{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"aedd0068a661df403074ffac20929c5f2250762b8526f18661638ce9bb5f0ee9","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,","EDITOR'S PREFACE."],"id":"pg45304-paragraph-7","license_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html","note_targets":["Footnote_14_14","Footnote_15_15","Footnote_16_16","Footnote_17_17","Footnote_18_18","Footnote_19_19"],"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>The effect produced by this great work it is impossible\r\nto determine with accuracy. Beugnot, with an absoluteness\r\nwhich we should condemn as presumption in any less competent\r\nauthority, declares that its effect can only have been\r\nvery slight.<a id=\"FNanchor_14_14\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_14_14\">[14]</a> Probably its effect would be silent and slow;\r\ntelling first upon cultivated minds, and only indirectly upon\r\nthe people. Certainly its effect must have been weakened\r\nby the interrupted manner of its publication. It is an easier\r\ntask to estimate its intrinsic value. But on this also patristic\r\nand literary authorities widely differ. Dupin admits that it\r\nis very pleasant reading, owing to the surprising variety of\r\nmatters which are introduced to illustrate and forward the\r\nargument, but censures the author for discussing very useless\r\nquestions, and for adducing reasons which could satisfy no\r\none who was not already convinced.<a id=\"FNanchor_15_15\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_15_15\">[15]</a> Huet also speaks of\r\nthe book as \"un amas confus d'excellents materiaux; c'est de\r\nl'or en barre et en lingots.\"<a id=\"FNanchor_16_16\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_16_16\">[16]</a> L'Abbé Flottes censures these\r\nopinions as unjust, and cites with approbation the unqualified\r\neulogy of Pressensé.<a id=\"FNanchor_17_17\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_17_17\">[17]</a> But probably the popularity of the\r\nbook is its best justification. This popularity may be\r\nmeasured by the circumstance that, between the year 1467\r\nand the end of the fifteenth century, no fewer than twenty<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_xiii\">[Pg xiii]</a></span>\r\neditions were called for, that is to say, a fresh edition every\r\neighteen months.<a id=\"FNanchor_18_18\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_18_18\">[18]</a> And in the interesting series of letters\r\nthat passed between Ludovicus Vives and Erasmus, who had\r\nengaged him to write a commentary on the <i>City of God</i> for\r\nhis edition of Augustine's works, we find Vives pleading for\r\na separate edition of this work, on the plea that, of all the\r\nwritings of Augustine, it was almost the only one read by\r\npatristic students, and might therefore naturally be expected\r\nto have a much wider circulation.<a id=\"FNanchor_19_19\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_19_19\">[19]</a></p>","source_sha256":"d89e9a2b80bb59f394f0fb1bf313b39fab162f06af6642166d62c5912c1195f1","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45304/pg45304-images.html","text_sha256":"101104432c1b78cd961f7e6710ff23925e442e59e49b8f5f3b763603974cda74","verified":false,"work_id":null}