The City of God, Volume IAugustine, of Hippo, Saint
ReligionChristian
The City of God, Volume I
Augustine, of Hippo, Saint
Apologetics -- Early works to 1800; Kingdom of God -- Early works to 1800
who read so much that we wonder when he had time to write, wrote so
much that we can scarcely believe any one could have read it all,--this
man, I say, so great in talent, so great in learning, had he been an
opposer and destroyer of the so-called divine things of which he wrote,
and had he said that they pertained to superstition rather than to
religion, might perhaps, even in that case, not have written so many
things which are ridiculous, contemptible, detestable. But when he so
worshipped these same gods, and so vindicated their worship, as to say,
in that same literary work of his, that he was afraid lest they should
perish, not by an assault by enemies, but by the negligence of the
citizens, and that from this ignominy they are being delivered by him,
and are being laid up and preserved in the memory of the good by means
of such books, with a zeal far more beneficial than that through which
Metellus is declared to have rescued the sacred things of Vesta from
the flames, and Æneas to have rescued the Penates from the burning of
Troy; and when he, nevertheless, gives forth such things to be read by
succeeding ages as are deservedly judged by wise and unwise to be unfit
to be read, and to be most hostile to the truth of religion; what ought
we to think but that a most acute and learned man,--not, however, made
free by the Holy Spirit,--was overpowered by the custom and laws of his
state, and, not being able to be silent about those things by which he
was influenced, spoke of them under pretence of commending religion?
3. _Varro's distribution of his book which he composed concerning
the antiquities of human and divine things._
He wrote forty-one books of antiquities. These he divided into human
and divine things. Twenty-five he devoted to human things, sixteen
to divine things; following this plan in that division,--namely,
to give six books to each of the four divisions of human things.
For he directs his attention to these considerations: who perform,
where they perform, when they perform, what they perform. Therefore
in the first six books he wrote concerning men; in the second six,
concerning places; in the third six, concerning times; in the fourth
and last six, concerning things. Four times six, however, make only
twenty-four. But he placed at the head of them one separate work,
which spoke of all these things conjointly.
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