Libanios: Om templerne (tekst)

Libanios var en græsk sofist, hvis levned er kendt på grund af hans selvbiografiske fortælling (Oration 1; ’Tale 1’). Han blev født i Antiochia i 314. Han studerede retorik i Athen og gjorde karriere som sofist. Han var på venskabelig fod med Kejser Julian (regent 361-363), der søgte at begrænse kristendommens udbredelse. Libanios’ værker er omfattende og udgør en vigtig kilde til 300-tallets historie. Libanios var overbevist hedning og fjendtlig over for kristendommen, men tilsyneladende temmelig moderat. Ikke desto mindre fordømte han handlinger begået af kristne, især den vold de udøvede mod hedninge og deres templer. Det var efter et angreb på nogle templer i Syrien i 385, at Libanios skrev Om Templerne (386), en tale henvendt til Theodosius. Han beskrev, hvordan munkene havde skabt et terrorregime i landdistrikterne og havde underlagt sig landområder, der tilhørte templer eller hedninge. Munke var et af Libanios’ yndlingsmål for kritik: han betragtede dem som hyklere, der brugte religionen til at fremme egne interesser, hvilket medførte uretfærdighed.

“8. You then have neither ordered the closure of temples nor banned entrance to them. From the temples and altars you have banished neither fire nor incense nor the offerings of other perfumes. But this black-robed tribe, who eat more than elephants and, by the quantities of drink they consume, weary those that accompany their drinking with the singing of hymns, who hide these excesses under an artificially contrived pallor - these people, Sir, While the law yet remains in force, hasten to attack the temples with sticks and stones and bars of iron, and in some cases, disdaining these, with hands and feet. Then utter desolation follows, with the stripping of roofs, demolition of walls, the tearing down of statues and the overthrow of altars, and the priests must either keep quiet or die. After demolishing one, they scurry to another, and to a third, and trophy is piled on trophy, in contravention of the law. 9. Such outrages occur even in the cities, but they are most common in the countryside. Many are the foes who perpetrate the separate attacks, but after their countless crimes this scattered rabble congregates and calls for a tally of their activities, and they are in disgrace unless they have committed the foulest outrage. So they sweep across the countryside like rivers in spate, and by ravaging the temples, they ravage the estates, for wherever they tear out a temple from an estate, that estate is blinded and lies murdered. Temples, Sire, are the soul of the countryside : they mark the beginning of its settlement, and have been passed down through many generations to the men of today.”

Libanius, For the Temples 30, 8-9, oversat af A. D. Lee, Pagans and Christianity in Late Antiquity, New York, 2000.

Augustin af Hippo: Bekendelser (tekst)

Augustin var en kristen teolog, hvis levned er kendt på grund af hans selvbiografi, Confessiones (’Bekendelser’), som han skrev mellem 397 og 401. Han blev født i 354 i Tagaste (en numidisk by på hvis ruiner den nuværende Souk Ahras i Algeriet er bygget) og blev som overklasseromer uddannet i lærde discipliner. Hans mor var overbevist kristen, men han forlod sin kristne opdragelse til fordel for filosofien, inden han tilsluttede sig manikæismen, en doktrin og religiøs bevægelse grundlagt af Mani i slutningen af 200-tallet. Han begyndte dog at opleve tvivl i forhold til manikæismen i årene 382-383. Hans skepsis voksede, da han ankom til Rom i sommeren 383 og særdeles under hans ophold i Milano, hvor han kom i kontakt med Ambrosius. Han blev især påvirket af Ambrosius’ prædikener. I august 386 fandt den havescene, han beskriver i sine Bekendelser, sted (gengivet i uddraget). Han konverterede til kristendommen; han blev døbt i april 387, og i 388 rejste han til Afrika, hvor han blev præsteviet i Hippo i 391 og senere blev biskop i 395. Han blev i Hippo (Annaba i det nuværende Algeriet) til sin død i 430. Hans værk er omfattende, eksegetisk, teologisk og polemisk. Et af hans vigtigste skrifter er De civitate Dei (’Om Guds Stad’), som kom til at danne grundlaget for middelalderens verdenssyn. Hans Bekendelser er et sandt mesterværk, hvori han undersøger sig selv og sin egen fortid og stiller skarpt på spørgsmålet om konvertering såvel som den frie vilje og den menneskelige frihed. Augustin efterlod sig et vedvarende aftryk på kristendommen i lang tid fremover.

“VIII.19 Then, as this vehement quarrel, which I waged with my soul in the chamber of my heart [= become a Christian or remain a Manichean], was raging inside my inner dwelling, agitated both in mind and countenance […]. There was a little garden belonging to our lodging […] The tempest in my breast hurried me out into this garden, where no one might interrupt the fiery struggle in which I was engaged with myself, until it came to the outcome that thou knewest though I did not […]. 20. Finally, in the very fever of my indecision, I made many motions with my body; like men do when they will to act but cannot, either because they do not have the limbs or because their limbs are bound or weakened by disease, or incapacitated in some other way. Thus if I tore my hair, struck my forehead, or, entwining my fingers, clasped my knee, these I did because I willed it […]. XII. 28. […] I flung myself down under a fig tree--how I know not--and gave free course to my tears. The streams of my eyes gushed out an acceptable sacrifice to thee. […] I cried to thee: “And thou, O Lord, how long? How long, O Lord? Wilt thou be angry forever? Oh, remember not against us our former iniquities.” For I felt that I was still enthralled by them. I sent up these sorrowful cries: “How long, how long? Tomorrow and tomorrow? Why not now? Why not this very hour make an end to my uncleanness?” 29. I was saying these things and weeping in the most bitter contrition of my heart, when suddenly I heard the voice […] “Pick it up, read it; pick it up, read it.” […] I snatched it [= the book of the Apostle which was in the garden] up, opened it, and in silence read the paragraph on which my eyes first fell: “Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof.” I wanted to read no further, nor did I need to. For instantly, as the sentence ended, there was infused in my heart something like the light of full certainty and all the gloom of doubt vanished away. [Augustine’s mother is delighted by the news] For thou didst so convert me to thee that I sought neither a wife nor any other of this world’s hopes, but set my feet on that rule of faith which so many years before thou hadst showed her in her dream about me. And so thou didst turn her grief into gladness more plentiful than she had ventured to desire.”

Augustin of Hippo, Confessions VIII, ch. 8.19-12.30, oversat af Albert C. Outler.