Testimonia

{"author":null,"backreferences":[{"context_html":"<p>Cicero, a weighty man, and a philosopher in his way, when\r\nabout to be made edile, wished the citizens to understand<a id=\"FNanchor_111_111\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_111_111\">[111]</a>\r\nthat, among the other duties of his magistracy, he must propitiate\r\nFlora by the celebration of games. And these games\r\nare reckoned devout in proportion to their lewdness. In\r\nanother place,<a id=\"FNanchor_112_112\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_112_112\">[112]</a> and when he was now consul, and the state in\r\ngreat peril, he says that games had been celebrated for ten\r\ndays together, and that nothing had been omitted which could\r\npacify the gods: as if it had not been more satisfactory to irritate\r\nthe gods by temperance, than to pacify them by debauchery;\r\nand to provoke their hate by honest living, than soothe it by\r\nsuch unseemly grossness. For no matter how cruel was the\r\nferocity of those men who were threatening the state, and on\r\nwhose account the gods were being propitiated: it could not\r\nhave been more hurtful than the alliance of gods who were\r\nwon with the foulest vices. To avert the danger which\r\nthreatened men's bodies, the gods were conciliated in a fashion\r\nthat drove virtue from their spirits; and the gods did not\r\nenrol themselves as defenders of the battlements against the\r\nbesiegers, until they had first stormed and sacked the morality<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_88\">[Pg 88]</a></span>\r\nof the citizens. This propitiation of such divinities,—a propitiation\r\nso wanton, so impure, so immodest, so wicked, so filthy,\r\nwhose actors the innate and praiseworthy virtue of the Romans\r\ndisabled from civic honours, erased from their tribe, recognised\r\nas polluted and made infamous;—this propitiation, I say, so\r\nfoul, so detestable, and alien from every religious feeling, these\r\nfabulous and ensnaring accounts of the criminal actions of the\r\ngods, these scandalous actions which they either shamefully\r\nand wickedly committed, or more shamefully and wickedly\r\nfeigned, all this the whole city learned in public both by the\r\nwords and gestures of the actors. They saw that the gods\r\ndelighted in the commission of these things, and therefore\r\nbelieved that they wished them not only to be exhibited to\r\nthem, but to be imitated by themselves. But as for that good\r\nand honest instruction which they speak of, it was given in\r\nsuch secrecy, and to so few (if indeed given at all), that they\r\nseemed rather to fear it might be divulged, than that it might\r\nnot be practised.</p>","headings":["THE WORKS OF AURELIUS AUGUSTINE,","BOOK SECOND.","ARGUMENT."],"marker_anchor":null,"paragraph_id":"pg45304-paragraph-183"}],"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"ee052da1e26f0b6069f90f8c6bb4cbdbceae24d9d64d619b55748c824e95ac4e","edition_title":"The City of God, Volume I","edition_translators":["Marcus Dods","George Wilson (Book IV)","J. J. Smith (Books V-VIII)"],"edition_year":1871,"explicit_reference_candidates":[],"headings":[],"id":"pg45304-Footnote_112_112","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_112_112","source_ebook":45304,"source_html":"<div class=\"footnote\">\n<p><a id=\"Footnote_112_112\"></a><a class=\"pginternal\" href=\"#FNanchor_112_112\"><span class=\"label\">[112]</span></a> Cicero, <i>C. Catilinam</i>, iii. 8.</p></div>","source_sha256":"d89e9a2b80bb59f394f0fb1bf313b39fab162f06af6642166d62c5912c1195f1","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45304/pg45304-images.html#Footnote_112_112","text_sha256":"6bbd161df00981d4c41ce66e4c5a612cc52ea7bd48316282959020af918923b9","verified":false,"work_id":null}

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