Testimonia

{"author":null,"backreferences":[{"context_html":"<p>We give a much more unlimited approval to their idea that\r\nthe life of the wise man must be social. For how could the\r\ncity of God (concerning which we are already writing no less\r\nthan the nineteenth book of this work) either take a beginning\r\nor be developed, or attain its proper destiny, if the life\r\nof the saints were not a social life? But who can enumerate\r\nall the great grievances with which human society abounds in<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_308\">[Pg 308]</a></span>\r\nthe misery of this mortal state? Who can weigh them?\r\nHear how one of their comic writers makes one of his characters\r\nexpress the common feelings of all men in this matter:\r\n\"I am married; this is one misery. Children are born to me;\r\nthey are additional cares.\"<a id=\"FNanchor_629_629\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_629_629\">[629]</a> What shall I say of the miseries\r\nof love which Terence also recounts—\"slights, suspicions,\r\nquarrels, war to-day, peace to-morrow?\"<a id=\"FNanchor_630_630\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_630_630\">[630]</a> Is not human life\r\nfull of such things? Do they not often occur even in\r\nhonourable friendships? On all hands we experience these\r\nslights, suspicions, quarrels, war, all of which are undoubted\r\nevils; while, on the other hand, peace is a doubtful good, because\r\nwe do not know the heart of our friend, and though\r\nwe did know it to-day, we should be as ignorant of what it\r\nmight be to-morrow. Who ought to be, or who are more\r\nfriendly than those who live in the same family? And yet\r\nwho can rely even upon this friendship, seeing that secret\r\ntreachery has often broken it up, and produced enmity as bitter\r\nas the amity was sweet, or seemed sweet by the most perfect\r\ndissimulation? It is on this account that the words of Cicero\r\nso move the heart of every one, and provoke a sigh: \"There\r\nare no snares more dangerous than those which lurk under\r\nthe guise of duty or the name of relationship. For the man\r\nwho is your declared foe you can easily baffle by precaution;\r\nbut this hidden, intestine, and domestic danger not merely\r\nexists, but overwhelms you before you can foresee and examine\r\nit.\"<a id=\"FNanchor_631_631\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_631_631\">[631]</a> It is also to this that allusion is made by the divine\r\nsaying, \"A man's foes are those of his own household,\"<a id=\"FNanchor_632_632\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_632_632\">[632]</a>—words\r\nwhich one cannot hear without pain; for though a man have\r\nsufficient fortitude to endure it with equanimity, and sufficient\r\nsagacity to baffle the malice of a pretended friend, yet if he\r\nhimself is a good man, he cannot but be greatly pained at the\r\ndiscovery of the perfidy of wicked men, whether they have\r\nalways been wicked and merely feigned goodness, or have\r\nfallen from a better to a malicious disposition. If, then, home,\r\nthe natural refuge from the ills of life, is itself not safe, what\r\nshall we say of the city, which, as it is larger, is so much the\r\nmore filled with lawsuits civil and criminal, and is never<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_309\">[Pg 309]</a></span>\r\nfree from the fear, if sometimes from the actual outbreak, of\r\ndisturbing and bloody insurrections and civil wars?</p>","headings":["THE CITY OF GOD.","BOOK NINETEENTH.","ARGUMENT."],"marker_anchor":null,"paragraph_id":"pg45305-paragraph-502"}],"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"dc72d76e2f2a37f8f61f432ce2f80066bb8cbe87bd62bbb7e9f0f508132e7868","edition_title":"The City of God, Volume II","edition_translators":["Marcus Dods","George Wilson (Books XVII-XVIII)"],"edition_year":1871,"explicit_reference_candidates":[],"headings":[],"id":"pg45305-Footnote_629_629","license_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html","public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"original-editor-translator-note","review_required":["work and recension attribution","original-work chronology","Bible reference numbering and citation kind","English edition rights and attribution"],"review_status":"needs_review","rights_evidence":"Provider catalog reports public domain in the USA. Original transcription title leaves state T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1871; printed translator allocation retained. Gutenberg credits Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries without an exact scan identifier. Full provider license preserved with acquired original; republication and per-work metadata remain unreviewed.","source_anchor":"Footnote_629_629","source_ebook":45305,"source_html":"<div class=\"footnote\">\n<p><a id=\"Footnote_629_629\"></a><a class=\"pginternal\" href=\"#FNanchor_629_629\"><span class=\"label\">[629]</span></a> Terent. <i>Adelph.</i> v. 4.</p></div>","source_sha256":"7e0ced9e70512f3cf050b53c9d548e36b70d468d875153869f95d8aff5bbb530","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45305/pg45305-images.html#Footnote_629_629","text_sha256":"792258689d686c0eb7c3ed55540011707438be2e8361923024d54591acc4190d","verified":false,"work_id":null}

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