For even when they dispute about virtue, though they understand it is fullest of hardships and miseries, still they say it is to be sought for its own sake: for they by no means see its rewards, which are eternal and immortal. So by referring all things to this present life they plainly reduce virtue to folly, if indeed it takes up such great labors of this life in vain and emptily — but these things more fully in another place; meanwhile about justice, as we began: whose force is so great that when it has lifted eyes to heaven it merits all things from God. Rightly therefore Flaccus said the force of innocence is so great that for its own protection it needs neither arms nor strength wherever it journeys: 'The man upright in life and pure of crime needs no Moorish javelins nor bow nor quiver heavy with poisoned arrows, Fuscus, whether about to journey through the hot Syrtes or through the inhospitable Caucasus or the places the storied Hydaspes washes.' It cannot therefore happen that heavenly guardianship not keep the just human among the dangers of storms and wars and that, even if he sail with parricides and the guilty, either the wicked also be spared that one just and innocent soul may be freed, or at least when the rest perish he alone be saved. But let us grant that what the philosopher proposes can happen: what then will the just man do if he has found either a wounded man on a horse or a shipwrecked man on a plank? Not unwillingly I confess: he will die rather than kill. Nor therefore will justice, which is the singular good of a human, take the name of folly. For what better, what dearer ought a human to have than innocence? Which must be so much more perfect as you lead it to the extreme and prefer to die, lest anything be diminished from the account of innocence. It is folly, he says, to spare another's soul with ruin of one's own. Will you also judge it foolish to perish for friendship? Why then are those Pythagorean comrades praised by you, of whom one gave himself to the tyrant as surety of death for the other, and the other at the set time, when already his guarantor was being led, made his own presence and freed him by his intervention? Whose virtue would not be held in such glory — that one willed to die for a friend, the other even for faith — if they were thought fools. Finally for this very virtue the tyrant returned them favor by saving both and the nature of a most cruel human was changed. Indeed he is even said to have begged that they receive him as a third into friendship, not surely as fools but as good and wise men. And so I do not see why, when to die for friendship and faith is counted highest glory, it should not also be glorious for a human to perish for innocence.
Therefore most foolish are those who charge us as a crime with willing to die for God, when they themselves lift to heaven with highest praises him who willed to die for a human. Finally, to conclude the dispute, reason itself teaches that the same man cannot be just and foolish, the same wise and unjust. For he who is foolish does not know what is just and good and therefore always sins. For he is led as a captive by vices and can by no means resist, because he lacks virtue, which he does not know. But the just man abstains from every sin, which he cannot otherwise do than if he has knowledge of right and wrong. Who can discern the right from the wrong unless the wise man? So it happens that he who is foolish can never be just, nor he wise who has been unjust. And if this is most true, it is clear that he who has not taken the plank from the shipwrecked or the horse from the wounded is not foolish, because to do these things is sin, from which the wise man abstains. Yet I myself confess that he also seems so through the error of humans ignorant of each thing's property. And so this whole question is dissolved not so much by arguments as by definition. Folly therefore is a wandering in deeds and words through ignorance of the right and good. Therefore he is not a fool who does not spare even himself, provided he not harm another, which is evil. Which indeed reason and truth itself prescribe for us. For in all animals we see that, because they lack wisdom, nature is the reconciler of itself. They therefore harm others, that they may profit themselves: for they do not know that it is evil to harm. But a human, because he has knowledge of good and evil, abstains from harming even with his own inconvenience, which an irrational animal cannot do, and therefore among a human's highest virtues innocence is counted. By which things it appears that he is most wise who prefers to perish lest he harm, that he may keep that duty by which he is distinguished from the mute. For he who does not refute a seller's error, that he may buy gold cheap, or who does not declare that he sells a runaway slave or a pestilent house, consulting his gain and convenience, is not that wise man as Carneades wished him to seem, but cunning and crafty. But cunning and craftiness are in mute animals also, either when they ambush others and take them by deceit to devour them, or when they mock others' ambushes by various kinds; but wisdom falls to the human alone. For wisdom is understanding either for doing the good and right or for abstinence from wicked words and deeds. But a wise man never aims at gain, because he despises these earthly goods, nor does he suffer anyone to be deceived, because it is a good man's duty to correct humans' errors and lead them back into the way, since a human's nature is social and beneficent, by which alone he has kinship with God.
Latin
Quod ad praesentem disputationem pertinebat ostendi quomodo iustitia similitudinem stultitiae gerat, ut adpareat non sine causa decipi eos qui putant nostrae religionis homines stultos esse, qui talia facere uideantur qualia ille proposuit. nunc maius a me exigi sentio, ut ostendam quare iustitiam deus stultitiae specie conuolutam ei oculis hominum uoluerit auferre, si prius Furio respondero, quia parum plene respondit Laelius. qui profecto licet sapiens fuerit, ut uocabatur, patrocinari tamen uerae iustitiae nullo modo poterat, quia caput ipsum fontemque iustitiae non tenebat. nobis autem facilior est ista defensio, quibus caelesti beneficio familiaris est ac penitus nota iustitia quique illam non nomine, sed re nouimus. nam Plato et Aristoteles honesta quidem uoluntate iustitiam defendere cupierunt effecissentque aliquid, si conatus eorum bonos, si eloquentiam, si uirtutem ingenii diuinarum quoque rerum doctrina iuuisset. itaque opus illorum inane atque inutile iacuit nec cuiquam hominum persuadere potuerunt ut eorum praescripto uiueret, quia fundamentum a caelo disciplina illa non habuit. nostrum opus certius sit necesse est, quos deus docuit. illi enim depingebant uerbis et imaginabantur iustitiam quae in conspectu non erat, nec praesentibus exemplis confirmare poterant quae adserebant. responderi enim posset ab audientibus non posse ita uiui, sicut illi sua disputatione praescriberent, adeo ut nulli adhuc extiterint qui id genus uitae sequerentur. nos autem non uerbis modo, sed etiam exemplis ex uero petitis uera esse quae a nobis dicuntur ostendimus. sensit igitur Carneades quae sit natura iustitiae, nisi quod parum alte perspexit stultitiam [non] ... esse: quamquam intellegere mihi uideor qua mente id fecerit. non enim uere existimauit eum stultum esse qui iustus est, sed cum sciret non esse et rationem tamen cur ita uideretur non conprehenderet, uoluit ostendere latere in abdito ueritatem, ut decretum disciplinae suae tueretur, cuius summa sententia est nihil percipi posse. uideamus ergo utrumne iustitia foedus aliquod habere cum stultitia possit. iustus inquit si aut ecum saucio aut tabulam naufrago non ademerit, ut ipse animam suam liberet, stultus est. primum omnium nego ullo modo fieri posse ut homini, qui quidem uere iustus sit, eiusmodi casus eueniat, quia iustus neque cuiquam nato inimicus est neque quicquam omnino adpetit alienum. cur enim nauiget aut quid petat ex aliena terra cui sufficiat sua? cur autem belligeret ac se alienis furoribus misceat in cuius animo pax cum hominibus perpetua uerseturr scilicet peregrinis mercibus aut humano sanguine delectabitur qui nec lucrum sciat adpetere, cui sufficiat uictus, et non modo ipse caedem facere, sed interesse facientibus ac spectare ducat nefas. sed omitto ista, quoniam fieri potest ut uel inuitus ad haec subeunda cogatur.
adeone ergo iustitiam, 0 Furi uel potius 0 Carneade, cuius est illa omnis oratio, tam inanem, tam superuacuam tamque contemptam deo putas, ut nihil possit nihilque habeat in sese quod ad custodiam sui ualeat? sed uidelicet qui sacramentum hominis ignorant ideoque ad hanc temporalem uitam referunt omnia, quanta sit uis iustitiae scire non possunt. nam et cum de uirtute disputant, quamuis intellegant aerumnis ac miseriis esse plenissimam, tamen expetendam esse aiunt sua causa: eius enim praemia, quae sunt aeterna et inmortalia, nullo modo uident. sic rebus omnibus ad hanc praesentem uitam relatis uirtutem plane ad stultitiam redigunt, siquidem tantos huius uitae labores frustra et inaniter suscipit sed haec alio loco plenius, interim de iustitia, ut coepimus: cuius tanta uis est, ut cum oculos in caelum sustulerit, a deo mereatur omnia. recte igitur Flaccus tantam esse dixit innocentiae uim, ut ad tutelam sui non egeat nec armis nec uiribus, quacumque iter fecerit: integer uitae scelerisque purus non eget Mauris iaculis nec arcu nec uenenatis grauida sagittis, Fusce, pharetra, siue per Syrtis iter aestuosas siue facturus per inhospitalem Caucasum uel quae loca fabulosus lambit Hydaspes. non potest ergo fieri quin hominem iustum inter discrimina tempestatum atque bellorum caelestis tutela custodiat ac non, etiamsi cum parricidis et nocentibus nauiget, aut malis quoque parcatur, ut una iusta et innocens anima liberetur, aut certe pereuntibus ceteris sola seruetur. sed concedamus posse fieri quod proponit philosophus: quid ergo iustus faciet, si nactus fuerit aut in equo saucium aut in tabula naufragum? non inuitus confiteor: morietur potius quam occidat. nec ideo tamen iustitia, quod est singulare hominis bonum, stultitiae nomen accipiet. quid enim melius, quid carius esse homini debet quam innocentia? quae utique tanto perfectior sit necesse est, quanto illam perduxeris ad extremum morique malueris, ne quid de innocentiae ratione minuatur. stultitia est inquit alienae animae parcere cum pernicie suae. num etiam pro amicitia perire stultum iudicabis? quid ergo illi familiares Pythagorei laudantur a uobis, quorum alter se tyranno uadem mortis pro altero dedit, alter ad praestitutum tempus, cum iam sponsor eius duceretur, praesentiam sui fecit eumque interuentu suo liberauit? quorum uirtus in tanta gloria non haberetur, quod alter pro amico, alter etiam pro fide mori uoluit, si stulti putarentur. denique ob hanc ipsam uirtutem tyrannus iis gratiam rettulit utrumque seruando et hominis crudelissimi natura mutata est. quin etiam deprecatus esse dicitur ut se tertium in amicitiam reciperent, non utique tamquam stultos, sed tamquam bonos et sapientes uiros. itaque non uideo quare, cum pro amicitia et fide mori summa gloria conputetur, non etiam pro innocentia perire sit homini gloriosum.
ergo stultissimi sunt qui nobis crimini dant mori uelle pro deo, cum ipsi eum qui pro homine mori uoluit, in caelum summis laudibus tollant. denique, ut concludam disputationem, non posse eundem iustum esse ac stultum, eundem sapientem et iniustum docet ipsa ratio. qui enim stultus est, quid sit iustum ac bonum nescit et ideo semper peccat. ducitur enim quasi captiuus a uitiis nec resistere ullo modo potest, quia caret uirtute, quam nescit. iustus autem ab omni se peccato abstinet, quod aliter facere non potest quam si habeat recti prauique notitiam. rectum aurem discernere a prauo quis potest nisi sapiens? ita fit ut numquam possit iustus esse qui stultus est, neque sapiens qui fuerit iniustus. quod si est uerissimum, manifestum est eum qui aut naufrago tabulam aut ecum saucio non ademerit stultum non esse, quia haec facere peccatum est, a quo se sapiens abstinet. uideri tamen et ipse confiteor per hominum errorem ignorantium cuiusque rei proprietatem. itaque omnis haec quaestio non tam argumentis quam definitione dissoluitur. stultitia igitur est in factis dictisque per ignorantiam recti ac boni erratio. ergo stultus non est qui ne sibi quidem parcit, dum ne noceat alteri, quod est malum. quod quidem nobis et ratio et ueritas ipsa praescribit. in omnibus enim uidemus animalibus, quia sapientia carent, conciliatricem sui esse naturam. nocent igitur aliis, ut sibi prosint: nesciunt enim quia malum est nocere. homo uero quia scientiam boni ac mali habet, abstinet se a nocendo etiam cum incommodo suo, quod animal inrationale facere non potest, et ideo inter summas hominis uirtutes innocentia numeratur. quibus rebus apparet sapientissimum esse qui mauult, perire ne noceat, ut id officium quo a mutis discernitur seruet. nam qui uendentis errorem non redarguit, ut aurum paruo emat, aut qui non profitetur fugitiuum seruum uel pestilentem se domum uendere lucro et commodo suo consulens, non est ille sapiens, ut Carneades uideri uolebat, sed callidus et astutus. calliditas autem et astutia in mutis quoque animalibus sunt, uel cum insidiantur aliis et dolo capiunt, ut deuorent, uel cum insidias aliorum uario genere deludunt, sapientia uero in hominem solum cadit. sapientia est enim intellegentia uel ad bonum rectumque faciendum uel ad abstinentiam dictorum factorumque inproborum. lucro autem numquam sapiens studet, quia bona haec terrena contemnit, nec quemquam falli patitur, quia boni uiri officium est errores hominum corrigere eosque in uiam reducere, siquidem socialis est hominis ac benefica natura, quo solo cognationem cum deo habet.