The City of God, Volume I by Bishop of Hippo Saint Augustine - HTML preview

FOOTNOTES:

[1] a.d. 410.

[2] Retractations, ii. 43.

[3] Letters 132-8.

[4] See some admirable remarks on this subject in the useful work of Beugnot, Histoire de la Destruction du Paganisme, ii. 83 et sqq.

[5] As Waterland (iv. 760) does call it, adding that it is "his most learned, most correct, and most elaborate work."

[6] For proof, see the Benedictine Preface.

[7] "Hitherto the Apologies had been framed to meet particular exigencies: they were either brief and pregnant statements of the Christian doctrines; refutations of prevalent calumnies; invectives against the follies and crimes of Paganism; or confutations of anti-Christian works like those of Celsus, Porphyry, or Julian, closely following their course of argument, and rarely expanding into general and comprehensive views of the great conflict."—Milman, History of Christianity, iii. c. 10. We are not acquainted with any more complete preface to the City of God than is contained in the two or three pages which Milman has devoted to this subject.

[8] See the interesting remarks of Lactantius, Instit. vii. 25.

[9] "Hæret vox et singultus intercipiunt verba dictantis. Capitur urbs quæ totum cepit orbem."—Jerome, iv. 783.

[10] See below, iv. 7.

[11] This is well brought out by Merivale, Conversion of the Roman Empire, p. 145, etc.

[12] Ozanam, History of Civilisation in the Fifth Century (Eng. trans.), ii. 160.

[13] Abstracts of the work at greater or less length are given by Dupin, Bindemann, Böhringer, Poujoulat, Ozanam, and others.

[14] His words are: "Plus on examine la Cité de Dieu, plus on reste convaincu que cet ouvrage dût exercea tres-peu d'influence sur l'esprit des païens" (ii. 122); and this though he thinks one cannot but be struck with the grandeur of the ideas it contains.

[15] History of Ecclesiastical Writers, i. 406.

[16] Huetiana, p. 24.

[17] Flottes, Etudes sur S. Augustin (Paris, 1861), pp. 154-6, one of the most accurate and interesting even of French monographs on theological writers.

[18] These editions will be found detailed in the second volume of Schoenemann's Bibliotheca Pat.

[19] His words (in Ep. vi.) are quite worth quoting: "Cura rogo te, ut excudantur aliquot centena exemplarium istius operis a reliquo Augustini corpore separata; nam multi erunt studiosi qui Augustinum totum emere vel nollent, vel non poterunt, quia non egebunt, seu quia tantum pecuniæ non habebunt. Scio enim fere a deditis studiis istis elegantioribus præter hoc Augustini opus nullum fere aliud legi ejusdem autoris."

[20] The fullest and fairest discussion of the very simple yet never settled question of Augustine's learning will be found in Nourrisson's Philosophie de S. Augustin, ii. 92-100.

[21] Erasmi Epistolæ xx. 2.

[22] A large part of it has been translated in Saisset's Pantheism (Clark, Edin.).

[23] By J. H., published in 1610, and again in 1620, with Vives' commentary.

[24] As the letters of Vives are not in every library, we give his comico-pathetic account of the result of his Augustinian labours on his health: "Ex quo Augustinum perfeci, nunquam valui ex sententia; proximâ vero hebdomade et hac, fracto corpore cuncto, et nervis lassitudine quadam et debilitate dejectis, in caput decem turres incumbere mihi videntur incidendo pondere, ac mole intolerabili; isti sunt fructus studiorum, et merces pulcherrimi laboris; quid labor et benefacta juvant?"

[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.

[81] Ps. xciv. 4.

[82] 2 Tim. iii. 7.

[83] "Pluvia defit, causa Christiani." Similar accusations and similar replies may be seen in the celebrated passage of Tertullian's Apol. c. 40, and in the eloquent exordium of Arnobius, C. Gentes.

[84] Augustine is supposed to refer to Symmachus, who similarly accused the Christians in his address to the Emperor Valentinianus in the year 384. At Augustine's request, Paulus Orosius wrote his history in confutation of Symmachus' charges.

[85] Tertullian (Apol. c. 24) mentions Cœlestis as specially worshipped in Africa. Augustine mentions her again in the 26th chapter of this book, and in other parts of his works.

[86] Berecynthia is one of the many names of Rhea or Cybele. Livy (xxix. 11) relates that the image of Cybele was brought to Rome the day before the ides of April, which was accordingly dedicated as her feast-day. The image, it seems, had to be washed in the stream Almon, a tributary of the Tiber, before being placed in the temple of Victory; and each year, as the festival returned, the washing was repeated with much pomp at the same spot. Hence Lucan's line (i. 600), 'Et lotam parvo revocant Almone Cybelen,' and the elegant verses of Ovid, Fast. iv. 337 et seq.

[87] "Fercula," dishes, or courses.

[88] See Cicero, De Nat. Deor. ii. 24.

[89] Prov. vi. 26.

[90] Fugalia. Vives is uncertain to what feast Augustine refers. Censorinus understands him to refer to a feast celebrating the expulsion of the kings from Rome. This feast, however (celebrated on the 24th February), was commonly called "Regifugium."

[91] Persius, Sat. iii. 66-72.

[92] See below, books viii.-xii.

[93] "Galli," the castrated priests of Cybele, who were named after the river Gallus, in Phrygia, the water of which was supposed to intoxicate or madden those who drank it. According to Vitruvius (viii. 3), there was a similar fountain in Paphlagonia. Apuleius (Golden Ass, viii.) gives a graphic and humorous description of the dress, dancing, and imposture of these priests; mentioning, among other things, that they lashed themselves with whips and cut themselves with knives till the ground was wet with blood.

[94] Persius, Sat. iii. 37.

[95] Ter. Eun. iii. 5. 36; and cf. the similar allusion in Aristoph. Clouds, 1033-4. It may be added that the argument of this chapter was largely used by the wiser of the heathen themselves. Dionysius Hal. (ii. 20) and Seneca (De Brev. Vit. c. xvi.) make the very same complaint; and it will be remembered that his adoption of this reasoning was one of the grounds on which Euripides was suspected of atheism.

[96] This sentence recalls Augustine's own experience as a boy, which he bewails in his Confessions.

[97] Labeo, a jurist of the time of Augustus, learned in law and antiquities, and the author of several works much prized by his own and some succeeding ages. The two articles in Smith's Dictionary on Antistius and Cornelius Labeo should be read.

[98] "Lectisternia," feasts in which the images of the gods were laid on pillows in the streets, and all kinds of food set before them.

[99] According to Livy (vii. 2), theatrical exhibitions were introduced in the year 392 a. u. c. Before that time, he says, there had only been the games of the circus. The Romans sent to Etruria for players, who were called "histriones," "hister" being the Tuscan word for a player. Other particulars are added by Livy.

[100] See the Republic, book iii.

[101] Comp. Tertullian, De Spectac. c. 22.

[102] The Egyptian gods represented with dogs' heads, called by Lucan (viii. 832) semicanes deos.

[103] The Fever had, according to Vives, three altars in Rome. See Cicero, De Nat. Deor. iii. 25, and Ælian, Var. Hist. xii. 11.

[104] Cicero, De Republica, v. Compare the third Tusculan Quæst. c. ii.

[105] In the year a.u. 299, three ambassadors were sent from Rome to Athens to copy Solon's laws, and acquire information about the institutions of Greece. On their return the Decemviri were appointed to draw up a code; and finally, after some tragic interruptions, the celebrated Twelve Tables were accepted as the fundamental statutes of Roman law (fons universi publici privatique juris). These were graven on brass, and hung up for public information. Livy, iii. 31-34.

[106] Possibly he refers to Plautus' Persa, iv. 4. 11-14.

[107] Sallust, Cat. Con. ix. Compare the similar saying of Tacitus regarding the chastity of the Germans: "Plusque ibi boni mores valent, quam alibi bonæ leges" (Germ. xix.).

[108] The same collocation of words is used by Cicero with reference to the well-known mode of renewing the appetite in use among the Romans.

[109] Æneid, ii. 351-2.

[110] 2 Cor. xi. 14.

[111] Cicero, C. Verrem, vi. 8.

[112] Cicero, C. Catilinam, iii. 8.

[113] Alluding to the sanctuary given to all who fled to Rome in its early days.

[114] Virgil, Æneid, i. 278.

[115] Compare Aug. Epist. ad Deogratias, 102, 13; and De Præd. Sanct. 19.

[116] Ch. iv.

[117] Virg. Georg. i. 502, 'Laomedonteæ luimus perjuria Trojæ.'

[118] Iliad, xx. 293 et seqq.

[119] Æneid, v. 810, 811.

[120] Gratis et ingratis.

[121] De Conj. Cat. vi.

[122] Helen's husband.

[123] Venus' husband.

[124] Suetonius, in his Life of Julius Cæsar (c. 6), relates that, in pronouncing a funeral oration in praise of his aunt Julia, Cæsar claimed for the Julian gens to which his family belonged a descent from Venus, through Iulus, son of Eneas.

[125] Livy, 83, one of the lost books; and Appian, in Mithridat.

[126] The gates of Janus were not the gates of a temple, but the gates of a passage called Janus, which was used only for military purposes; shut therefore in peace, open in war.

[127] The year of the Consuls T. Manlius and C. Atilius, a. u. c. 519.

[128] Sall. Conj. Cat. ii.

[129] Æneid, viii. 326-7.

[130] Sall. Cat. Conj. vi.

[131] Æneid, xi. 532.

[132] Ibid. x. 464.

[133] Livy, x. 47.

[134] Being son of Apollo.

[135] Virgil, Æn. i. 286.

[136] Pharsal. v. 1.

[137] Æneid, x. 821, of Lausus:

"But when Anchises' son surveyed

The fair, fair face so ghastly made,

He groaned, by tenderness unmanned,

And stretched the sympathizing hand," etc.

[138] Virgil, Æneid, vi. 813.

[139] Sallust, Cat. Conj. ii.

[140] Ps. x. 3.

[141] Æneid, ii. 351-2.

[142] Cicero, De Rep. ii. 10.

[143] Contra Cat. iii. 2.

[144] Æneid, vi. 820, etc.

[145] His nephew.

[146] Hist. i.

[147] Lectisternia, from lectus, a couch, and sterno, I spread.

[148] Proletarius, from proles, offspring.

[149] The oracle ran: "Dico te, Pyrrhe, vincere posse Romanos."

[150] Troy, Lavinia, Alba.

[151] Under the inscription on the temple some person wrote the line, "Vecordiæ opus ædem facit Concordiæ"—The work of discord makes the temple of Concord.

[152] Cicero, in Catilin. iii. sub. fin.

[153] Lucan, Pharsal. ii. 142-146.

[154] Virgil, Æneid, i. 417.

[155] In Augustine's letter to Evodius (169), which was written towards the end of the year 415, he mentions that this fourth book and the following one were begun and finished during that same year.

[156] Comp. Bacon's Essay on the Vicissitudes of Things.

[157] Matt. v. 45.

[158] 2 Pet. ii. 19.

[159] Nonius Marcell. borrows this anecdote from Cicero, De Repub. iii.

[160] It was extinguished by Crassus in its third year.

[161] Cloacina, supposed by Lactantius (De falsa relig. i. 20), Cyprian (