CHAPTER XXXVI.

We are necessarily well-disposed to every one, whether Caesar or neighbour.

SINCE then the case stands thus,—that those who are called Romans are found to be enemies, why are we who are thought to be enemies refused the title of Romans? Cannot we be Romans and yet not enemies, when some are found out to be enemies who were regarded as Romans? Devotion and loyalty and fidelity rendered to the emperors do not consist in duties of such a kind as a hostile disposition is likewise able to discharge even more rigorously as a cloak for its own designs, but in those practices which necessarily compel us to shew a kindly disposition towards the emperor as truly as towards all men. For these acts which spring from the possession of a good heart are not demanded from us towards the emperor only. In the [108] performance of our good deeds we do not make any exception of persons; for we do them for our own sakes, and seek to obtain the meed of praise or reward, not from man, but from God Who requires and recompenses an impartial beneficence. We are the same towards the emperors as towards our neighbours. For we are alike forbidden to wish, or do, or speak, or think, evil of any one. Whatever is unlawful in the case of the emperor, is also unlawful in the case of any man; and what is unlawful in the case of any man, is of course still more so in the case of him, who, by God's appointment, is so great a man.