{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"d7fbb314655270f2a1cba4a711635f31518ce3189c567fe17d3668b145631058","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-115","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>But I have still some things to say in confutation of those\r\nwho refer the disasters of the Roman republic to our religion,\r\nbecause it prohibits the offering of sacrifices to the gods. For\r\nthis end I must recount all, or as many as may seem sufficient,\r\nof the disasters which befell that city and its subject provinces,\r\nbefore these sacrifices were prohibited; for all these disasters\r\nthey would doubtless have attributed to us, if at that time our\r\nreligion had shed its light upon them, and had prohibited their\r\nsacrifices. I must then go on to show what social well-being\r\nthe true God, in whose hand are all kingdoms, vouchsafed to\r\ngrant to them that their empire might increase. I must show\r\nwhy He did so, and how their false gods, instead of at all aiding\r\nthem, greatly injured them by guile and deceit. And, lastly, I\r\nmust meet those who, when on this point convinced and confuted\r\nby irrefragable proofs, endeavour to maintain that they\r\nworship the gods, not hoping for the present advantages of this\r\nlife, but for those which are to be enjoyed after death. And\r\nthis, if I am not mistaken, will be the most difficult part of my\r\ntask, and will be worthy of the loftiest argument; for we must\r\nthen enter the lists with the philosophers, not the mere common\r\nherd of philosophers, but the most renowned, who in many points\r\nagree with ourselves, as regarding the immortality of the soul,\r\nand that the true God created the world, and by His providence\r\nrules all He has created. But as they differ from us\r\non other points, we must not shrink from the task of exposing\r\ntheir errors, that, having refuted the gainsaying of the wicked\r\nwith such ability as God may vouchsafe, we may assert the\r\ncity of God, and true piety, and the worship of God, to which\r\nalone the promise of true and everlasting felicity is attached.\r\nHere, then, let us conclude, that we may enter on these subjects\r\nin a fresh book.</p>","source_sha256":"d89e9a2b80bb59f394f0fb1bf313b39fab162f06af6642166d62c5912c1195f1","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45304/pg45304-images.html","text_sha256":"d5a310e4decb2ee879a7b2a866255ffb43870bfa9ea9920999081a69de311ffb","verified":false,"work_id":null}