Good Christian reading for both the pilgrim and the sojourner. Relax and enjoy a good book.
BOOK I Preface MY DEAR MARCELLINUS: This work which I have begun makes good my promise to you. In it I am undertaking nothing less than the task of defending the glorious City of God against those who prefer their own gods to its Founder. I shall consider it both in its temporal stage here... Continue Reading →
BOOK ONE Chapter Two The chronicles are filled with wars waged before Rome was founded, and since it rose and grew to be an empire. Let the pagans read these chronicles, and then adduce one single instance of a city falling into the hands of a foe disposed to spare men seeking refuge in the... Continue Reading →
BOOK ONE Chapter Three Just think of the kind of gods to whose protection the Romans were content to entrust their city! No more pathetic illusion could be imagined. Yet, the pagans are angry with us because we speak so frankly of their divinities. However, they feel no anger against their own writers. They even... Continue Reading →
BOOK ONE Chapter Four As I have already suggested, Troy herself, parent of the Roman people, for all her sanctuaries of the gods, offered to her pious citizens no protection from the fire and sword of the Greeks. On the contrary, ‘in Juno’s sanctuary, with its now emptied porticoes, the chosen sentries, Phoenix and... Continue Reading →
Chapter Five Of that custom, according to Sallust, a historian of outstanding truthfulness, Cato gives a sample in the speech on the conspirators which he delivered in the Senate: ‘Girls and young boys are ravished, children are torn from their parents’ arms, matrons must submit to the victor’s lust, temples and homes are plundered, murder... Continue Reading →
Chapter 6 There is no need to speak of other warring nations who never gave quarter to the victims they found in the temples of the gods. Let us take a look at the Romans themselves. Let us recall to mind and consider the Romans, whose chief boast it was ‘to be merciful to the... Continue Reading →
Chapter 6 There is no need to speak of other warring nations who never gave quarter to the victims they found in the temples of the gods. Let us take a look at the Romans themselves. Let us recall to mind and consider the Romans, whose chief boast it was ‘to be merciful to the... Continue Reading →
Chapter 7 All the destruction, slaughter, plundering, burning, and distress visited upon Rome in its latest calamity were but the normal aftermath of war. It was something entirely new that fierce barbarians, by an unprecedented turn of events, showed such clemency that vast basilicas were designated as places where refugees might assemble with assurance of... Continue Reading →
Chapter 8 But, someone will say: ‘How, then, is it that this divine mercy was bestowed on impious and ungrateful man?’ Surely, the answer is that mercy was shown by the One who, day by day, ‘maketh His sun to rise upon the good and bad, and raineth upon the just and the unjust.’ For,... Continue Reading →
Chapter 9 But, someone will say: ‘How, then, is it that this divine mercy was bestowed on impious and ungrateful man?’ Surely, the answer is that mercy was shown by the One who, day by day, ‘maketh His sun to rise upon the good and bad, and raineth upon the just and the unjust.’ For,... Continue Reading →
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