{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"4a7498d7c844ac078f665100b86c08d2b9dcd75ef3b2abd10e87db092f73867d","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":["THE WORKS OF AURELIUS AUGUSTINE,","BOOK FIRST."],"id":"pg45304-paragraph-102","license_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html","note_targets":[],"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"original-paragraph-unclassified","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":null,"source_ebook":45304,"source_html":"<p>If the famous Scipio Nasica were now alive, who was once\r\nyour pontiff, and was unanimously chosen by the senate,\r\nwhen, in the panic created by the Punic war, they sought for\r\nthe best citizen to entertain the Phrygian goddess, he would\r\ncurb this shamelessness of yours, though you would perhaps\r\nscarcely dare to look upon the countenance of such a man.\r\nFor why in your calamities do you complain of Christianity,\r\nunless because you desire to enjoy your luxurious licence\r\nunrestrained, and to lead an abandoned and profligate life\r\nwithout the interruption of any uneasiness or disaster? For\r\ncertainly your desire for peace, and prosperity, and plenty is\r\nnot prompted by any purpose of using these blessings honestly,\r\nthat is to say, with moderation, sobriety, temperance, and\r\npiety; for your purpose rather is to run riot in an endless\r\nvariety of sottish pleasures, and thus to generate from your\r\nprosperity a moral pestilence which will prove a thousand-fold\r\nmore disastrous than the fiercest enemies. It was such\r\na calamity as this that Scipio, your chief pontiff, your best\r\nman in the judgment of the whole senate, feared when he refused\r\nto agree to the destruction of Carthage, Rome's rival;\r\nand opposed Cato, who advised its destruction. He feared\r\nsecurity, that enemy of weak minds, and he perceived that a\r\nwholesome fear would be a fit guardian for the citizens. And<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_43\">[Pg 43]</a></span>\r\nhe was not mistaken: the event proved how wisely he had\r\nspoken. For when Carthage was destroyed, and the Roman\r\nrepublic delivered from its great cause of anxiety, a crowd\r\nof disastrous evils forthwith resulted from the prosperous\r\ncondition of things. First concord was weakened, and destroyed\r\nby fierce and bloody seditions; then followed, by a\r\nconcatenation of baleful causes, civil wars, which brought in\r\ntheir train such massacres, such bloodshed, such lawless and\r\ncruel proscription and plunder, that those Romans who, in the\r\ndays of their virtue, had expected injury only at the hands of\r\ntheir enemies, now that their virtue was lost, suffered greater\r\ncruelties at the hands of their fellow-citizens. The lust of\r\nrule, which with other vices existed among the Romans in\r\nmore unmitigated intensity than among any other people, after\r\nit had taken possession of the more powerful few, subdued\r\nunder its yoke the rest, worn and wearied.</p>","source_sha256":"d89e9a2b80bb59f394f0fb1bf313b39fab162f06af6642166d62c5912c1195f1","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45304/pg45304-images.html","text_sha256":"a98e50ddda90bf601889c039afac5c86ac7a34fc452413b3b2f839f533dce8aa","verified":false,"work_id":null}