{"author":null,"backreferences":[{"context_html":"<p>These things have not come to us from persons we might\r\ndeem unworthy of credit, but from informants we could not\r\nsuppose to be deceiving us. Therefore what men say and\r\nhave committed to writing about the Arcadians being often\r\nchanged into wolves by the Arcadian gods, or demons rather,\r\nand what is told in song about Circe transforming the companions\r\nof Ulysses,<a id=\"FNanchor_505_505\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_505_505\">[505]</a> if they were really done, may, in my<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_238\">[Pg 238]</a></span>\r\nopinion, have been done in the way I have said. As for\r\nDiomede's birds, since their race is alleged to have been perpetuated\r\nby constant propagation, I believe they were not\r\nmade through the metamorphosis of men, but were slyly\r\nsubstituted for them on their removal, just as the hind was\r\nfor Iphigenia, the daughter of king Agamemnon. For juggleries\r\nof this kind could not be difficult for the demons if\r\npermitted by the judgment of God; and since that virgin\r\nwas afterward found alive, it is easy to see that a hind had\r\nbeen slyly substituted for her. But because the companions\r\nof Diomede were of a sudden nowhere to be seen, and afterward\r\ncould nowhere be found, being destroyed by bad avenging\r\nangels, they were believed to have been changed into\r\nthose birds, which were secretly brought there from other\r\nplaces where such birds were, and suddenly substituted for\r\nthem by fraud. But that they bring water in their beaks\r\nand sprinkle it on the temple of Diomede, and that they\r\nfawn on men of Greek race and persecute aliens, is no wonderful\r\nthing to be done by the inward influence of the demons,\r\nwhose interest it is to persuade men that Diomede was made\r\na god, and thus to beguile them into worshipping many false\r\ngods, to the great dishonour of the true God; and to serve\r\ndead men, who even in their lifetime did not truly live,\r\nwith temples, altars, sacrifices, and priests, all which, when\r\nof the right kind, are due only to the one living and true\r\nGod.</p>","headings":["THE CITY OF GOD.","BOOK EIGHTEENTH.","ARGUMENT."],"marker_anchor":null,"paragraph_id":"pg45305-paragraph-392"}],"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"2c5d0a58abb9d80bdc212abd9c80e2f6d6fa760305f689b9c11dbb8e8eb6c811","edition_title":"The City of God, Volume II","edition_translators":["Marcus Dods","George Wilson (Books XVII-XVIII)"],"edition_year":1871,"explicit_reference_candidates":[],"headings":[],"id":"pg45305-Footnote_505_505","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_505_505","source_ebook":45305,"source_html":"<div class=\"footnote\">\n<p><a id=\"Footnote_505_505\"></a><a class=\"pginternal\" href=\"#FNanchor_505_505\"><span class=\"label\">[505]</span></a> Virgil, <i>Eclogue</i>, viii. 70.</p></div>","source_sha256":"7e0ced9e70512f3cf050b53c9d548e36b70d468d875153869f95d8aff5bbb530","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45305/pg45305-images.html#Footnote_505_505","text_sha256":"08631cf95b4282c852befcae2eee90a9273f17b211ce90aba492a8118a049a54","verified":false,"work_id":null}