Testimonia

{"author":null,"backreferences":[{"context_html":"<p>But, nevertheless, we do not build temples, and ordain\r\npriests, rites, and sacrifices for these same martyrs; for they\r\nare not our gods, but their God is our God. Certainly we\r\nhonour their reliquaries, as the memorials of holy men of God\r\nwho strove for the truth even to the death of their bodies,\r\nthat the true religion might be made known, and false and\r\nfictitious religions exposed. For if there were some before\r\nthem who thought that these religions were really false and\r\nfictitious, they were afraid to give expression to their convictions.\r\nBut who ever heard a priest of the faithful, standing\r\nat an altar built for the honour and worship of God over the\r\nholy body of some martyr, say in the prayers, I offer to thee\r\na sacrifice, O Peter, or O Paul, or O Cyprian? for it is to\r\nGod that sacrifices are offered at their tombs,—the God who\r\nmade them both men and martyrs, and associated them with\r\nholy angels in celestial honour; and the reason why we pay\r\nsuch honours to their memory is, that by so doing we may\r\nboth give thanks to the true God for their victories, and, by\r\nrecalling them afresh to remembrance, may stir ourselves up\r\nto imitate them by seeking to obtain like crowns and palms,\r\ncalling to our help that same God on whom they called.\r\nTherefore, whatever honours the religious may pay in the\r\nplaces of the martyrs, they are but honours rendered to their\r\nmemory,<a id=\"FNanchor_327_327\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_327_327\">[327]</a> not sacred rites or sacrifices offered to dead men as\r\nto gods. And even such as bring thither food,—which, indeed,\r\nis not done by the better Christians, and in most places of<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_351\">[Pg 351]</a></span>\r\nthe world is not done at all,—do so in order that it may be\r\nsanctified to them through the merits of the martyrs, in the\r\nname of the Lord of the martyrs, first presenting the food\r\nand offering prayer, and thereafter taking it away to be eaten,\r\nor to be in part bestowed upon the needy.<a id=\"FNanchor_328_328\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_328_328\">[328]</a> But he who\r\nknows the one sacrifice of Christians, which is the sacrifice\r\noffered in those places, also knows that these are not sacrifices\r\noffered to the martyrs. It is, then, neither with divine honours\r\nnor with human crimes, by which they worship their gods,\r\nthat we honour our martyrs; neither do we offer sacrifices to\r\nthem, or convert the crimes of the gods into their sacred rites.\r\nFor let those who will and can read the letter of Alexander\r\nto his mother Olympias, in which he tells the things which\r\nwere revealed to him by the priest Leon, and let those who\r\nhave read it recall to memory what it contains, that they\r\nmay see what great abominations have been handed down to\r\nmemory, not by poets, but by the mystic writings of the\r\nEgyptians, concerning the goddess Isis, the wife of Osiris, and\r\nthe parents of both, all of whom, according to these writings,\r\nwere royal personages. Isis, when sacrificing to her parents,\r\nis said to have discovered a crop of barley, of which she\r\nbrought some ears to the king her husband, and his councillor\r\nMercurius, and hence they identify her with Ceres. Those\r\nwho read the letter may there see what was the character of\r\nthose people to whom when dead sacred rites were instituted\r\nas to gods, and what those deeds of theirs were which furnished\r\nthe occasion for these rites. Let them not once dare to compare\r\nin any respect those people, though they hold them to be\r\ngods, to our holy martyrs, though we do not hold them to be\r\ngods. For we do not ordain priests and offer sacrifices to our\r\nmartyrs, as they do to their dead men, for that would be incongruous,\r\nundue, and unlawful, such being due only to God;\r\nand thus we do not delight them with their own crimes, or\r\nwith such shameful plays as those in which the crimes of\r\nthe gods are celebrated, which are either real crimes committed\r\nby them at a time when they were men, or else, if\r\nthey never were men, fictitious crimes invented for the pleasure\r\nof noxious demons. The god of Socrates, if he had a<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_352\">[Pg 352]</a></span>\r\ngod, cannot have belonged to this class of demons. But\r\nperhaps they who wished to excel in this art of making gods,\r\nimposed a god of this sort on a man who was a stranger to,\r\nand innocent of any connection with that art. What need we\r\nsay more? No one who is even moderately wise imagines\r\nthat demons are to be worshipped on account of the blessed\r\nlife which is to be after death. But perhaps they will say\r\nthat all the gods are good, but that of the demons some are\r\nbad and some good, and that it is the good who are to be\r\nworshipped, in order that through them we may attain to the\r\neternally blessed life. To the examination of this opinion we\r\nwill devote the following book.</p>","headings":["THE WORKS OF AURELIUS AUGUSTINE,","BOOK EIGHTH.","ARGUMENT."],"marker_anchor":null,"paragraph_id":"pg45304-paragraph-623"}],"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"945398bd7e544016cae143be8d1ef96fb826106d48f867374ce1df62fb1a1158","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_328_328","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_328_328","source_ebook":45304,"source_html":"<div class=\"footnote\">\n<p><a id=\"Footnote_328_328\"></a><a class=\"pginternal\" href=\"#FNanchor_328_328\"><span class=\"label\">[328]</span></a> Comp. <i>The Confessions</i>, vi. 2.</p></div>","source_sha256":"d89e9a2b80bb59f394f0fb1bf313b39fab162f06af6642166d62c5912c1195f1","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45304/pg45304-images.html#Footnote_328_328","text_sha256":"747409477ce3ae825413608aca54755921977ca2dfa30e5de3ecc46e94e5bf91","verified":false,"work_id":null}

references: [] | work_id: | origin: existing-private-derived-record | source: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45304/pg45304-images.html#Footnote_328_328