{"author":null,"backreferences":[{"context_html":"<p>Let those who have no gratitude to Christ for His great\r\nbenefits, blame their own gods for these heavy disasters. For\r\ncertainly when these occurred the altars of the gods were kept\r\nblazing, and there rose the mingled fragrance of \"Sabæan\r\nincense and fresh garlands;\"<a id=\"FNanchor_154_154\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_154_154\">[154]</a> the priests were clothed with\r\nhonour, the shrines were maintained in splendour; sacrifices,<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_133\">[Pg 133]</a></span>\r\ngames, sacred ecstasies, were common in the temples; while the\r\nblood of the citizens was being so freely shed, not only in\r\nremote places, but among the very altars of the gods. Cicero\r\ndid not choose to seek sanctuary in a temple, because Mucius\r\nhad sought it there in vain. But they who most unpardonably\r\ncalumniate this Christian era, are the very men who\r\neither themselves fled for asylum to the places specially dedicated\r\nto Christ, or were led there by the barbarians that they\r\nmight be safe. In short, not to recapitulate the many\r\ninstances I have cited, and not to add to their number others\r\nwhich it were tedious to enumerate, this one thing I am persuaded\r\nof, and this every impartial judgment will readily\r\nacknowledge, that if the human race had received Christianity\r\nbefore the Punic wars, and if the same desolating calamities\r\nwhich these wars brought upon Europe and Africa had followed\r\nthe introduction of Christianity, there is no one of those\r\nwho now accuse us who would not have attributed them to\r\nour religion. How intolerable would their accusations have\r\nbeen, at least so far as the Romans are concerned, if the\r\nChristian religion had been received and diffused prior to the\r\ninvasion of the Gauls, or to the ruinous floods and fires which\r\ndesolated Rome, or to those most calamitous of all events, the\r\ncivil wars! And those other disasters, which were of so strange\r\na nature that they were reckoned prodigies, had they happened\r\nsince the Christian era, to whom but to the Christians would\r\nthey have imputed these as crimes? I do not speak of those\r\nthings which were rather surprising than hurtful,—oxen speaking,\r\nunborn infants articulating some words in their mothers'\r\nwombs, serpents flying, hens and women being changed into\r\nthe other sex; and other similar prodigies which, whether true\r\nor false, are recorded not in their imaginative, but in their historical\r\nworks, and which do not injure, but only astonish men.\r\nBut when it rained earth, when it rained chalk, when it rained\r\nstones—not hailstones, but real stones—this certainly was\r\ncalculated to do serious damage. We have read in their books\r\nthat the fires of Etna, pouring down from the top of the mountain\r\nto the neighbouring shore, caused the sea to boil, so that\r\nrocks were burnt up, and the pitch of ships began to run,—a\r\nphenomenon incredibly surprising, but at the same time no<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_134\">[Pg 134]</a></span>\r\nless hurtful. By the same violent heat, they relate that on\r\nanother occasion Sicily was filled with cinders, so that the\r\nhouses of the city Catina were destroyed and buried under\r\nthem,—a calamity which moved the Romans to pity them, and\r\nremit their tribute for that year. One may also read that\r\nAfrica, which had by that time become a province of Rome,\r\nwas visited by a prodigious multitude of locusts, which, after\r\nconsuming the fruit and foliage of the trees, were driven into\r\nthe sea in one vast and measureless cloud; so that when they\r\nwere drowned and cast upon the shore the air was polluted,\r\nand so serious a pestilence produced that in the kingdom of\r\nMasinissa alone they say there perished 800,000 persons,\r\nbesides a much greater number in the neighbouring districts.\r\nAt Utica they assure us that, of 30,000 soldiers then garrisoning\r\nit, there survived only ten. Yet which of these disasters,\r\nsuppose they happened now, would not be attributed to the\r\nChristian religion by those who thus thoughtlessly accuse us,\r\nand whom we are compelled to answer? And yet to their\r\nown gods they attribute none of these things, though they\r\nworship them for the sake of escaping lesser calamities of the\r\nsame kind, and do not reflect that they who formerly worshipped\r\nthem were not preserved from these serious disasters.</p>","headings":["THE WORKS OF AURELIUS AUGUSTINE,","BOOK THIRD.","ARGUMENT."],"marker_anchor":null,"paragraph_id":"pg45304-paragraph-269"}],"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"efbd79f38fc6ed722f583d92e887d453aee47ab4118b2b4dc001bbd28efe1ce9","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":[],"id":"pg45304-Footnote_154_154","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_154_154","source_ebook":45304,"source_html":"<div class=\"footnote\">\n<p><a id=\"Footnote_154_154\"></a><a class=\"pginternal\" href=\"#FNanchor_154_154\"><span class=\"label\">[154]</span></a> Virgil, <i>Æneid</i>, i. 417.</p></div>","source_sha256":"d89e9a2b80bb59f394f0fb1bf313b39fab162f06af6642166d62c5912c1195f1","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45304/pg45304-images.html#Footnote_154_154","text_sha256":"d198ce6aa892ee7090da547ebb63a7d35188d4a1cb99403dea2f6853e7ee149f","verified":false,"work_id":null}