{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"8af9e092ec87d020d1e32020057d288782d61cfd15d265828d3f1e3724af1545","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-108","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>Oh infatuated men, what is this blindness, or rather madness,\r\nwhich possesses you? How is it that while, as we hear, even\r\nthe eastern nations are bewailing your ruin, and while powerful\r\nstates in the most remote parts of the earth are mourning\r\nyour fall as a public calamity, ye yourselves should be crowding\r\nto the theatres, should be pouring into them and filling\r\nthem; and, in short, be playing a madder part now than ever\r\nbefore? This was the foul plague-spot, this the wreck of\r\nvirtue and honour that Scipio sought to preserve you from\r\nwhen he prohibited the construction of theatres; this was his\r\nreason for desiring that you might still have an enemy to fear,\r\nseeing as he did how easily prosperity would corrupt and\r\ndestroy you. He did not consider that republic flourishing\r\nwhose walls stand, but whose morals are in ruins. But the\r\nseductions of evil-minded devils had more influence with you\r\nthan the precautions of prudent men. Hence the injuries\r\nyou do, you will not permit to be imputed to you; but the\r\ninjuries you suffer, you impute to Christianity. Depraved by\r\ngood fortune, and not chastened by adversity, what you desire\r\nin the restoration of a peaceful and secure state, is not the\r\ntranquillity of the commonwealth, but the impunity of your\r\nown vicious luxury. Scipio wished you to be hard pressed\r\nby an enemy, that you might not abandon yourselves to luxurious\r\nmanners; but so abandoned are you, that not even\r\nwhen crushed by the enemy is your luxury repressed. You\r\nhave missed the profit of your calamity; you have been made\r\nmost wretched, and have remained most profligate.</p>","source_sha256":"d89e9a2b80bb59f394f0fb1bf313b39fab162f06af6642166d62c5912c1195f1","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45304/pg45304-images.html","text_sha256":"ef25bcf3ff129b0ec80281448b0f7e4905cfb054389bb979457bb569193340a0","verified":false,"work_id":null}