Commodian — Instructiones 25 (against Christ’s law)
Wretched one, you spit out the good of heavenly discipline and rush into death while you want to wander without a bit. Luxuries and the world’s short joys ruin you — from which you will be tormented under hell for the whole time. The joys you foolishly delight in are empty. They do not make you out to have been a human once dead. Can thirty years already not make you taught? If at first you erred unknowing, look back at the grey head. Do you think you now enjoy this life gladly? Injuries, lawsuits are there and daily losses, unspeakable wars, frauds, thefts with blood; the body is vexed with sores and there is groaning and weeping; whether a plague invades or you are held by long disease, or you are robbed of children, or you weep a lost wife; the whole is destroyed, dignities fall from on high; you burn with poverty twice over if you are certainly sick: and you call it life, where you linger in a glass life? Look at last: this time is empty; but in the future there is hope for you of living without deceit.
Little ones snatched away surely wanted to live, and youths robbed of life perhaps to grow old, because the rich man himself was preparing to enjoy delicacies; and yet unwilling we leave all things to the world. I too was a nation, dwelling with a warped mind, and I thought the life of this age was present, and likewise judged as you do that death is there when once the soul has gone out — that the dead has perished. But these things are not so; the founder and author of the world sought the brother slain by the brother: “Impious one,” he says, “tell, where is your brother?” He denied. For the brother’s blood cried to me on high. You are tormented, I see, where you thought nothing is felt — but he will live and hold the right-hand places, and enjoy the delights you lost, wicked one! And when you renew the age, he who went before will already be immortal; for you will wail under Tartarus. God will certainly live, who made the dead live, to give worthy rewards to the innocent and good, but fierce Tartarus to the mad and impious. Begin to feel God’s judgments, you seduced one!
Latin
25 REPUGNANTIBUS ADVERSUS LEGEM CHRISTI DEI VIVI. Respuis, infelix, bonum disciplinae caelestis Et ruis in mortem, dum uis sine freno uagari. Perdunt te luxuriae et breuia gaudia mundi, Unde sub inferno cruciaberis tempore toto. Gaudia sunt uana, quibus oblectaris inepte. Non illa te reddunt hominem fuisse defunctum. Anni te non possunt iam triginta reddere doctum? Nescius si primum errasti, respice canum. Tu putas nunc uitam isti te perfrui laetum? Iniurias, lites ibi sunt et damna diurnum, Bella uel infanda, fraudes, cum sanguine furta, Ulceribus corpus uexatur gemiturque, ploratur, Seu luis inuadit aut longo morbo teneris, Aut natis orbaris, aut perdita coniugula defles; Destruitur totum, ruunt dignitatis ab alto; Ureris pauperie dupliciter certe si languis: Et dicis uitam, ubi uitrea uita moraris? Respice iam tandem hoc tempus inritum esse; Sed in futuro tibi spes est sine dolo uiuendi. Uiuere uoleba<n>t utique paruoli rapti, Sed uita priuati iuuenes senescere forte, Lautities diues perfrui quia ipse parabat; Et tamen inuiti reli<n>quimus omnia mundo. Gens et ego fui peruersa mente moratus Et uitam istius saeculi coram esse putabam Mortemque similiter sicut uos iudicabam adesse, Cum semel exisset animus, perisse defunctum.
Haec autem sic non sunt; sed conditor orbis et auctor Requisiuit enim fratrem a fratre peremptum: Impie, dic, inquit, ubinam frater? Ille negauit. Sanguis enim fratris ad me perclamauit in altum. Torqueris, uideo, ubi nil sentire putabas, Ille autem uiuet et loca dextera tenet, Delicias fruitur, quas tu perdidisti, nefande! Et cum renouasti saeculum, et ille praegressus Iam <in>mortalis erit; nam tu sub tartara planges. Uiuet certe Deus, qui defunctos uiuere fecit Innocuisque bonis ut reddat praemia digna, Uesanis autem et impiis tartara saeua. Incipe sentire iudicia Dei, seducte!