Quodvultdeus of Carthage, On Barbarian Times 1, chs 1, 4-5, 7.32-8.14, trans. Robin Whelan.
The date, authorship, and context of this sermon have been much contested, but it was most likely delivered in Carthage by bishop Quodvultdeus at the time of the Vandal siege of the city in 439 CE.
Edition: R. Braun, CCSL 60 (Turnhout, 1976), 471-86.
I have consulted the unpublished translation by Richard Kalkman, ‘Two sermons De Tempore Barbarico attributed to St Quodvultdeus, bishop of Carthage: a study of text and attribution with translation and commentary’, Catholic University of America PhD Thesis (1963).
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DTB I
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1. Our Lord God warns us that we ought not to make light of our sins, when he shows such great anger. For he justly punishes the guilty, because he finds none of them repentant.
2. How many times, beloved ones, have the divine trumpets blasted, and still they blast: Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near to you (Matthew 3:2). And instead, with the ears of ours heart closed, we do bad things and ask for good things to come.
3. But the apostle says that there is a just judgement for such people. For in this matter, because such people understand that they can receive good things from bad actions, they are stubborn and do not seek an opportunity for penance.
4. Rightly are they judged justly, those who are found to have condemned themselves. Although what we said does not touch everyone, the divine words nevertheless bind everyone, saying, all have turned away, all have become corrupt; there is no-one who does good things, there is not even one (Psalm 13:3).
5. How is it ‘all’ and how is it ‘not all’? How ‘not all’? Because there are many who grieve and lament the iniquities which take place in their midst, wanting to resist them;
6. but they do not dare for fear of worldly affairs, which still either human fragility desires to obtain, or human weakness is scared to give up.
7. Insofar as they grieve, it is not all, but insofar as they fear something which should not be feared, all have turned away, all have become corrupt, because they fear people more than they fear God, and they prefer the human things which they have received from God to God himself.
8. So that an evil person may not take those things away, God, through whom the person was made, is scorned. I wish that you lot, who are still like this, and are bound by love of secular things and either pardon or support those who sin—I wish to admonish you with exhortations to what you ought to value more than this. Otherwise a flood of tears would compel us to lament that those who sin and do not want to do penance.
9. If there is humane feeling in us, if there is a sense of compassion in us, we ought to weep at, grieve and lament the death of one person; so by what tears, by what groans, by what wailing should we be tormented when we lament the vast majority, almost the whole city?
10. A dear one is sick, and his pulse shows the danger. All who love him suffer with him in spirit, and if they see him scoff in the face of death, they rightly grieve for him as if he were dead even though he is still alive.
11. The whole province is in such straits and its condition is terminal [in ipso fine rerum], and daily there are full houses at the spectacles [lit. the spectacles are frequented: frequentatur spectacula]; daily human blood flows out onto the earth, and the cries of madmen clatter in the circus.
12. O lamentation more acceptable than sadness! O lamentation afflicting the heart with such grief! It is pleasing to weep. For we lament, beloved ones, for both them and us, because we too have deserved to be scourged with such people.
13. For we, when we accuse others, all fall away, and are made corrupt, every single one of us. No-one is excused; because the judge is such that every person is found guilty by him.
14. For when the just king sits on the throne, who will brag that they have a chaste heart? And who will brag that they are free from sin? (Proverbs 20:8-9)
15. That time is at hand which the Lord predicted: do you think, when the Son of Man comes, he will find faith on earth? (Luke 18:8) Who has faith? Who believes the divine words?
16. Which of us will dare to attribute faith to themselves, when they hear the Lord saying to the disciples, If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this tree: ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea’, and it will obey you (Luke 17:6)?
17. Who will dare to attribute to themselves that they do everything which God orders? No-one; absolutely no-one. We preach, and we do not practise: you hear, and you do not take the trouble to practise. Worthily we are all beneath the whip, both teacher and do-er, hearer and scorner.
18. We strive to reprehend one another, and we do not strive to examine our own actions. Neighbours slanders neighbour, cleric slanders cleric, layperson slanders layperson.
19. I see them accusing one another, but I see no-one legitimately excusing themselves. For each one of us, beloved ones, carries their own burden (Galatians 6:5).
20. Do not slander each other, brothers, says the apostle James. For anyone who slanders a brother or judges a brother, slanders the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not keeping the law but a judge of it. For there is one legislator and judge, who can destroy and save. But you, who are you to judge your neighbour? (James 4:11-13)
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1. But see what our fathers did. Phinees killed the man who was sacrificing to the idols with his own hand, so that he might placate the wrath of God.
2. Moses coerced a people who were erring and worshipping the molten calf with a firm correction, so that, by summoning to himself the one tribe out of twelve which wanted to follow God, he gave the order to them, so that the sons, receiving the swords in their hands, killed their parents, and parents killed their sons.
3. No emotion stopped him, no place was kept for humanity; because the fear and love of God was deemed more important than all love of bodily desires.
4. Jephthe, that he might overcome the enemy which was sacrificing to gods and demons, gave his only daughter as a sacrifice.
5. Samson, when he wearied and wore out the demon-worshipping peoples with the power which he had received on his head from God, was seduced afterwards by a woman, lost his eyes and at the same time the power of his head. After that he recognized in his shame that all of them had assembled at a temple of their idols, and that they glorified their gods which had given into their power their most bitter enemy, and since as his hair grew so did his power, he turned to the slave who was his guide, and asked that he might reach out his hand to him, and asked that he might be led to the temple.
6. When he arrived there, gripping with one hand on each the two columns upon which the whole building was supported, he willed that he himself be crushed along with them when it collapsed, so that no-one might be permitted the enjoyment of hearing the praises of demons by way of insult to God.
7. Daniel, since he would not seek any petition from a human king, but from God himself who provides all good things to his people, was given as meat for hungry lions, that he might die. But the Lord, not deserting his faithful slave, both preserved him intact, and through the prophet Habakuk fed both him and the lions.
8. What do I say concerning the three boys, who when they did not want to worship the royal image scoffed at the flames? Glittering grace thus shined forth in those boys, so that, placed in chains in the furnace, they were seen walking around, with mouths wide open to praise God, and they did not succumb to the flames but fled them,
9. Since they merited to have the Son of God with them, before he had appeared to the world in human form; and so that the flames might be their avenger, the devouring furnace consumed the minsters of the Chaldaeans. But they, led out unharmed from the furnace, returned to the people who were astonished by them, and changed the mind of the king, and made him a worshipper of their God, whom they had formerly thought to be a persecutor.
10. But all these things, the faith, fear and love of God did. Those ones hate not only all those things which they have on account of God; but also their own lives (animas suas); and God made them both glorious here and enriched them with the remuneration of eternal life.
11. When have we done something like this, beloved ones, or, on the contrary, what evil things have we not done? Neither torments nor threats led them to sacrifice to the assembly of demons.
12. Can it be that they sacrificed, who watched with pleasure the images of the idols as they played at night, which they call the Nocturnum? They sacrificed, of course they sacrificed, and what is worse, the victim was not a bull or sheep, but the precious soul of a person itself.
13. It is not just one or a few who are accused of this utterly abominable sacrifice; this whole city did it, because the whole city consented to it. Every person was killed, not by the enemies, not by the barbarians, but by themselves, inside, in their soul, by watching, by consenting, by not stopping it: we all remain guilty.
14. And since we do not want to disturb the city’s perverse peace, we do not receive the rightful peace which we need. We scorn to serve the peace of good behaviour, and peace perishes in our times.
15. Learn, most beloved ones, and do it now, what you ought to consider more important than this. Do not love the vices in sons, friends, slaves, in all the ones known to you.
16. Let the singular power be placed before every other power, let us render honour unto Caesar as Caesar, but fear unto God. Let the Creator be preferred to a creature: let us love God, who loves us; and loves us even in this time when he thus scourges us.
17. For which son has not received discipline from his father? (Hebrews 12:7) Anyone who thinks rationally and believes the words of God, fears eternal fire more than any sword of a ferocious barbarian:
18. And fears perpetual death more than any death, however terrible. Let the unfaithful laugh, let the stupid ones laugh, let them be unwilling to believe even things they have experienced.
19. See how they are wearied, see how all things perish, see how with them, the world which they loved can no longer keep upright, see how they are dragged along to God, those ones who scorned his commands: for they do not go on with good will who die blaspheming.
20. See where they go: when they get there, what do they do? Where do they go? Through whom can they leave? Who is compelled to return here again? It is finished and so too is the time for emending what was badly done.
21. Return, sons, return; return, prevaricators, to the heart. (Isaiah 46:8) Take joy from your conversion, may your hearts be corrected, may your works displease you.
22. Be strong, do not let the tribulation of the world break you; the Lord is close; do not be concerned. (cf. Phil 4: 5/6)
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1. You have great examples of strong men. The martyrs conquered the world: among those martyrs women are also found who were stronger than men.
2. A few days ago we celebrated the “birthday” of the martyrs Perpetua and Felicitas, and their companions. And although there are so many men there, why is it that those two are named before all the rest, except because the weaker sex either equaled or overcame the strength of men?
3. One of them was pregnant, the other breastfeeding. Felicitas gave birth, Perpetua breastfed. But so long as this Perpetua breastfed, she received at the same time a small mouthful of milk from that shepherd and father. Once she received this the sweetness of perpetual felicity made her spurn her son, spurn her father, let go of the world, and lose her life for Christ.
4. Felicitas indeed, who had Perpetua as an ally, gave birth and grieved; when she was thrown to the beasts, she rejoiced rather than feared. What strength in women! Of what sort is the grace which when it pours itself in, judges neither sex unworthy!
5. Thanks be to grace, for it revived the female sex (sexum muliebrem). Women (mulier) had remained in great shame, because sin came into being in the beginning through a woman, and because of this all die.
6. The devil cast down one Eve, but Christ, born from a virgin, exulted many women. Perpetua and Felicitas stood on the head of the serpent which Eve had admitted into her innermost heart.
7. By false promises he had seduced her; he could not conquer them by savagery; he deceived her in the happiness of paradise; he could not approach them, not even when they were subjected to the power of such people.
8. He rejoiced in her ruin amid the delights of paradise; but the devil himself in some way became scared of the constancy of their fortitude during punishment. Worthily they were thus exalted, worthily they became the equals or leaders of men.
9. For although there is neither slave nor free in Christ Jesus, and there is not male or female, but all join together as one in that perfect man (Galatians 3:28), nevertheless this gift comes down from great grace. For the names of those holy women, Perpetua and Felicitas are the compensation of all holy martyrs (i.e. ‘perpetual felicity’).
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32 And now let them all come, whoever loves paradise, to the place of peace, the place of security, the place of perpetual felicity, the place in which you do not fear the barbarian, the place in which you suffer no adversary, the place in which you have no enemy: let all come, let all enter; the way is open by which you enter. For he shows to the thief how all ought to enter, and shows by that example that no-one should despair.
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1. Strive, says the Lord, to enter by the narrow gate (Luke 13:24). What entrance is narrower than the one which one of the soldiers opened by piercing the side of the crucified? And still almost the whole world has entered through those narrow spaces.
2. You come too, you Jews, the Son of God whom you crucified calls you. Strive to enter by the narrow gate: for your fathers entered through it. Those ones, they who clamored for his crucifixion, who saw him suspended on the wood, who mocked him, who shook their heads, nevertheless they have entered through those narrow spaces.
3. For it was not for nothing that he shouted while hanging on the cross: Father, forgive them, they know not what they do (Luke 23:34).
4. Therefore, as I said, through these narrow spaces, through the narrow gate of the side of Christ entered the changed thief, the repentant Jew, every converted pagan, and from it the evil Arian heretic has departed far away.
5. They departed, because they were not among the company of the steadfast (numero permanentium). For it was about them that the Lord himself says: They departed from us, but they are not from us, for if they were from us, they would surely have remained with us (I John 2:19).
6. O Arian heretics, the thief recognized him when he was hanging on the cross, those Jewish enemies were terrified when he came back to life, and you treat him badly when he is reigning in heaven!
7. Beware, beloved ones, the Arian disease: do not let them separate you from Christ with the promise of earthly things, do not let them rob you of your faith for a tunic. Members of Christ, preserve the unity and integrity of the one tunic, which even the persecutors of Christ did not dare to divide.
8. Do not inflict injuries on your head: he died for you, so that you would not die. The one whom Christ revives through baptism, why does the Arian kill him by rebaptizing?
9. For shame, heretic, for shame. Peter denied, and came back, and erased by tears what he had denied because of fear. Paul persecuted Christ in his people, but fell down at Christ’s voice and got up again.
10. One fell, another got up: the persecutor fell, the preacher was uplifted. Kings have persecuted Christ in the Christians: but they have furnished much to them, when the members passed over quickly to his head.
11. No-one inflicts the sorts of harms you do to Christ: for you desire to kill the souls of many, on account of whom Christ came to die in the flesh. For shame, heretic, for shame.
12. Why do you repeat what was given once? Christ is now within his members, do not try to rebaptize him in them. For he deemed it fit to descend into the water once for all with John.
13. Christ redeems spirits, guard what he redeems. Distribute the estate whole to the whole Christ. No-one should invade, no-one should consent to an invader: no-one should rub out the Lord’s mark, no-one should put aside Christ’s deed of title.
14. You are about to give a reckoning to the Lord king, good slaves, an opportunity is given to you to act well. Strangers (peregrini), captives and victims of theft abound. Make friends for yourselves from the mammon of iniquity, so that they might receive you into the eternal dwellings (Luke 16:9). Amen.
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