Chapter XXXVI.

If it is the fact that men bearing the name of Romans are found to be enemies of Rome, why are we, on the ground that we are regarded as enemies, denied the name of Romans? We may be at once Romans and foes of Rome, when men passing for Romans are discovered to be enemies of their country.  So the affection, and fealty, and reverence, due to the emperors do not consist in such tokens of homage as these, which even hostility may be zealous in performing, chiefly as a cloak to its purposes; but in those ways which Deity as certainly enjoins on us, as they are held to be necessary in the case of all men as well as emperors. Deeds of true heart-goodness are not due by us to emperors alone. We never do good with respect of persons; for in our own interest we conduct ourselves as those who take no payment either of praise or premium from man, but from God, who both requires and remunerates an impartial benevolence.52    [Cap. ix. p. 25, note 1 supra.  Again, Christian democracy, “honouring all men.”] We are the same to emperors as to our ordinary neighbors. For we are equally forbidden to wish ill, to do ill, to speak ill, to think ill of all men. The thing we must not do to an emperor, we must not do to any one else: what we would not do to anybody, a fortiori, perhaps we should not do to him whom God has been pleased so highly to exalt.

CAPUT XXXVI.

Hostes igitur haberi posse, qui hostile nihil adversus Romanum vel Imperium vel Imperatorem spirent, imo qui quod Imperatori sunt, etiam sint aliis, quibus male velle, male cogitare non liceat de aliis, multo minus de Imperatore, qui ad tale fastigium a Deo evectus est.

Si haec ita sunt, ut hostes deprehendantur, qui Romani vocabantur, cur nos, qui hostes existimamur, Romani negamur ? non possumus et Romani 0460A esse, et hostes non esse , cum hostes reperiantur qui Romani habebantur. Adeo pietas et religio et fides imperatoribus dedita non in hujusmodi officiis consistit, quibus et hostilitas magis ad velamentum sui potest fungi, sed in iis moribus, quibus civilitas in imperatorem tam vere , quam circa omnes necesse habet exhiberi. Neque enim haec opera bonae mentis solis imperatoribus debentur a nobis. Nullum bonum sub exceptione personarum administramus, quia nobis praestamus, qui non ab homine aut laudis, aut praemii expensum captamus: sed a Deo exactore et remuneratore indifferentis benignitatis. Iidem sumus imperatoribus, qui et vicinis nostris. Male enim velle, male facere, male dicere, male cogitare de quoquam ex aequo vetamur. Quodcunque 0460B non licet in imperatorem, id nec in quemquam, quod in neminem, eo forsitan magis nec in ipsum, qui per Deum tantus est.