According to the definitions which Scipio used in Cicero's "Republic," there never really existed a Roman republic. For he briefly defines a republic as the estate of the people--"res publica" as "res populi," and defines the people as a multitudinous assemblage, united by consent to law and by community of advantage. So, then, where justice is not, there can be no people; and if no people, then no estate of the people, but only of a confused multitude unworthy of the name of a people. Where no justice is, there is no commonwealth. Now, justice is a virtue distributing unto everyone his due. Where, then, is the justice of the man who deserts the true God and gives himself over to unclean demons? Is this giving everyone his due?
But if we define a people in another way, and consider it as an assemblage of rational beings united by unanimity as to the objects of their love, then, in order to ascertain the character of a people, we must ascertain what things they love. Whatever it loves, so long as it is an assemblage of rational creatures and not a herd of cattle, and is agreed as to the objects of its love, it is truly a people, though so much the better as its concord lies in better things, and so much the worse as its concord lies in inferior things. According to this definition, then, the Roman people is indeed a people, and its estate is a commonwealth. But what things that people has loved in its earlier and later times, and how it fell into bloody seditions and into social and civil wars, breaking and corrupting that concord which is the health of a people--of these things history is witness. Yet I would not on that account deny it the name of a people, nor its estate the name of a republic, so long as there remainssome assemblage of rational persons associated by unanimity with regard to the objects of love. But in general, whatever be the nation in question, whether Athens, Egypt, Babylon, or Rome, the city of the ungodly--refusing obedience to the commandment of God that no sacrifice should be offered but to Him alone--is without true justice.
For though there may be an apparent mastery of the soul over the body, and of reason over vices, yet if soul and reason do not serve God as He has commanded, they can have no true dominion over the body and its passions. How can the mind which is ignorant of the true God, and instead of obeying Him is prostituted to impure demons, be true mistress of the body and the vices? Nay, the very virtues which it appears to itself to possess, by which it rules the body and the vices in order that it may obtain and guard the objects which it desires, being undirected to God, are rather vices than virtues. For as that which makes flesh to live is not flesh but above it, so that which enables man to live in blessedness is not of man, but above him.
III.--The Destiny of the Just
Who is able to tell of the creation, with its beauty and utility, which God has set before the eyes of man, though here condemned to labour and sorrow? The innumerable loveliness of sky, earth and sea, the abundance and wonder of light, the sun, moon and stars, the shade of trees, the colours and fragrance of flowers, the multitude of birds of varied hue and song, the many forms of animals, of which the smallest are more wonderful than the greatest, the works of bees more amazing than the vast bodies of whales--who shall describe them?
What shall those rewards, then, be? What will God give them whom He has predestined to life, havinggiven such great things to those whom He has predestined to death? What in that blessed life will He lavish upon those for whom He gave His Son to death? What will the state of man's spirit be when it has become wholly free from vice; yielding to none, enslaved by none, warring against none, but perfectly and wholly at peace with itself?
Who can say, or even imagine, what degrees of glory shall there be given to the degrees of merit? Yet we cannot doubt that there will be degrees; and that in that blessed city no one in lower place shall envy his superior; for no one will wish to be that which he has not received, though bound in closest concord with him who has received. Together with his reward, each shall have the gift of contentment, so as to desire no more than he has. There we shall rest and see, we shall see and love, we shall love and praise. For what other end have we, but to reach the kingdom of which there is no end?