The City of God, Volume I by Saint of Hippo Augustine

But I have still some things to say in confutation of those who refer the disasters of the Roman republic to our religion, because it prohibits the offering of sacrifices to the gods. For this end I must recount all, or as many as may seem sufficient, of the disasters which befell that city and its subject provinces, before these sacrifices were prohibited; for all these disasters they would doubtless have attributed to us, if at that time our religion had shed its light upon them, and had prohibited their sacrifices. I must then go on to show what social well-being the true God, in whose hand are all kingdoms, vouchsafed to grant to them that their empire might increase. I must show why He did so, and how their false gods, instead of at all aiding them, greatly injured them by guile and deceit. And, lastly, I must meet those who, when on this point convinced and confuted by irrefragable proofs, endeavour to maintain that they worship the gods, not hoping for the present advantages of this life, but for those which are to be enjoyed after death. And this, if I am not mistaken, will be the most difficult part of my task, and will be worthy of the loftiest argument; for we must then enter the lists with the philosophers, not the mere common herd of philosophers, but the most renowned, who in many points agree with ourselves, as regarding the immortality of the soul, and that the true God created the world, and by His providence rules all He has created. But as they differ from us on other points, we must not shrink from the task of exposing their errors, that, having refuted the gainsaying of the wicked with such ability as God may vouchsafe, we may assert the city of God, and true piety, and the worship of God, to which alone the promise of true and everlasting felicity is attached. Here, then, let us conclude, that we may enter on these subjects in a fresh book. FOOTNOTES: [25] See the Editor's Preface. [26] Ps. xciv. 15, rendered otherwise in Eng. ver. [27] Jas. iv. 6 and 1 Pet. v. 5. [28] Virgil, _Æneid_, vi. 854. [29] The Benedictines remind us that Alexander and Xenophon, at least on some occasions, did so. [30] Virgil, _Æneid_, ii. 501-2. The renderings of Virgil are from Conington. [31] _Ibid._ ii. 166. [32] _Ibid._ [33] Horace, _Ep._ I. ii. 69. [34] _Æneid_, i. 71. [35] _Ibid._ ii. 319. [36] _Ibid._ 293. [37] Non numina bona, sed omina mala. [38] Virgil, _Æneid_, ii. 761. [39] Though "levis" was the word usually employed to signify the inconstancy of the Greeks, it is evidently here used, in opposition to "immanis" of the following clause, to indicate that the Greeks were more civilised than the barbarians, and not relentless, but, as we say, easily moved. [40] _De Conj. Cat._ c. 51. [41] Sallust, _Cat. Conj._ ix. [42] Ps. lxxxix. 32. [43] Matt. v. 45. [44] Rom. ii. 4. [45] So Cyprian (_Contra Demetrianum_) says, "Pœnam de adversis mundi ille sentit, cui et lætitia et gloria omnis in mundo est." [46] Ezek. xxxiii. 6. [47] Compare with this chapter the first homily of Chrysostom to the people of Antioch. [48] Rom. viii. 28. [49] 1 Pet. iii. 4. [50] 1 Tim. vi. 6-10. [51] Job i. 21. [52] 1 Tim. vi. 17-19. [53] Matt. vi. 19-21. [54] Paulinus was a native of Bordeaux, and both by inheritance and marriage acquired great wealth, which, after his conversion in his thirty-sixth year, he distributed to the poor. He became bishop of Nola in A.D. 409, being then in his fifty-sixth year. Nola was taken by Alaric shortly after the sack of Rome. [55] Much of a kindred nature might be gathered from the Stoics. Antoninus says (ii. 14): "Though thou shouldest be going to live 3000 years, and as many times 10,000 years, still remember that no man loses any other life than this which he now lives, nor lives any other than this which he now loses. The longest and the shortest are thus brought to the same." [56] Augustine expresses himself more fully on this subject in his tract, _De cura pro mortuis gerenda_. [57] Matt. x. 28. [58] Luke xii. 4. [59] Ps. lxxix. 2, 3. [60] Ps. cxvi. 15. [61] Diogenes especially, and his followers. See also Seneca, _De Tranq._ c. 14, and _Epist._ 92; and in Cicero's _Tusc. Disp._ i. 43, the answer of Theodorus, the Cyrenian philosopher, to Lysimachus, who threatened him with the cross: "Threaten that to your courtiers; it is of no consequence to Theodorus whether he rot in the earth or in the air." [62] Lucan, _Pharsalia_, vii. 819, of those whom Cæsar forbade to be buried after the battle of Pharsalia. [63] Gen. xxv. 9, xxxv. 29, etc. [64] Gen. xlvii. 29, l. 24. [65] Tob. xii. 12. [66] Matt. xxvi. 10-13. [67] John xix. 38. [68] Dan. iii. [69] Jonah. [70] "Second to none," as he is called by Herodotus, who first of all tells his well-known story (_Clio._ 23, 24). [71] Augustine here uses the words of Cicero ("vigilando peremerunt"), who refers to Regulus, _in Pisonem_, c. 19. Aulus Gellius, quoting Tubero and Tuditanus (vi. 4), adds some further particulars regarding these tortures. [72] As the Stoics generally would affirm. [73] Virgil, _Æneid_, vi. 434. [74] Plutarch's _Life of Cato_, 72. [75] 1 Cor. ii. 11. [76] Ecclus. iii. 27. [77] Rom. xi. 33. [78] Ps. xlii. 10. [79] Ps. xcvi. 4, 5. [80] Originally the spectators had to stand, and now (according to Livy, _Ep._ xlviii.) the old custom was restored. BOOK SECOND. ARGUMENT. IN THIS BOOK AUGUSTINE REVIEWS THOSE CALAMITIES WHICH THE ROMANS SUFFERED BEFORE THE TIME OF CHRIST, AND WHILE THE WORSHIP OF THE FALSE GODS WAS UNIVERSALLY PRACTISED; AND DEMONSTRATES THAT, FAR FROM BEING PRESERVED FROM MISFORTUNE BY THE GODS, THE ROMANS HAVE BEEN BY THEM OVERWHELMED WITH THE ONLY, OR AT LEAST THE GREATEST, OF ALL CALAMITIES--THE CORRUPTION OF MANNERS, AND THE VICES OF THE SOUL.