For they say, “let us make our name.” What monstrous and extravagant shamelessness! What is this you say? You ought to be hiding your misdeeds in night and profound darkness, and to have taken, if not true shame, at least the simulation of it to veil them, whether to keep the goodwill of the more decent sort, or to escape the punishments which wait on open sins. Instead, to such a pitch of impudent hardihood have you come, that you not only let the full sunlight shine upon you and fear neither the threats of better men, nor the inexorable judgements of God, which confront the authors of such unholy deeds, but you also deliberately send to every part rumours to report the misdeeds of which you yourselves are guilty, that none may fail to learn and hear the story of your shameless crimes. O wretched, utter miscreants! What sort of name, then, do you desire? Is it the name that best befits your deeds? Is it one name only? One general name perhaps, but a thousand specific ones, which you will hear from the lips of others even if your own are silent. Recklessness with shamelessness, insolence with violence, violence with murder, seductions with adulteries, unbridled lust with unmeasured pleasures, desperation with foolhardiness, injustice with knavery, thefts with robbery, perjuries with falsehoods, impieties with law-breakings, these and the like are the names for such deeds as yours. It is indeed a fine cause for pride and boasting, when you pursue so eagerly the repute which these names give, names at which you should in all reason hide your heads for shame. With some indeed their pride in these names comes from the belief that they have gained invincible strength by the fact that all men think them such, and these God’s minister Justice will punish for their great audacity. Though perhaps they have not merely a presentiment, but a clear foresight of their own destruction. For they say, “before we are dispersed” (Gen. 11:4) let us take thought for our name and glory. Do you then know, I would say to them, that you will be scattered? Why then do you sin? But surely it bespeaks the mind of fools that they do not shrink from iniquity, though the gravest penalties often menace them, openly and not obscurely. The punishments of God’s visitation may be thought to be hidden from our sight, but they are really well known. For all, however wicked, receive some general notions to the effect that their iniquity will not pass unseen by God, and that they cannot altogether evade the necessity of being brought to judgement. Otherwise how do they know that they will be scattered? They certainly do say, “before we are dispersed.” But it is the conscience within which convicts them and pricks them in spite of the exceeding godlessness of their lives, thus drawing them on reluctantly to assent to the truth that all human doings are surveyed by a superior being and that there awaits them an incorruptible avenger, even justice, who hates the unjust deeds of the impious and the arguments which advocate those deeds.
On the Confusion of Tongues 24
Tap any verse to see what it echoes — and start a chain or echo from it.