{"author":null,"backreferences":[{"context_html":"<p>But it is the occasion of this great Apology which invests\r\nit at once with grandeur and vitality. After more than eleven\r\nhundred years of steady and triumphant progress, Rome had\r\nbeen taken and sacked. It is difficult for us to appreciate,\r\nimpossible to overestimate, the shock which was thus communicated\r\nfrom centre to circumference of the whole known\r\nworld. It was generally believed, not only by the heathen,\r\nbut also by many of the most liberal-minded of the Christians,\r\nthat the destruction of Rome would be the prelude to the\r\ndestruction of the world.<a id=\"FNanchor_8_8\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_8_8\">[8]</a> Even Jerome, who might have\r\nbeen supposed to be embittered against the proud mistress\r\nof the world by her inhospitality to himself, cannot conceal\r\nhis profound emotion on hearing of her fall. \"A terrible\r\nrumour,\" he says, \"reaches me from the West, telling of Rome\r\nbesieged, bought for gold, besieged again, life and property\r\nperishing together. My voice falters, sobs stifle the words I\r\ndictate; for she is a captive, that city which enthralled the\r\nworld.\"<a id=\"FNanchor_9_9\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_9_9\">[9]</a> Augustine is never so theatrical as Jerome in the\r\nexpression of his feeling, but he is equally explicit in lamenting\r\nthe fall of Rome as a great calamity; and while he does\r\nnot scruple to ascribe her recent disgrace to the profligate<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_xi\">[Pg xi]</a></span>\r\nmanners, the effeminacy, and the pride of her citizens, he is\r\nnot without hope that, by a return to the simple, hardy, and\r\nhonourable mode of life which characterized the early Romans,\r\nshe may still be restored to much of her former prosperity.<a id=\"FNanchor_10_10\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_10_10\">[10]</a>\r\nBut as Augustine contemplates the ruins of Rome's greatness,\r\nand feels, in common with all the world at this crisis, the\r\ninstability of the strongest governments, the insufficiency of\r\nthe most authoritative statesmanship, there hovers over these\r\nruins the splendid vision of the city of God \"coming down\r\nout of heaven, adorned as a bride for her husband.\" The old\r\nsocial system is crumbling away on all sides, but in its place\r\nhe seems to see a pure Christendom arising. He sees that\r\nhuman history and human destiny are not wholly identified\r\nwith the history of any earthly power—not though it be as\r\ncosmopolitan as the empire of Rome.<a id=\"FNanchor_11_11\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_11_11\">[11]</a> He directs the attention\r\nof men to the fact that there is another kingdom on\r\nearth,—a city which hath foundations, whose builder and\r\nmaker is God. He teaches men to take profounder views of\r\nhistory, and shows them how from the first the city of God,\r\nor community of God's people, has lived alongside of the\r\nkingdoms of this world and their glory, and has been silently\r\nincreasing, \"crescit occulto velut arbor ævo.\" He demonstrates\r\nthat the superior morality, the true doctrine, the\r\nheavenly origin of this city, ensure its success; and over\r\nagainst this, he depicts the silly or contradictory theorizings\r\nof the pagan philosophers, and the unhinged morals of the\r\npeople, and puts it to all candid men to say, whether in the\r\npresence of so manifestly sufficient a cause for Rome's downfall,\r\nthere is room for imputing it to the spread of Christianity.\r\nHe traces the antagonism of these two grand communities\r\nof rational creatures, back to their first divergence\r\nin the fall of the angels, and down to the consummation of all\r\nthings in the last judgment and eternal destination of the good\r\nand evil. In other words, the city of God is \"the first real\r\neffort to produce a philosophy of history,\"<a id=\"FNanchor_12_12\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_12_12\">[12]</a> to exhibit historical<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_xii\">[Pg xii]</a></span>\r\nevents in connection with their true causes, and in their real\r\nsequence. This plan of the work is not only a great conception,\r\nbut it is accompanied with many practical advantages;\r\nthe chief of which is, that it admits, and even requires, a full\r\ntreatment of those doctrines of our faith that are more directly\r\nhistorical,—the doctrines of creation, the fall, the incarnation,\r\nthe connection between the Old and New Testaments, and the\r\ndoctrine of \"the last things.\"<a id=\"FNanchor_13_13\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_13_13\">[13]</a></p>","headings":["THE WORKS OF AURELIUS AUGUSTINE,","EDITOR'S PREFACE."],"marker_anchor":null,"paragraph_id":"pg45304-paragraph-6"}],"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"491f4ba25292ea181815e40e7bf6b04f7f52f42e2a2ac59b9fe36851cf5289aa","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_8_8","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_8_8","source_ebook":45304,"source_html":"<div class=\"footnote\">\n<p><a id=\"Footnote_8_8\"></a><a class=\"pginternal\" href=\"#FNanchor_8_8\"><span class=\"label\">[8]</span></a> See the interesting remarks of Lactantius, <i>Instit.</i> vii. 25.</p></div>","source_sha256":"d89e9a2b80bb59f394f0fb1bf313b39fab162f06af6642166d62c5912c1195f1","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45304/pg45304-images.html#Footnote_8_8","text_sha256":"82b18ce6d7765265946acc9a4c6456bdf3e1f824b1f5b51049b812cc5ab37eee","verified":false,"work_id":null}