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Augustine of Hippo, The City of God
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Preface, Explaining His Design in Undertaking This Work.
Chapter 5.—Cæsar’s Statement Regarding the Universal Custom of an Enemy When Sacking a City.
Chapter 6.—That Not Even the Romans, When They Took Cities, Spared the Conquered in Their Temples.
Chapter 9.—Of the Reasons for Administering Correction to Bad and Good Together.
Chapter 10.—That the Saints Lose Nothing in Losing Temporal Goods.
Chapter 11.—Of the End of This Life, Whether It is Material that It Be Long Delayed.
Chapter 13.—Reasons for Burying the Bodies of the Saints.
Chapter 14.—Of the Captivity of the Saints, and that Divine Consolation Never Failed Them Therein.
Chapter 17.—Of Suicide Committed Through Fear of Punishment or Dishonor.
Chapter 19.—Of Lucretia, Who Put an End to Her Life Because of the Outrage Done Her.
Chapter 20.—That Christians Have No Authority for Committing Suicide in Any Circumstances Whatever.
Chapter 21.—Of the Cases in Which We May Put Men to Death Without Incurring the Guilt of Murder.
Chapter 22.—That Suicide Can Never Be Prompted by Magnanimity.
Chapter 25.—That We Should Not Endeavor By Sin to Obviate Sin.
Chapter 26.—That in Certain Peculiar Cases the Examples of the Saints are Not to Be Followed.
Chapter 27.—Whether Voluntary Death Should Be Sought in Order to Avoid Sin.
Chapter 31.—By What Steps the Passion for Governing Increased Among the Romans.
Chapter 32.—Of the Establishment of Scenic Entertainments.
Chapter 33.—That the Overthrow of Rome Has Not Corrected the Vices of the Romans.
Chapter 34.—Of God’s Clemency in Moderating the Ruin of the City.
Chapter 36.—What Subjects are to Be Handled in the Following Discourse.
Chapter 1.—Of the Limits Which Must Be Put to the Necessity of Replying to an Adversary.
Chapter 2.—Recapitulation of the Contents of the First Book.
Chapter 5.—Of the Obscenities Practiced in Honor of the Mother of the Gods.
Chapter 6.—That the Gods of the Pagans Never Inculcated Holiness of Life.
Chapter 15.—That It Was Vanity, Not Reason, Which Created Some of the Roman Gods.
Chapter 21.—Cicero’s Opinion of the Roman Republic.
Chapter 24.—Of the Deeds of Sylla, in Which the Demons Boasted that He Had Their Help.
Chapter 28.—That the Christian Religion is Health-Giving.
Chapter 29.—An Exhortation to the Romans to Renounce Paganism.
Chapter 6.—That the Gods Exacted No Penalty for the Fratricidal Act of Romulus.
Chapter 7.—Of the Destruction of Ilium by Fimbria, a Lieutenant of Marius.
Chapter 8.—Whether Rome Ought to Have Been Entrusted to the Trojan Gods.
Chapter 13.—By What Right or Agreement The Romans Obtained Their First Wives.
Chapter 15.—What Manner of Life and Death the Roman Kings Had.
Chapter 19.—Of the Calamity of the Second Punic War, Which Consumed the Strength of Both Parties.
Chapter 24.—Of the Civil Dissension Occasioned by the Sedition of the Gracchi.
Chapter 26.—Of the Various Kinds of Wars Which Followed the Building of the Temple of Concord.
Chapter 27.—Of the Civil War Between Marius and Sylla.
Chapter 28.—Of the Victory of Sylla, the Avenger of the Cruelties of Marius.
Chapter 1.—Of the Things Which Have Been Discussed in the First Book.
Chapter 2.—Of Those Things Which are Contained in Books Second and Third.
Chapter 4.—How Like Kingdoms Without Justice are to Robberies.
Chapter 5.—Of the Runaway Gladiators Whose Power Became Like that of Royal Dignity.
Chapter 11.—Concerning the Many Gods Whom the Pagan Doctors Defend as Being One and the Same Jove.
Chapter 13.—Concerning Those Who Assert that Only Rational Animals are Parts of the One God.
Chapter 15.—Whether It is Suitable for Good Men to Wish to Rule More Widely.
Chapter 17.—Whether, If the Highest Power Belongs to Jove, Victoria Also Ought to Be Worshipped.
Chapter 18.—With What Reason They Who Think Felicity and Fortune Goddesses Have Distinguished Them.
Chapter 27.—Concerning the Three Kinds of Gods About Which the Pontiff Scævola Has Discoursed.
Chapter 2.—On the Difference in the Health of Twins.
Chapter 5.—In What Manner the Mathematicians are Convicted of Professing a Vain Science.
Chapter 6.—Concerning Twins of Different Sexes.
Chapter 7.—Concerning the Choosing of a Day for Marriage, or for Planting, or Sowing.
Chapter 10.—Whether Our Wills are Ruled by Necessity.
Chapter 15.—Concerning the Temporal Reward Which God Granted to the Virtues of the Romans.
Chapter 19.—Concerning the Difference Between True Glory and the Desire of Domination.
Chapter 20.—That It is as Shameful for the Virtues to Serve Human Glory as Bodily Pleasure.
Chapter 22.—The Durations and Issues of War Depend on the Will of God.
Chapter 24.—What Was the Happiness of the Christian Emperors, and How Far It Was True Happiness.
Chapter 25.—Concerning the Prosperity Which God Granted to the Christian Emperor Constantine.
Chapter 26.—On the Faith and Piety of Theodosius Augustus.
Chapter 6.—Concerning the Mythic, that Is, the Fabulous, Theology, and the Civil, Against Varro.
Chapter 7.—Concerning the Likeness and Agreement of the Fabulous and Civil Theologies.
Chapter 9.—Concerning the Special Offices of the Gods.
Chapter 11.—What Seneca Thought Concerning the Jews.
Chapter 7.—Whether It is Reasonable to Separate Janus and Terminus as Two Distinct Deities.
Chapter 9.—Concerning the Power of Jupiter, and a Comparison of Jupiter with Janus.
Chapter 10.—Whether the Distinction Between Janus and Jupiter is a Proper One.
Chapter 12.—That Jupiter is Also Called Pecunia.
Chapter 14.—Concerning the Offices of Mercury and Mars.
Chapter 15.—Concerning Certain Stars Which the Pagans Have Called by the Names of Their Gods.
Chapter 17.—That Even Varro Himself Pronounced His Own Opinions Regarding the Gods Ambiguous.
Chapter 18.—A More Credible Cause of the Rise of Pagan Error.
Chapter 19.—Concerning the Interpretations Which Compose the Reason of the Worship of Saturn.
Chapter 20.—Concerning the Rites of Eleusinian Ceres.
Chapter 21.—Concerning the Shamefulness of the Rites Which are Celebrated in Honor of Liber.
Chapter 22.—Concerning Neptune, and Salacia and Venilia.
Chapter 26.—Concerning the Abomination of the Sacred Rites of the Great Mother.
Chapter 28.—That the Doctrine of Varro Concerning Theology is in No Part Consistent with Itself.
Chapter 3.—Of the Socratic Philosophy.
Chapter 6.—Concerning the Meaning of the Platonists in that Part of Philosophy Called Physical.
Chapter 8.—That the Platonists Hold the First Rank in Moral Philosophy Also.
Chapter 9.—Concerning that Philosophy Which Has Come Nearest to the Christian Faith.
Chapter 10.—That the Excellency of the Christian Religion is Above All the Science of Philosophers.
Chapter 11.—How Plato Has Been Able to Approach So Nearly to Christian Knowledge.
Chapter 16.—What Apuleius the Platonist Thought Concerning the Manners and Actions of Demons.
Chapter 19.—Of the Impiety of the Magic Art, Which is Dependent on the Assistance of Malign Spirits.
Chapter 22.—That We Must, Notwithstanding the Opinion of Apuleius, Reject the Worship of Demons.
Chapter 25.—Concerning Those Things Which May Be Common to the Holy Angels and to Men.
Chapter 26.—That All the Religion of the Pagans Has Reference to Dead Men.
Chapter 27.—Concerning the Nature of the Honor Which the Christians Pay to Their Martyrs.
Chapter 1.—The Point at Which the Discussion Has Arrived, and What Remains to Be Handled.
Chapter 4.—The Opinion of the Peripatetics and Stoics About Mental Emotions.
Chapter 11.—Of the Opinion of the Platonists, that the Souls of Men Become Demons When Disembodied.
Chapter 14.—Whether Men, Though Mortal, Can Enjoy True Blessedness.
Chapter 15.—Of the Man Christ Jesus, the Mediator Between God and Men.
Chapter 19.—That Even Among Their Own Worshippers the Name “Demon” Has Never a Good Signification.
Chapter 20.—Of the Kind of Knowledge Which Puffs Up the Demons.
Chapter 21.—To What Extent the Lord Was Pleased to Make Himself Known to the Demons.
Chapter 22.—The Difference Between the Knowledge of the Holy Angels and that of the Demons.
Chapter 2.—The Opinion of Plotinus the Platonist Regarding Enlightenment from Above.
Chapter 4.—That Sacrifice is Due to the True God Only.
Chapter 6.—Of the True and Perfect Sacrifice.
Chapter 12.—Of the Miracles Wrought by the True God Through the Ministry of the Holy Angels.
Chapter 15.—Of the Ministry of the Holy Angels, by Which They Fulfill the Providence of God.
Chapter 22.—Whence the Saints Derive Power Against Demons and True Purification of Heart.
Chapter 24.—Of the One Only True Principle Which Alone Purifies and Renews Human Nature.
Chapter 27.—Of the Impiety of Porphyry, Which is Worse Than Even the Mistake of Apuleius.
Chapter 28.—How It is that Porphyry Has Been So Blind as Not to Recognize the True Wisdom—Christ.
Chapter 30.—Porphyry’s Emendations and Modifications of Platonism.
Chapter 3.—Of the Authority of the Canonical Scriptures Composed by the Divine Spirit.
Chapter 6.—That the World and Time Had Both One Beginning, and the One Did Not Anticipate the Other.
Chapter 8.—What We are to Understand of God’s Resting on the Seventh Day, After the Six Days’ Work.
Chapter 9.—What the Scriptures Teach Us to Believe Concerning the Creation of the Angels.
Chapter 15.—How We are to Understand the Words, “The Devil Sinneth from the Beginning.”
Chapter 23.—Of the Error in Which the Doctrine of Origen is Involved.
Chapter 25.—Of the Division of Philosophy into Three Parts.
Chapter 27.—Of Existence, and Knowledge of It, and the Love of Both.
Chapter 31.—Of the Seventh Day, in Which Completeness and Repose are Celebrated.
Chapter 32.—Of the Opinion that the Angels Were Created Before the World.
Chapter 1.—That the Nature of the Angels, Both Good and Bad, is One and the Same.
Chapter 5.—That in All Natures, of Every Kind and Rank, God is Glorified.
Chapter 7.—That We Ought Not to Expect to Find Any Efficient Cause of the Evil Will.
Chapter 10.—Of the Falseness of the History Which Allots Many Thousand Years to the World’s Past.
Chapter 23.—Of the Nature of the Human Soul Created in the Image of God.
Chapter 24.—Whether the Angels Can Be Said to Be the Creators of Any, Even the Least Creature.
Chapter 25.—That God Alone is the Creator of Every Kind of Creature, Whatever Its Nature or Form.
Chapter 1.—Of the Fall of the First Man, Through Which Mortality Has Been Contracted.
Chapter 6.—Of the Evil of Death in General, Considered as the Separation of Soul and Body.
Chapter 10.—Of the Life of Mortals, Which is Rather to Be Called Death Than Life.
Chapter 11.—Whether One Can Both Be Living and Dead at the Same Time.
Chapter 13.—What Was the First Punishment of the Transgression of Our First Parents.
Chapter 17.—Against Those Who Affirm that Earthly Bodies Cannot Be Made Incorruptible and Eternal.
Chapter 4.—What It is to Live According to Man, and What to Live According to God.
Chapter 6.—Of the Character of the Human Will Which Makes the Affections of the Soul Right or Wrong.
Chapter 12.—Of the Nature of Man’s First Sin.
Chapter 13.—That in Adam’s Sin an Evil Will Preceded the Evil Act.
Chapter 14.—Of the Pride in the Sin, Which Was Worse Than the Sin Itself.
Chapter 17.—Of the Nakedness of Our First Parents, Which They Saw After Their Base and Shameful Sin.
Chapter 18.—Of the Shame Which Attends All Sexual Intercourse.
Chapter 20.—Of the Foolish Beastliness of the Cynics.
Chapter 22.—Of the Conjugal Union as It Was Originally Instituted and Blessed by God.
Chapter 25.—Of True Blessedness, Which This Present Life Cannot Enjoy.
Chapter 28.—Of the Nature of the Two Cities, the Earthly and the Heavenly.
Chapter 1.—Of the Two Lines of the Human Race Which from First to Last Divide It.
Chapter 2.—Of the Children of the Flesh and the Children of the Promise.
Chapter 3.—That Sarah’s Barrenness was Made Productive by God’s Grace.
Chapter 4.—Of the Conflict and Peace of the Earthly City.
Chapter 8.—What Cain’s Reason Was for Building a City So Early in the History of the Human Race.
Chapter 9.—Of the Long Life and Greater Stature of the Antediluvians.
Chapter 11.—Of Methuselah’s Age, Which Seems to Extend Fourteen Years Beyond the Deluge.
Chapter 13.—Whether, in Computing Years, We Ought to Follow the Hebrew or the Septuagint.
Chapter 14.—That the Years in Those Ancient Times Were of the Same Length as Our Own.
Chapter 17.—Of the Two Fathers and Leaders Who Sprang from One Progenitor.
Chapter 18.—The Significance of Abel, Seth, and Enos to Christ and His Body the Church.
Chapter 19.—The Significance Of Enoch’s Translation.
Chapter 2.—What Was Prophetically Prefigured in the Sons of Noah.
Chapter 3.—Of the Generations of the Three Sons of Noah.
Chapter 4.—Of the Diversity of Languages, and of the Founding of Babylon.
Chapter 5.—Of God’s Coming Down to Confound the Languages of the Builders of the City.
Chapter 6.—What We are to Understand by God’s Speaking to the Angels.
Chapter 8.—Whether Certain Monstrous Races of Men are Derived from the Stock of Adam or Noah’s Sons.
Chapter 9.—Whether We are to Believe in the Antipodes.
Chapter 12.—Of the Era in Abraham’s Life from Which a New Period in the Holy Succession Begins.
Chapter 14.—Of the Years of Terah, Who Completed His Lifetime in Haran.
Chapter 16.—Of the Order and Nature of the Promises of God Which Were Made to Abraham.
Chapter 20.—Of the Parting of Lot and Abraham, Which They Agreed to Without Breach of Charity.
Chapter 25.—Of Sarah’s Handmaid, Hagar, Whom She Herself Wished to Be Abraham’s Concubine.
Chapter 33.—Of Rebecca, the Grand-Daughter of Nahor, Whom Isaac Took to Wife.
Chapter 34.—What is Meant by Abraham’s Marrying Keturah After Sarah’s Death.
Chapter 37.—Of the Things Mystically Prefigured in Esau and Jacob.
Chapter 39.—The Reason Why Jacob Was Also Called Israel.
Chapter 41.—Of the Blessing Which Jacob Promised in Judah His Son.
Chapter 42.—Of the Sons of Joseph, Whom Jacob Blessed, Prophetically Changing His Hands.
Chapter 1.—Of the Prophetic Age.
Chapter 14.—Of David’s Concern in the Writing of the Psalms.
Chapter 19.—Of the 69th Psalm, in Which the Obstinate Unbelief of the Jews is Declared.
Chapter 21.—Of the Kings After Solomon, Both in Judah and Israel.
Chapter 4.—Of the Times of Jacob and His Son Joseph.
Chapter 6.—Who Were Kings of Argos, and of Assyria, When Jacob Died in Egypt.
Chapter 7.—Who Were Kings When Joseph Died in Egypt.
Chapter 8.—Who Were Kings When Moses Was Born, and What Gods Began to Be Worshipped Then.
Chapter 9.—When the City of Athens Was Founded, and What Reason Varro Assigns for Its Name.
Chapter 10.—What Varro Reports About the Term Areopagus, and About Deucalion’s Flood.
Chapter 13.—What Fables Were Invented at the Time When Judges Began to Rule the Hebrews.
Chapter 14.—Of the Theological Poets.
Chapter 17.—What Varro Says of the Incredible Transformations of Men.
Chapter 19.—That Æneas Came into Italy When Abdon the Judge Ruled Over the Hebrews.
Chapter 28.—Of the Things Pertaining to the Gospel of Christ Which Hosea and Amos Prohesied.
Chapter 29.—What Things are Predicted by Isaiah Concerning Christ and the Church.
Chapter 30.—What Micah, Jonah, and Joel Prophesied in Accordance with the New Testament.
Chapter 32.—Of the Prophecy that is Contained in the Prayer and Song of Habakkuk.
Chapter 34.—Of the Prophecy of Daniel and Ezekiel, Other Two of the Greater Prophets.
Chapter 35.—Of the Prophecy of the Three Prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.
Chapter 36.—About Esdras and the Books of the Maccabees.
Chapter 39.—About the Hebrew Written Characters Which that Language Always Possessed.
Chapter 51.—That the Catholic Faith May Be Confirmed Even by the Dissensions of the Heretics.
Chapter 53.—Of the Hidden Time of the Final Persecution.
Chapter 6.—Of the Error of Human Judgments When the Truth is Hidden.
Chapter 10.—The Reward Prepared for the Saints After They Have Endured the Trial of This Life.
Chapter 16.—Of Equitable Rule.
Chapter 17.—What Produces Peace, and What Discord, Between the Heavenly and Earthly Cities.
Chapter 19.—Of the Dress and Habits of the Christian People.
Chapter 20.—That the Saints are in This Life Blessed in Hope.
Chapter 23.—Porphyry’s Account of the Responses Given by the Oracles of the gods Concerning Christ.
Chapter 25.—That Where There is No True Religion There are No True Virtues.
Chapter 28.—The End of the Wicked.
Chapter 6.—What is the First Resurrection, and What the Second.
Chapter 8.—Of the Binding and Loosing of the Devil.
Chapter 15.—Who the Dead are Who are Given Up to Judgment by the Sea, and by Death and Hell.
Chapter 16.—Of the New Heaven and the New Earth.
Chapter 17.—Of the Endless Glory of the Church.
Chapter 18.—What the Apostle Peter Predicted Regarding the Last Judgment.
Chapter 22.—What is Meant by the Good Going Out to See the Punishment of the Wicked.
Chapter 2.—Whether It is Possible for Bodies to Last for Ever in Burning Fire.
Chapter 3.—Whether Bodily Suffering Necessarily Terminates in the Destruction of the Flesh.
Chapter 4.—Examples from Nature Proving that Bodies May Remain Unconsumed and Alive in Fire.
Chapter 7.—That the Ultimate Reason for Believing Miracles is the Omnipotence of the Creator.
Chapter 9.—Of Hell, and the Nature of Eternal Punishments.
Chapter 14.—Of the Temporary Punishments of This Life to Which the Human Condition is Subject.
Chapter 16.—The Laws of Grace, Which Extend to All the Epochs of the Life of the Regenerate.
Chapter 17.—Of Those Who Fancy that No Men Shall Be Punished Eternally.
Chapter 1.—Of the Creation of Angels and Men.
Chapter 2.—Of the Eternal and Unchangeable Will of God.
Chapter 7.—That the World’s Belief in Christ is the Result of Divine Power, Not of Human Persuasion.
Chapter 14.—Whether Infants Shall Rise in that Body Which They Would Have Had Had They Grown Up.
Chapter 15.—Whether the Bodies of All the Dead Shall Rise the Same Size as the Lord’s Body.
Chapter 16.—What is Meant by the Conforming of the Saints to the Image of The Son of God.
Chapter 17.—Whether the Bodies of Women Shall Retain Their Own Sex in the Resurrection.
Chapter 21.—Of the New Spiritual Body into Which the Flesh of the Saints Shall Be Transformed.
Chapter 29.—Of the Beatific Vision.
Chapter 30.—Of the Eternal Felicity of the City of God, and of the Perpetual Sabbath.
Chapter 25.—The Interpretation of the Mutilation of Atys Which the Doctrine of the Greek Sages Set Forth.
Varro has not spoken of that Atys, nor sought out any interpretation for him, in memory of whose being loved by Ceres the Gallus is mutilated. But the learned and wise Greeks have by no means been silent about an interpretation so holy and so illustrious. The celebrated philosopher Porphyry has said that Atys signifies the flowers of spring, which is the most beautiful season, and therefore was mutilated because the flower falls before the fruit appears.259 In the book De Ratione Naturali Deorum. They have not, then, compared the man himself, or rather that semblance of a man they called Atys, to the flower, but his male organs,—these, indeed, fell whilst he was living. Did I say fell? nay, truly they did not fall, nor were they plucked off, but torn away. Nor when that flower was lost did any fruit follow, but rather sterility. What, then, do they say is signified by the castrated Atys himself, and whatever remained to him after his castration? To what do they refer that? What interpretation does that give rise to? Do they, after vain endeavors to discover an interpretation, seek to persuade men that that is rather to be believed which report has made public, and which has also been written concerning his having been a mutilated man? Our Varro has very properly opposed this, and has been unwilling to state it; for it certainly was not unknown to that most learned man.
CAPUT XXV. Quam interpretationem de abscisione AtidisGraecorum sapientium doctrina repererit.
Et Atys ille non est commemoratus, nec ejus ab isto interpretatio requisita est, in cujus dilectionis memoriam Gallus absciditur . Sed docti Graeci atque sapientes nequaquam rationem tam sanctam praeclaramque tacuerunt. Propter vernalem quippe faciem terrae, quae caeteris temporibus est pulchrior, Porphyrius, philosophus nobilis, Atyn flores significare perhibuit; et ideo abscisum, quia flos decidit ante fructum (In libro de Ratione naturali deorum). Non ergo ipsum hominem, vel quasi hominem, qui vocatus est Atys, sed virilia ejus flori comparaverunt. Ipsa quippe illo vivente deciderunt: imo vero non deciderunt, neque decerpta, sed plane discerpta sunt; nec illo flore amisso quisquam postea fructus, sed potius sterilitas consecuta est. Quid ergo ipse reliquus? et quidquid remansit absciso, quid eo significari dicitur? quo refertur? quae interpretatio inde profertur? an haec frustra moliendo nihilque inveniendo persuadent illud potius esse credendum, quod de homine castrato fama jactavit, litterisque mandatum est? Merito hinc aversatus est Varro noster, neque hoc dicere voluit: non enim hominem doctissimum latuit.