From: Senator [Cassiodorus], Praetorian Prefect
To: [Public proclamation — Easter amnesty]
Date: ~533-537 AD
Context: A spectacular Easter amnesty proclamation — Cassiodorus orders the release of prisoners, personifies Mercy as a divine force, and delivers a searing description of prison conditions in sixth-century Italy.
Although the very title of "judge" seems dedicated to justice, and I am commanded to walk in the footsteps of equity through the entire orbit of the year, on these days I rightly turn aside into the dwelling-place of mercy — so that through the path of forgiveness I may reach the Redeemer of all. From this virtue I gather the sweetest fruits: by pardoning others, I spare myself. For I who am dangerously just when enforcing the law am always safely in the right when I forgive. Therefore I renounce punishments, I condemn torments — and in doing so, I am truly a judge.
Hail, Mercy — you who release even magistrates from their burden! You, patron of the human race; you, singular physician for afflicted lives. Who does not need your gift, since sinning is universal? You are necessarily sought by all, since under you the hope of life is found that under strict justice does not exist. For though you share in heavenly grace with your three sister virtues [Faith, Hope, and Charity] and are bound together in loving embrace, all of them — virtues though they are — honorably yield to you, knowing you to be the most life-giving to the human race. But why speak only of earthly life? It is mercy that governs even heaven. If only we could dwell with you for long ages! All guilt would be banished, and through pardoning, the very need for pardon would be abolished.
But with the greatest foresight, so great a gift seems to have been granted only at sacred seasons — so that the world might receive it more gratefully, rejoicing at the novelty of the occasion. Therefore, lictor, restrain your harmful axe — you who are permitted to do with impunity what you punish in others. Love your blade, for a moment, when it is gleaming rather than bloodied. Let a happier rust receive your chains, wet with tears. Lock up instead the instrument that used to lock men in. Let the courtrooms of deadly sentences fall silent under a better fortune. This is how you truly preserve the name of "guardian" — without others' deaths. Why do you always toil for the underworld? Serve the world above for once. A merciful act grants you rest. The man who keeps watch for inexorable justice needs mercy's kindness to unbuckle his sword-belt.
And so, you cell of groans, house of sorrow, Pluto's lodging above ground, place blinded by perpetual night — let it grow white at last with an infusion of light! In that place, the prisoner does not endure just one torment; before he meets the end of death, he is already cut off from the world of the living. First, the stench — companion of chains — tortures him with abominable misery. The groans and lamentations of others assault his hearing. Long fasting weakens his taste. Crushing weights exhaust his sense of touch. His eyes, dulled by prolonged darkness, grow numb. There is not one single destruction for the imprisoned: the man tortured by the filth of prison dies a manifold death.
Now, therefore, send out your prisoners from your personal underworld, to live again! Let them return to the world above — men who have already endured much of the world below. Let your halls be filled with emptiness. Let that place of perpetual tears at last lose its sorrowful inmates. Those who remain in prison are not happy — and that prison will truly earn gratitude only if it appears deserted. Come out, you captives, pale with the nearness of constant death! Return to the light, you whom darkening shadows possessed — you who will suffer nothing worse than the death you had hoped for, except that you might still have been killed.
But you who are released — you who must no longer be deceived by ambition — leave your crimes behind with your chains, absolved by the grace of these holy days. Live honestly now, you who have learned what it means to die while still alive. Recognize how beneficial a good life is: the other way brought you a hideous prison; this way knows how to grant splendid freedom. This one will make you want to live; that one made you choose to perish. If the laws once bound you, let no one lock you up again. Fear secret misdeeds; come to the public forum without trembling.
Rightly you flee from those paths by which you reached such misery. Let those who saw you as criminals now marvel at you as free men. You should hate what delivered you to death. Even cattle know how to avoid what has injured them — they do not retrace paths where they fell into a pit. The wary bird declines the tenacious snare; the suspicious fowl does not alight on sticky birdlime. The sea-wolf buries itself in soft sand to escape the ambush of the leaded net — and when the net is dragged over its back in vain, it leaps joyfully into the waves, recognizing the happiness of a danger escaped.
The parrotfish [scarus], lured by bait, when it has begun to enter the wicker trap and realizes it has been invited to its own destruction, slides backward on its tail, gradually withdrawing from the tight space. If another fish of the same species sees one trapped, it seizes its companion's tail in its teeth and pulls — so that the one who cannot save itself when caught may be proven to escape through another's help. So too the sauri — a clever species of fish named for their speed — when they have driven themselves into a knotted trap, they pull backward with all their might, as if bound together by ropes, striving to free their captured companion. There are many more such examples, if one investigates. Everything that can encounter adversity would be quickly destroyed if creatures did not care for their own safety.
Let me return my words to you, master of the prison. Allow your penal sanctuary to be innocently empty. You are tormented, indeed, that no one is being afflicted. You are received among the general rejoicing with sorrow, since the universal pardon alone does not spare you — making you comparable to livid envy. Endure this loss of your power over everyone's security, you who took pleasure in the suffering of many. But to console even your groans, claim for yourself only those whom the law in its mercy does not release — lest by sparing the savage, it should excuse the worst crimes.
Let us all be freed, then, from the entanglements of worldly affairs. Every person endures dangerous bonds from which they are eager to escape. Let the prisons release their inmates; let us be released from the chains of wicked thoughts.
XL.
INDULGENTIA.
[1] Quamvis nomen ipsum iudicis dicatum videatur esse iustitiae et totius anni orbitam aequitatis iubeamur ambulare vestigiis, his tamen diebus in domicilium pietatis iure deflectimus, ut ad redemptorem omnium remissionis itinere pervenire possimus. ex hac enim virtute suavissimos fructus legimus et remittendo aliis nobis parcimus. nam qui periculose iusti sumus, sub securitate semper ignoscimus. quapropter poenas abdicimus, tormenta damnamus et tunc vere iudices sumus. [2] Macte, indulgentia, quae solvis et praesules. tu patrona humani generis, tu afflictis rebus medica singularis. quis tuo non egeat munere, cum sit peccare commune? ab universis necessario peteris, quando sub te spes vitae sumitur, quae sub iustitia non habetur. nam dum cum tribus aliis sororibus caelesti gratia perfruaris et amabili amplexatione nectamini, omnes tibi, quamvis et ipsae virtutes sint, honorabiliter cedunt, quando te humano generi salutiferam esse cognoscunt. sed quid tantum de terrena conversatione dicamus? pietas est, quae regit et caelos. o si tecum liceret longis habitare temporibus! totus excluderetur reatus, et parcendo fieret ut parcere tolleretur. [3] Sed providentissime tanta res sacris solum temporibus videtur esse concessa, ut gratius mundus acciperet, unde pro rerum novitate gauderet. quapropter abstine noxiam, lictor, securem, cui licet impune facere quod in aliis cognosceris vindicare: ama paulisper ferrum splendidum, non cruentum. catenas tuas lacrimis madidas felicior rubigo suscipiat: illud potius reconde, quod solebat includere. auditoria feralium vocum meliore sorte mutescant. sic re vera nomen custodis sine mortibus alienis. quid semper inferis laboras? aliquando et superis milita. otium tibi clemens actus indicit. qui iustitiae inexorabili excubat necesse est, ut eum pietas benigna discingat. [4] Et ideo cella gemituum, tristitiae domus, apud superos Plutonis hospitium, locus perpetua nocte caecatus, tandem infusione lucis albescat: in quo non unum tormentum sustinet reus, qui antequam incurrat necis exitus, a superis probatur abscisus. primum pedor ille collega catenarum abominabili maerore discruciat: auditum alieni gemitus et lamenta conturbant: gustum ieiunia longa debilitant: tactum pondera prementia defetigant: lumina diutinis tenebris obtusa torpescunt. non est unum clausis exitium: multifaria morte perimitur, qui carceris squalore torquetur. [5] Nunc ergo reos de Averno tuo victuros emitte: redeant ad superos, qui ex magna parte inferos pertulerunt: atria tua vacuitatibus impleantur. locus ille perennium lacrimarum quondam tristes incolas perdat. non sunt inde qui laeti sunt: qui tunc profecto habebit gratiam, si desertus appareat. exite, inclusi, vicina semper morte pallentes: redite ad lucem, quos caligantes tenebrae possidebant, nihil amplius optata morte passuri, nisi quod adhuc poteratis occidi. [6] Sed vos, qui nulla debetis ambitione iam decipi, delicta derelinquite cum catenis, dierum beneficiis absoluti. vivite nunc honestate, qui didicistis superstites mori. cognoscite quam beneficialis sit bona conversatio: altera contulit teterrimum carcerem, haec novit splendidam tribuere libertatem: ista praestabit ut velis vivere, illa dedit ut eligeres iam perire. si leges astringunt, ulterius vos nullus includit. secreta pavescite: ad forum sine trepidatione venite. [7] Illa iuste refugitis, per quae tristia pertulistis. mirentur vos liberos, qui viderunt reos. odisse debetis quod vos tradidit neci. pecora ipsa vitare norunt, quae se laesisse cognoscunt: itinera illa non repetunt, ubi in foveam corruerunt. tenaces laqueos avis cauta declinat, haerentem viscum ales suspecta non insidet. pisceus lupus harenis se mollibus, ut plumbati lini insidias evadat, immergit: cuius ut superducta retia eius tergum frustra diraserint, alacer in undas exilit et vitati periculi gaudia liberatus agnoscit. [8] Scarus esca pellectus, cum iunceum carcerem coeperit introire, mox se ad exitium suum invitatum fuisse cognoverit, in caudam labitur, paulatim se ab angusto subducens. quem si alter eiusdem generis cognoverit inretitum, extrema eius mordicus trahit, ut qui sibi captus non potest subvenire, alterius solacio probetur evadere. sic et sauri argutum piscium genus a velocitate nominati cum se in insidias nexuosas impulerint, quasi quibusdam funibus aequabiliter illigati totis nisibus trahentes retrorsum socium conantur liberare captivum. plura sunt, si talia perquirantur. omnia enim, quae possunt habere contraria, facilis casus absumeret, si curam salutis propriae non haberent. [9] Ad te, claustrorum magister, verba revocemus. patere poenale secretarium tuum innocenter esse secretum. torqueris quidem, quod nullus affligitur: a communibus gaudiis maestus exciperis, dum tibi soli non parcitur venia generali, lividae invidiae comparandus. sustine de omnium securitate iacturam, qui habuisti de multorum afflictione laetitiam. sed ut tuos quoque gemitus consolemur, illos tibi tantummodo vindica, quos lex pietatis gratia non relaxat, ne, cum truculentis parceret, asperrima facinora levigaret. solvamur ergo cuncti saecularibus actibus implicati. patitur omnis homo periculosos nexus, quos festinet evadere. claustra reos dimittant: nos vincula improbae cogitationis absolvant.
Cassiodorus
◆
From:Senator [Cassiodorus], Praetorian Prefect
To:[Public proclamation — Easter amnesty]
Date:~533-537 AD
Context:A spectacular Easter amnesty proclamation — Cassiodorus orders the release of prisoners, personifies Mercy as a divine force, and delivers a searing description of prison conditions in sixth-century Italy.
Although the very title of "judge" seems dedicated to justice, and I am commanded to walk in the footsteps of equity through the entire orbit of the year, on these days I rightly turn aside into the dwelling-place of mercy — so that through the path of forgiveness I may reach the Redeemer of all. From this virtue I gather the sweetest fruits: by pardoning others, I spare myself. For I who am dangerously just when enforcing the law am always safely in the right when I forgive. Therefore I renounce punishments, I condemn torments — and in doing so, I am truly a judge.
Hail, Mercy — you who release even magistrates from their burden! You, patron of the human race; you, singular physician for afflicted lives. Who does not need your gift, since sinning is universal? You are necessarily sought by all, since under you the hope of life is found that under strict justice does not exist. For though you share in heavenly grace with your three sister virtues [Faith, Hope, and Charity] and are bound together in loving embrace, all of them — virtues though they are — honorably yield to you, knowing you to be the most life-giving to the human race. But why speak only of earthly life? It is mercy that governs even heaven. If only we could dwell with you for long ages! All guilt would be banished, and through pardoning, the very need for pardon would be abolished.
But with the greatest foresight, so great a gift seems to have been granted only at sacred seasons — so that the world might receive it more gratefully, rejoicing at the novelty of the occasion. Therefore, lictor, restrain your harmful axe — you who are permitted to do with impunity what you punish in others. Love your blade, for a moment, when it is gleaming rather than bloodied. Let a happier rust receive your chains, wet with tears. Lock up instead the instrument that used to lock men in. Let the courtrooms of deadly sentences fall silent under a better fortune. This is how you truly preserve the name of "guardian" — without others' deaths. Why do you always toil for the underworld? Serve the world above for once. A merciful act grants you rest. The man who keeps watch for inexorable justice needs mercy's kindness to unbuckle his sword-belt.
And so, you cell of groans, house of sorrow, Pluto's lodging above ground, place blinded by perpetual night — let it grow white at last with an infusion of light! In that place, the prisoner does not endure just one torment; before he meets the end of death, he is already cut off from the world of the living. First, the stench — companion of chains — tortures him with abominable misery. The groans and lamentations of others assault his hearing. Long fasting weakens his taste. Crushing weights exhaust his sense of touch. His eyes, dulled by prolonged darkness, grow numb. There is not one single destruction for the imprisoned: the man tortured by the filth of prison dies a manifold death.
Now, therefore, send out your prisoners from your personal underworld, to live again! Let them return to the world above — men who have already endured much of the world below. Let your halls be filled with emptiness. Let that place of perpetual tears at last lose its sorrowful inmates. Those who remain in prison are not happy — and that prison will truly earn gratitude only if it appears deserted. Come out, you captives, pale with the nearness of constant death! Return to the light, you whom darkening shadows possessed — you who will suffer nothing worse than the death you had hoped for, except that you might still have been killed.
But you who are released — you who must no longer be deceived by ambition — leave your crimes behind with your chains, absolved by the grace of these holy days. Live honestly now, you who have learned what it means to die while still alive. Recognize how beneficial a good life is: the other way brought you a hideous prison; this way knows how to grant splendid freedom. This one will make you want to live; that one made you choose to perish. If the laws once bound you, let no one lock you up again. Fear secret misdeeds; come to the public forum without trembling.
Rightly you flee from those paths by which you reached such misery. Let those who saw you as criminals now marvel at you as free men. You should hate what delivered you to death. Even cattle know how to avoid what has injured them — they do not retrace paths where they fell into a pit. The wary bird declines the tenacious snare; the suspicious fowl does not alight on sticky birdlime. The sea-wolf buries itself in soft sand to escape the ambush of the leaded net — and when the net is dragged over its back in vain, it leaps joyfully into the waves, recognizing the happiness of a danger escaped.
The parrotfish [scarus], lured by bait, when it has begun to enter the wicker trap and realizes it has been invited to its own destruction, slides backward on its tail, gradually withdrawing from the tight space. If another fish of the same species sees one trapped, it seizes its companion's tail in its teeth and pulls — so that the one who cannot save itself when caught may be proven to escape through another's help. So too the sauri — a clever species of fish named for their speed — when they have driven themselves into a knotted trap, they pull backward with all their might, as if bound together by ropes, striving to free their captured companion. There are many more such examples, if one investigates. Everything that can encounter adversity would be quickly destroyed if creatures did not care for their own safety.
Let me return my words to you, master of the prison. Allow your penal sanctuary to be innocently empty. You are tormented, indeed, that no one is being afflicted. You are received among the general rejoicing with sorrow, since the universal pardon alone does not spare you — making you comparable to livid envy. Endure this loss of your power over everyone's security, you who took pleasure in the suffering of many. But to console even your groans, claim for yourself only those whom the law in its mercy does not release — lest by sparing the savage, it should excuse the worst crimes.
Let us all be freed, then, from the entanglements of worldly affairs. Every person endures dangerous bonds from which they are eager to escape. Let the prisons release their inmates; let us be released from the chains of wicked thoughts.
Modern English rendering for readability. See the 19th-century translation or original Latin/Greek for scholarly use.