The City of God.

 Preface, Explaining His Design in Undertaking This Work.

 Chapter 1.—Of the Adversaries of the Name of Christ, Whom the Barbarians for Christ’s Sake Spared When They Stormed the City.

 Chapter 2.—That It is Quite Contrary to the Usage of War, that the Victors Should Spare the Vanquished for the Sake of Their Gods.

 Chapter 3.—That the Romans Did Not Show Their Usual Sagacity When They Trusted that They Would Be Benefited by the Gods Who Had Been Unable to Defend

 Chapter 4.—Of the Asylum of Juno in Troy, Which Saved No One from the Greeks And of the Churches of the Apostles, Which Protected from the Barbarians

 Chapter 5.—Cæsar’s Statement Regarding the Universal Custom of an Enemy When Sacking a City.

 Chapter 6.—That Not Even the Romans, When They Took Cities, Spared the Conquered in Their Temples.

 Chapter 7.—That the Cruelties Which Occurred in the Sack of Rome Were in Accordance with the Custom of War, Whereas the Acts of Clemency Resulted from

 Chapter 8.—Of the Advantages and Disadvantages Which Often Indiscriminately Accrue to Good and Wicked Men.

 Chapter 9.—Of the Reasons for Administering Correction to Bad and Good Together.

 Chapter 10.—That the Saints Lose Nothing in Losing Temporal Goods.

 Chapter 11.—Of the End of This Life, Whether It is Material that It Be Long Delayed.

 Further still, we are reminded that in such a carnage as then occurred, the bodies could not even be buried.  But godly confidence is not appalled by

 Chapter 13.—Reasons for Burying the Bodies of the Saints.

 Chapter 14.—Of the Captivity of the Saints, and that Divine Consolation Never Failed Them Therein.

 Chapter 15.—Of Regulus, in Whom We Have an Example of the Voluntary Endurance of Captivity for the Sake of Religion Which Yet Did Not Profit Him, Tho

 Chapter 16.—Of the Violation of the Consecrated and Other Christian Virgins, to Which They Were Subjected in Captivity and to Which Their Own Will Gav

 Chapter 17.—Of Suicide Committed Through Fear of Punishment or Dishonor.

 Chapter 18.—Of the Violence Which May Be Done to the Body by Another’s Lust, While the Mind Remains Inviolate.

 Chapter 19.—Of Lucretia, Who Put an End to Her Life Because of the Outrage Done Her.

 Chapter 20.—That Christians Have No Authority for Committing Suicide in Any Circumstances Whatever.

 Chapter 21.—Of the Cases in Which We May Put Men to Death Without Incurring the Guilt of Murder.

 Chapter 22.—That Suicide Can Never Be Prompted by Magnanimity.

 Chapter 23.—What We are to Think of the Example of Cato, Who Slew Himself Because Unable to Endure Cæsar’s Victory.

 Chapter 24.—That in that Virtue in Which Regulus Excels Cato, Christians are Pre-Eminently Distinguished.

 Chapter 25.—That We Should Not Endeavor By Sin to Obviate Sin.

 Chapter 26.—That in Certain Peculiar Cases the Examples of the Saints are Not to Be Followed.

 Chapter 27.—Whether Voluntary Death Should Be Sought in Order to Avoid Sin.

 Chapter 28.—By What Judgment of God the Enemy Was Permitted to Indulge His Lust on the Bodies of Continent Christians.

 Chapter 29.—What the Servants of Christ Should Say in Reply to the Unbelievers Who Cast in Their Teeth that Christ Did Not Rescue Them from the Fury o

 Chapter 30.—That Those Who Complain of Christianity Really Desire to Live Without Restraint in Shameful Luxury.

 Chapter 31.—By What Steps the Passion for Governing Increased Among the Romans.

 Chapter 32.—Of the Establishment of Scenic Entertainments.

 Chapter 33.—That the Overthrow of Rome Has Not Corrected the Vices of the Romans.

 Chapter 34.—Of God’s Clemency in Moderating the Ruin of the City.

 Chapter 35.—Of the Sons of the Church Who are Hidden Among the Wicked, and of False Christians Within the Church.

 Chapter 36.—What Subjects are to Be Handled in the Following Discourse.

 Book II.

 Chapter 1.—Of the Limits Which Must Be Put to the Necessity of Replying to an Adversary.

 Chapter 2.—Recapitulation of the Contents of the First Book.

 Chapter 3.—That We Need Only to Read History in Order to See What Calamities the Romans Suffered Before the Religion of Christ Began to Compete with t

 Chapter 4.—That the Worshippers of the Gods Never Received from Them Any Healthy Moral Precepts, and that in Celebrating Their Worship All Sorts of Im

 Chapter 5.—Of the Obscenities Practiced in Honor of the Mother of the Gods.

 Chapter 6.—That the Gods of the Pagans Never Inculcated Holiness of Life.

 Chapter 7.—That the Suggestions of Philosophers are Precluded from Having Any Moral Effect, Because They Have Not the Authority Which Belongs to Divin

 Chapter 8.—That the Theatrical Exhibitions Publishing the Shameful Actions of the Gods, Propitiated Rather Than Offended Them.

 Chapter 9.—That the Poetical License Which the Greeks, in Obedience to Their Gods, Allowed, Was Restrained by the Ancient Romans.

 Chapter 10.—That the Devils, in Suffering Either False or True Crimes to Be Laid to Their Charge, Meant to Do Men a Mischief.

 Chapter 11.—That the Greeks Admitted Players to Offices of State, on the Ground that Men Who Pleased the Gods Should Not Be Contemptuously Treated by

 Chapter 12.—That the Romans, by Refusing to the Poets the Same License in Respect of Men Which They Allowed Them in the Case of the Gods, Showed a Mor

 Chapter 13.—That the Romans Should Have Understood that Gods Who Desired to Be Worshipped in Licentious Entertainments Were Unworthy of Divine Honor.

 Chapter 14.—That Plato, Who Excluded Poets from a Well-Ordered City, Was Better Than These Gods Who Desire to Be Honoured by Theatrical Plays.

 Chapter 15.—That It Was Vanity, Not Reason, Which Created Some of the Roman Gods.

 Chapter 16.—That If the Gods Had Really Possessed Any Regard for Righteousness, the Romans Should Have Received Good Laws from Them, Instead of Having

 Chapter 17.—Of the Rape of the Sabine Women, and Other Iniquities Perpetrated in Rome’s Palmiest Days.

 Chapter 18.—What the History of Sallust Reveals Regarding the Life of the Romans, Either When Straitened by Anxiety or Relaxed in Security.

 Chapter 19.—Of the Corruption Which Had Grown Upon the Roman Republic Before Christ Abolished the Worship of the Gods.

 Chapter 20.—Of the Kind of Happiness and Life Truly Delighted in by Those Who Inveigh Against the Christian Religion.

 Chapter 21.—Cicero’s Opinion of the Roman Republic.

 Chapter 22.—That the Roman Gods Never Took Any Steps to Prevent the Republic from Being Ruined by Immorality.

 Chapter 23.—That the Vicissitudes of This Life are Dependent Not on the Favor or Hostility of Demons, But on the Will of the True God.

 Chapter 24.—Of the Deeds of Sylla, in Which the Demons Boasted that He Had Their Help.

 Chapter 25.—How Powerfully the Evil Spirits Incite Men to Wicked Actions, by Giving Them the Quasi-Divine Authority of Their Example.

 Chapter 26.—That the Demons Gave in Secret Certain Obscure Instructions in Morals, While in Public Their Own Solemnities Inculcated All Wickedness.

 Chapter 27.—That the Obscenities of Those Plays Which the Romans Consecrated in Order to Propitiate Their Gods, Contributed Largely to the Overthrow o

 Chapter 28.—That the Christian Religion is Health-Giving.

 Chapter 29.—An Exhortation to the Romans to Renounce Paganism.

 Book III.

 Chapter 1.—Of the Ills Which Alone the Wicked Fear, and Which the World Continually Suffered, Even When the Gods Were Worshipped.

 Chapter 2.—Whether the Gods, Whom the Greeks and Romans Worshipped in Common, Were Justified in Permitting the Destruction of Ilium.

 Chapter 3.—That the Gods Could Not Be Offended by the Adultery of Paris, This Crime Being So Common Among Themselves.

 Chapter 4.—Of Varro’s Opinion, that It is Useful for Men to Feign Themselves the Offspring of the Gods.

 Chapter 5.—That It is Not Credible that the Gods Should Have Punished the Adultery of Paris, Seeing They Showed No Indignation at the Adultery of the

 Chapter 6.—That the Gods Exacted No Penalty for the Fratricidal Act of Romulus.

 Chapter 7.—Of the Destruction of Ilium by Fimbria, a Lieutenant of Marius.

 Chapter 8.—Whether Rome Ought to Have Been Entrusted to the Trojan Gods.

 Chapter 9.—Whether It is Credible that the Peace During the Reign of Numa Was Brought About by the Gods.

 Chapter 10.—Whether It Was Desirable that The Roman Empire Should Be Increased by Such a Furious Succession of Wars, When It Might Have Been Quiet and

 Chapter 11.—Of the Statue of Apollo at Cumæ, Whose Tears are Supposed to Have Portended Disaster to the Greeks, Whom the God Was Unable to Succor.

 Chapter 12.—That the Romans Added a Vast Number of Gods to Those Introduced by Numa, and that Their Numbers Helped Them Not at All.

 Chapter 13.—By What Right or Agreement The Romans Obtained Their First Wives.

 Chapter 14.—Of the Wickedness of the War Waged by the Romans Against the Albans, and of the Victories Won by the Lust of Power.

 Chapter 15.—What Manner of Life and Death the Roman Kings Had.

 Chapter 16.—Of the First Roman Consuls, the One of Whom Drove the Other from the Country, and Shortly After Perished at Rome by the Hand of a Wounded

 Chapter 17.—Of the Disasters Which Vexed the Roman Republic After the Inauguration of the Consulship, and of the Non-Intervention of the Gods of Rome.

 Chapter 18.—The Disasters Suffered by the Romans in the Punic Wars, Which Were Not Mitigated by the Protection of the Gods.

 Chapter 19.—Of the Calamity of the Second Punic War, Which Consumed the Strength of Both Parties.

 Chapter 20.—Of the Destruction of the Saguntines, Who Received No Help from the Roman Gods, Though Perishing on Account of Their Fidelity to Rome.

 Chapter 21.—Of the Ingratitude of Rome to Scipio, Its Deliverer, and of Its Manners During the Period Which Sallust Describes as the Best.

 Chapter 22.—Of the Edict of Mithridates, Commanding that All Roman Citizens Found in Asia Should Be Slain.

 Chapter 23.—Of the Internal Disasters Which Vexed the Roman Republic, and Followed a Portentous Madness Which Seized All the Domestic Animals.

 Chapter 24.—Of the Civil Dissension Occasioned by the Sedition of the Gracchi.

 Chapter 25.—Of the Temple of Concord, Which Was Erected by a Decree of the Senate on the Scene of These Seditions and Massacres.

 Chapter 26.—Of the Various Kinds of Wars Which Followed the Building of the Temple of Concord.

 Chapter 27.—Of the Civil War Between Marius and Sylla.

 Chapter 28.—Of the Victory of Sylla, the Avenger of the Cruelties of Marius.

 Chapter 29.—A Comparison of the Disasters Which Rome Experienced During the Gothic and Gallic Invasions, with Those Occasioned by the Authors of the C

 Chapter 30.—Of the Connection of the Wars Which with Great Severity and Frequency Followed One Another Before the Advent of Christ.

 Chapter 31.—That It is Effrontery to Impute the Present Troubles to Christ and the Prohibition of Polytheistic Worship Since Even When the Gods Were W

 Book IV.  

 Chapter 1.—Of the Things Which Have Been Discussed in the First Book.

 Chapter 2.—Of Those Things Which are Contained in Books Second and Third.

 Chapter 3.—Whether the Great Extent of the Empire, Which Has Been Acquired Only by Wars, is to Be Reckoned Among the Good Things Either of the Wise or

 Chapter 4.—How Like Kingdoms Without Justice are to Robberies.

 Chapter 5.—Of the Runaway Gladiators Whose Power Became Like that of Royal Dignity.

 Chapter 6.—Concerning the Covetousness of Ninus, Who Was the First Who Made War on His Neighbors, that He Might Rule More Widely.

 Chapter 7.—Whether Earthly Kingdoms in Their Rise and Fall Have Been Either Aided or Deserted by the Help of the Gods.

 Chapter 8.—Which of the Gods Can the Romans Suppose Presided Over the Increase and Preservation of Their Empire, When They Have Believed that Even the

 Chapter 9.—Whether the Great Extent and Long Duration of the Roman Empire Should Be Ascribed to Jove, Whom His Worshippers Believe to Be the Chief God

 Chapter 10.—What Opinions Those Have Followed Who Have Set Divers Gods Over Divers Parts of the World.

 Chapter 11.—Concerning the Many Gods Whom the Pagan Doctors Defend as Being One and the Same Jove.

 Chapter 12.—Concerning the Opinion of Those Who Have Thought that God is the Soul of the World, and the World is the Body of God.

 Chapter 13.—Concerning Those Who Assert that Only Rational Animals are Parts of the One God.

 Chapter 14.—The Enlargement of Kingdoms is Unsuitably Ascribed to Jove For If, as They Will Have It, Victoria is a Goddess, She Alone Would Suffice f

 Chapter 15.—Whether It is Suitable for Good Men to Wish to Rule More Widely.

 Chapter 16.—What Was the Reason Why the Romans, in Detailing Separate Gods for All Things and All Movements of the Mind, Chose to Have the Temple of Q

 Chapter 17.—Whether, If the Highest Power Belongs to Jove, Victoria Also Ought to Be Worshipped.

 Chapter 18.—With What Reason They Who Think Felicity and Fortune Goddesses Have Distinguished Them.

 To this supposed deity, whom they call Fortuna, they ascribe so much, indeed, that they have a tradition that the image of her, which was dedicated by

 Chapter 20.—Concerning Virtue and Faith, Which the Pagans Have Honored with Temples and Sacred Rites, Passing by Other Good Qualities, Which Ought Lik

 Chapter 21.—That Although Not Understanding Them to Be the Gifts of God, They Ought at Least to Have Been Content with Virtue and Felicity.

 Chapter 22.—Concerning the Knowledge of the Worship Due to the Gods, Which Varro Glories in Having Himself Conferred on the Romans.

 Chapter 23.—Concerning Felicity, Whom the Romans, Who Venerate Many Gods, for a Long Time Did Not Worship with Divine Honor, Though She Alone Would Ha

 Chapter 24.—The Reasons by Which the Pagans Attempt to Defend Their Worshipping Among the Gods the Divine Gifts Themselves.

 Chapter 25.—Concerning the One God Only to Be Worshipped, Who, Although His Name is Unknown, is Yet Deemed to Be the Giver of Felicity.

 Chapter 26.—Of the Scenic Plays, the Celebration of Which the Gods Have Exacted from Their Worshippers.

 Chapter 27.—Concerning the Three Kinds of Gods About Which the Pontiff Scævola Has Discoursed.

 Chapter 28.—Whether the Worship of the Gods Has Been of Service to the Romans in Obtaining and Extending the Empire.

 Chapter 29.—Of the Falsity of the Augury by Which the Strength and Stability of the Roman Empire Was Considered to Be Indicated.

 Chapter 30.—What Kind of Things Even Their Worshippers Have Owned They Have Thought About the Gods of the Nations.

 Chapter 31.—Concerning the Opinions of Varro, Who, While Reprobating the Popular Belief, Thought that Their Worship Should Be Confined to One God, Tho

 Chapter 32.—In What Interest the Princes of the Nations Wished False Religions to Continue Among the People Subject to Them.

 Chapter 33.—That the Times of All Kings and Kingdoms are Ordained by the Judgment and Power of the True God.

 Chapter 34.—Concerning the Kingdom of the Jews, Which Was Founded by the One and True God, and Preserved by Him as Long as They Remained in the True R

 Book V.

 Preface.

 The cause, then, of the greatness of the Roman empire is neither fortuitous nor fatal, according to the judgment or opinion of those who call those th

 Chapter 2.—On the Difference in the Health of Twins.

 Chapter 3.—Concerning the Arguments Which Nigidius the Mathematician Drew from the Potter’s Wheel, in the Question About the Birth of Twins.

 Chapter 4.—Concerning the Twins Esau and Jacob, Who Were Very Unlike Each Other Both in Their Character and Actions.

 Chapter 5.—In What Manner the Mathematicians are Convicted of Professing a Vain Science.

 Chapter 6.—Concerning Twins of Different Sexes.

 Chapter 7.—Concerning the Choosing of a Day for Marriage, or for Planting, or Sowing.

 Chapter 8.—Concerning Those Who Call by the Name of Fate, Not the Position of the Stars, But the Connection of Causes Which Depends on the Will of God

 Chapter 9.—Concerning the Foreknowledge of God and the Free Will of Man, in Opposition to the Definition of Cicero.

 Chapter 10.—Whether Our Wills are Ruled by Necessity.

 Chapter 11.—Concerning the Universal Providence of God in the Laws of Which All Things are Comprehended.

 Chapter 12.—By What Virtues the Ancient Romans Merited that the True God, Although They Did Not Worship Him, Should Enlarge Their Empire.

 Chapter 13.—Concerning the Love of Praise, Which, Though It is a Vice, is Reckoned a Virtue, Because by It Greater Vice is Restrained.

 Chapter 14.—Concerning the Eradication of the Love of Human Praise, Because All the Glory of the Righteous is in God.

 Chapter 15.—Concerning the Temporal Reward Which God Granted to the Virtues of the Romans.

 Chapter 16.—Concerning the Reward of the Holy Citizens of the Celestial City, to Whom the Example of the Virtues of the Romans are Useful.

 Chapter 17.—To What Profit the Romans Carried on Wars, and How Much They Contributed to the Well-Being of Those Whom They Conquered.

 Chapter 18.—How Far Christians Ought to Be from Boasting, If They Have Done Anything for the Love of the Eternal Country, When the Romans Did Such Gre

 Chapter 19.—Concerning the Difference Between True Glory and the Desire of Domination.

 Chapter 20.—That It is as Shameful for the Virtues to Serve Human Glory as Bodily Pleasure.

 Chapter 21.—That the Roman Dominion Was Granted by Him from Whom is All Power, and by Whose Providence All Things are Ruled.

 Chapter 22.—The Durations and Issues of War Depend on the Will of God.

 Chapter 23.—Concerning the War in Which Radagaisus, King of the Goths, a Worshipper of Demons, Was Conquered in One Day, with All His Mighty Forces.

 Chapter 24.—What Was the Happiness of the Christian Emperors, and How Far It Was True Happiness.

 Chapter 25.—Concerning the Prosperity Which God Granted to the Christian Emperor Constantine.

 Chapter 26.—On the Faith and Piety of Theodosius Augustus.

 Book VI.

 Preface.

 Chapter 1.—Of Those Who Maintain that They Worship the Gods Not for the Sake of Temporal But Eternal Advantages.

 Chapter 2.—What We are to Believe that Varro Thought Concerning the Gods of the Nations, Whose Various Kinds and Sacred Rites He Has Shown to Be Such

 Chapter 3.—Varro’s Distribution of His Book Which He Composed Concerning the Antiquities of Human and Divine Things.

 Chapter 4.—That from the Disputation of Varro, It Follows that the Worshippers of the Gods Regard Human Things as More Ancient Than Divine Things.

 Chapter 5.—Concerning the Three Kinds of Theology According to Varro, Namely, One Fabulous, the Other Natural, the Third Civil.

 Chapter 6.—Concerning the Mythic, that Is, the Fabulous, Theology, and the Civil, Against Varro.

 Chapter 7.—Concerning the Likeness and Agreement of the Fabulous and Civil Theologies.

 Chapter 8.—Concerning the Interpretations, Consisting of Natural Explanations, Which the Pagan Teachers Attempt to Show for Their Gods.

 Chapter 9.—Concerning the Special Offices of the Gods.

 Chapter 10.—Concerning the Liberty of Seneca, Who More Vehemently Censured the Civil Theology Than Varro Did the Fabulous.

 Chapter 11.—What Seneca Thought Concerning the Jews.

 Chapter 12.—That When Once the Vanity of the Gods of the Nations Has Been Exposed, It Cannot Be Doubted that They are Unable to Bestow Eternal Life on

 Book VII.

 Preface.

 Chapter 1.—Whether, Since It is Evident that Deity is Not to Be Found in the Civil Theology, We are to Believe that It is to Be Found in the Select Go

 Chapter 2.—Who are the Select Gods, and Whether They are Held to Be Exempt from the Offices of the Commoner Gods.

 Chapter 3.—How There is No Reason Which Can Be Shown for the Selection of Certain Gods, When the Administration of More Exalted Offices is Assigned to

 Chapter 4.—The Inferior Gods, Whose Names are Not Associated with Infamy, Have Been Better Dealt with Than the Select Gods, Whose Infamies are Celebra

 Chapter 5.—Concerning the More Secret Doctrine of the Pagans, and Concerning the Physical Interpretations.

 Chapter 6.—Concerning the Opinion of Varro, that God is the Soul of the World, Which Nevertheless, in Its Various Parts, Has Many Souls Whose Nature i

 Chapter 7.—Whether It is Reasonable to Separate Janus and Terminus as Two Distinct Deities.

 Chapter 8.—For What Reason the Worshippers of Janus Have Made His Image with Two Faces, When They Would Sometimes Have It Be Seen with Four.

 Chapter 9.—Concerning the Power of Jupiter, and a Comparison of Jupiter with Janus.

 Chapter 10.—Whether the Distinction Between Janus and Jupiter is a Proper One.

 Chapter 11.—Concerning the Surnames of Jupiter, Which are Referred Not to Many Gods, But to One and the Same God.

 Chapter 12.—That Jupiter is Also Called Pecunia.

 Chapter 13.—That When It is Expounded What Saturn Is, What Genius Is, It Comes to This, that Both of Them are Shown to Be Jupiter.

 Chapter 14.—Concerning the Offices of Mercury and Mars.

 Chapter 15.—Concerning Certain Stars Which the Pagans Have Called by the Names of Their Gods.

 Chapter 16.—Concerning Apollo and Diana, and the Other Select Gods Whom They Would Have to Be Parts of the World.

 Chapter 17.—That Even Varro Himself Pronounced His Own Opinions Regarding the Gods Ambiguous.

 Chapter 18.—A More Credible Cause of the Rise of Pagan Error.

 Chapter 19.—Concerning the Interpretations Which Compose the Reason of the Worship of Saturn.

 Chapter 20.—Concerning the Rites of Eleusinian Ceres.

 Chapter 21.—Concerning the Shamefulness of the Rites Which are Celebrated in Honor of Liber.

 Chapter 22.—Concerning Neptune, and Salacia and Venilia.

 Chapter 23.—Concerning the Earth, Which Varro Affirms to Be a Goddess, Because that Soul of the World Which He Thinks to Be God Pervades Also This Low

 Chapter 24.—Concerning the Surnames of Tellus and Their Significations, Which, Although They Indicate Many Properties, Ought Not to Have Established t

 Chapter 25.—The Interpretation of the Mutilation of Atys Which the Doctrine of the Greek Sages Set Forth.

 Chapter 26.—Concerning the Abomination of the Sacred Rites of the Great Mother.

 Chapter 27.—Concerning the Figments of the Physical Theologists, Who Neither Worship the True Divinity, Nor Perform the Worship Wherewith the True Div

 Chapter 28.—That the Doctrine of Varro Concerning Theology is in No Part Consistent with Itself.

 Chapter 29.—That All Things Which the Physical Theologists Have Referred to the World and Its Parts, They Ought to Have Referred to the One True God.

 Chapter 30.—How Piety Distinguishes the Creator from the Creatures, So That, Instead of One God, There are Not Worshipped as Many Gods as There are Wo

 Chapter 31.—What Benefits God Gives to the Followers of the Truth to Enjoy Over and Above His General Bounty.

 Chapter 32.—That at No Time in the Past Was the Mystery of Christ’s Redemption Awanting, But Was at All Times Declared, Though in Various Forms.

 Chapter 33.—That Only Through the Christian Religion Could the Deceit of Malign Spirits, Who Rejoice in the Errors of Men, Have Been Manifested.

 Chapter 34.—Concerning the Books of Numa Pompilius, Which the Senate Ordered to Be Burned, in Order that the Causes of Sacred Rights Therein Assigned

 Chapter 35.—Concerning the Hydromancy Through Which Numa Was Befooled by Certain Images of Demons Seen in the Water.

 Book VIII.

 Chapter 1.—That the Question of Natural Theology is to Be Discussed with Those Philosophers Who Sought a More Excellent Wisdom.

 Chapter 2.—Concerning the Two Schools of Philosophers, that Is, the Italic and Ionic, and Their Founders.

 Chapter 3.—Of the Socratic Philosophy.

 Chapter 4.—Concerning Plato, the Chief Among the Disciples of Socrates, and His Threefold Division of Philosophy.

 Chapter 5.—That It is Especially with the Platonists that We Must Carry on Our Disputations on Matters of Theology, Their Opinions Being Preferable to

 Chapter 6.—Concerning the Meaning of the Platonists in that Part of Philosophy Called Physical.

 Chapter 7.—How Much the Platonists are to Be Held as Excelling Other Philosophers in Logic, i.e. Rational Philosophy.

 Chapter 8.—That the Platonists Hold the First Rank in Moral Philosophy Also.

 Chapter 9.—Concerning that Philosophy Which Has Come Nearest to the Christian Faith.

 Chapter 10.—That the Excellency of the Christian Religion is Above All the Science of Philosophers.

 Chapter 11.—How Plato Has Been Able to Approach So Nearly to Christian Knowledge.

 Chapter 12.—That Even the Platonists, Though They Say These Things Concerning the One True God, Nevertheless Thought that Sacred Rites Were to Be Perf

 Chapter 13.—Concerning the Opinion of Plato, According to Which He Defined the Gods as Beings Entirely Good and the Friends of Virtue.

 Chapter 14.—Of the Opinion of Those Who Have Said that Rational Souls are of Three Kinds, to Wit, Those of the Celestial Gods, Those of the Aerial Dem

 Chapter 15.—That the Demons are Not Better Than Men Because of Their Aerial Bodies, or on Account of Their Superior Place of Abode.

 Chapter 16.—What Apuleius the Platonist Thought Concerning the Manners and Actions of Demons.

 Chapter 17.—Whether It is Proper that Men Should Worship Those Spirits from Whose Vices It is Necessary that They Be Freed.

 Chapter 18.—What Kind of Religion that is Which Teaches that Men Ought to Employ the Advocacy of Demons in Order to Be Recommended to the Favor of the

 Chapter 19.—Of the Impiety of the Magic Art, Which is Dependent on the Assistance of Malign Spirits.

 Chapter 20.—Whether We are to Believe that the Good Gods are More Willing to Have Intercourse with Demons Than with Men.

 Chapter 21.—Whether the Gods Use the Demons as Messengers and Interpreters, and Whether They are Deceived by Them Willingly, or Without Their Own Know

 Chapter 22.—That We Must, Notwithstanding the Opinion of Apuleius, Reject the Worship of Demons.

 Chapter 23.—What Hermes Trismegistus Thought Concerning Idolatry, and from What Source He Knew that the Superstitions of Egypt Were to Be Abolished.

 Chapter 24.—How Hermes Openly Confessed the Error of His Forefathers, the Coming Destruction of Which He Nevertheless Bewailed.

 Chapter 25.—Concerning Those Things Which May Be Common to the Holy Angels and to Men.

 Chapter 26.—That All the Religion of the Pagans Has Reference to Dead Men.

 Chapter 27.—Concerning the Nature of the Honor Which the Christians Pay to Their Martyrs.

 Book IX.

 Chapter 1.—The Point at Which the Discussion Has Arrived, and What Remains to Be Handled.

 Chapter 2.—Whether Among the Demons, Inferior to the Gods, There are Any Good Spirits Under Whose Guardianship the Human Soul Might Reach True Blessed

 Chapter 3.—What Apuleius Attributes to the Demons, to Whom, Though He Does Not Deny Them Reason, He Does Not Ascribe Virtue.

 Chapter 4.—The Opinion of the Peripatetics and Stoics About Mental Emotions.

 Chapter 5.—That the Passions Which Assail the Souls of Christians Do Not Seduce Them to Vice, But Exercise Their Virtue.

 Chapter 6.—Of the Passions Which, According to Apuleius, Agitate the Demons Who Are Supposed by Him to Mediate Between Gods and Men.

 Chapter 7.—That the Platonists Maintain that the Poets Wrong the Gods by Representing Them as Distracted by Party Feeling, to Which the Demons and Not

 Chapter 8.—How Apuleius Defines the Gods Who Dwell in Heaven, the Demons Who Occupy the Air, and Men Who Inhabit Earth.

 Chapter 9.—Whether the Intercession of the Demons Can Secure for Men the Friendship of the Celestial Gods.

 Chapter 10.—That, According to Plotinus, Men, Whose Body is Mortal, are Less Wretched Than Demons, Whose Body is Eternal.

 Chapter 11.—Of the Opinion of the Platonists, that the Souls of Men Become Demons When Disembodied.

 Chapter 12.—Of the Three Opposite Qualities by Which the Platonists Distinguish Between the Nature of Men and that of Demons.

 Chapter 13.—How the Demons Can Mediate Between Gods and Men If They Have Nothing in Common with Both, Being Neither Blessed Like the Gods, Nor Miserab

 Chapter 14.—Whether Men, Though Mortal, Can Enjoy True Blessedness.

 Chapter 15.—Of the Man Christ Jesus, the Mediator Between God and Men.

 Chapter 16.—Whether It is Reasonable in the Platonists to Determine that the Celestial Gods Decline Contact with Earthly Things and Intercourse with M

 Chapter 17.—That to Obtain the Blessed Life, Which Consists in Partaking of the Supreme Good, Man Needs Such Mediation as is Furnished Not by a Demon,

 Chapter 18.—That the Deceitful Demons, While Promising to Conduct Men to God by Their Intercession, Mean to Turn Them from the Path of Truth.

 Chapter 19.—That Even Among Their Own Worshippers the Name “Demon” Has Never a Good Signification.

 Chapter 20.—Of the Kind of Knowledge Which Puffs Up the Demons.

 Chapter 21.—To What Extent the Lord Was Pleased to Make Himself Known to the Demons.

 Chapter 22.—The Difference Between the Knowledge of the Holy Angels and that of the Demons.

 Chapter 23.—That the Name of Gods is Falsely Given to the Gods of the Gentiles, Though Scripture Applies It Both to the Holy Angels and Just Men.

 Book X.

 Chapter 1.—That the Platonists Themselves Have Determined that God Alone Can Confer Happiness Either on Angels or Men, But that It Yet Remains a Quest

 Chapter 2.—The Opinion of Plotinus the Platonist Regarding Enlightenment from Above.

 Chapter 3.—That the Platonists, Though Knowing Something of the Creator of the Universe, Have Misunderstood the True Worship of God, by Giving Divine

 Chapter 4.—That Sacrifice is Due to the True God Only.

 Chapter 5.—Of the Sacrifices Which God Does Not Require, But Wished to Be Observed for the Exhibition of Those Things Which He Does Require.

 Chapter 6.—Of the True and Perfect Sacrifice.

 Chapter 7.—Of the Love of the Holy Angels, Which Prompts Them to Desire that We Worship the One True God, and Not Themselves.

 Chapter 8.—Of the Miracles Which God Has Condescended to Adhibit Through the Ministry of Angels, to His Promises for the Confirmation of the Faith of

 Chapter 9.—Of the Illicit Arts Connected with Demonolatry, and of Which the Platonist Porphyry Adopts Some, and Discards Others.

 Chapter 10.—Concerning Theurgy, Which Promises a Delusive Purification of the Soul by the Invocation of Demons.

 Chapter 11.—Of Porphyry’s Epistle to Anebo, in Which He Asks for Information About the Differences Among Demons.

 Chapter 12.—Of the Miracles Wrought by the True God Through the Ministry of the Holy Angels.

 Chapter 13.—Of the Invisible God, Who Has Often Made Himself Visible, Not as He Really Is, But as the Beholders Could Bear the Sight.

 Chapter 14.—That the One God is to Be Worshipped Not Only for the Sake of Eternal Blessings, But Also in Connection with Temporal Prosperity, Because

 Chapter 15.—Of the Ministry of the Holy Angels, by Which They Fulfill the Providence of God.

 Chapter 16.—Whether Those Angels Who Demand that We Pay Them Divine Honor, or Those Who Teach Us to Render Holy Service, Not to Themselves, But to God

 Chapter 17.—Concerning the Ark of the Covenant, and the Miraculous Signs Whereby God Authenticated the Law and the Promise.

 Chapter 18.—Against Those Who Deny that the Books of the Church are to Be Believed About the Miracles Whereby the People of God Were Educated.

 Chapter 19.—On the Reasonableness of Offering, as the True Religion Teaches, a Visible Sacrifice to the One True and Invisible God.

 Chapter 20.—Of the Supreme and True Sacrifice Which Was Effected by the Mediator Between God and Men.

 Chapter 21 .—Of the Power Delegated to Demons for the Trial and Glorification of the Saints, Who Conquer Not by Propitiating the Spirits of the Air, B

 Chapter 22.—Whence the Saints Derive Power Against Demons and True Purification of Heart.

 Chapter 23.—Of the Principles Which, According to the Platonists, Regulate the Purification of the Soul.

 Chapter 24.—Of the One Only True Principle Which Alone Purifies and Renews Human Nature.

 Chapter 25.—That All the Saints, Both Under the Law and Before It, Were Justified by Faith in the Mystery of Christ’s Incarnation.

 Chapter 26.—Of Porphyry’s Weakness in Wavering Between the Confession of the True God and the Worship of Demons.

 Chapter 27.—Of the Impiety of Porphyry, Which is Worse Than Even the Mistake of Apuleius.

 Chapter 28.—How It is that Porphyry Has Been So Blind as Not to Recognize the True Wisdom—Christ.

 Chapter 29.—Of the Incarnation of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Which the Platonists in Their Impiety Blush to Acknowledge.

 Chapter 30.—Porphyry’s Emendations and Modifications of Platonism.

 Chapter 31.—Against the Arguments on Which the Platonists Ground Their Assertion that the Human Soul is Co-Eternal with God.

 Chapter 32.—Of the Universal Way of the Soul’s Deliverance, Which Porphyry Did Not Find Because He Did Not Rightly Seek It, and Which the Grace of Chr

 Book XI.

 Chapter 1.—Of This Part of the Work, Wherein We Begin to Explain the Origin and End of the Two Cities.

 Chapter 2.—Of the Knowledge of God, to Which No Man Can Attain Save Through the Mediator Between God and Men, the Man Christ Jesus.

 Chapter 3.—Of the Authority of the Canonical Scriptures Composed by the Divine Spirit.

 Chapter 4.—That the World is Neither Without Beginning, Nor Yet Created by a New Decree of God, by Which He Afterwards Willed What He Had Not Before W

 Chapter 5.—That We Ought Not to Seek to Comprehend the Infinite Ages of Time Before the World, Nor the Infinite Realms of Space.

 Chapter 6.—That the World and Time Had Both One Beginning, and the One Did Not Anticipate the Other.

 Chapter 7.—Of the Nature of the First Days, Which are Said to Have Had Morning and Evening, Before There Was a Sun.

 Chapter 8.—What We are to Understand of God’s Resting on the Seventh Day, After the Six Days’ Work.

 Chapter 9.—What the Scriptures Teach Us to Believe Concerning the Creation of the Angels.

 Chapter 10.—Of the Simple and Unchangeable Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, One God, in Whom Substance and Quality are Identical.

 Chapter 11.—Whether the Angels that Fell Partook of the Blessedness Which the Holy Angels Have Always Enjoyed from the Time of Their Creation.

 Chapter 12.—A Comparison of the Blessedness of the Righteous, Who Have Not Yet Received the Divine Reward, with that of Our First Parents in Paradise.

 Chapter 13.—Whether All the Angels Were So Created in One Common State of Felicity, that Those Who Fell Were Not Aware that They Would Fall, and that

 Chapter 14.—An Explanation of What is Said of the Devil, that He Did Not Abide in the Truth, Because the Truth Was Not in Him.

 Chapter 15.—How We are to Understand the Words, “The Devil Sinneth from the Beginning.”

 Chapter 16.—Of the Ranks and Differences of the Creatures, Estimated by Their Utility, or According to the Natural Gradations of Being.

 Chapter 17.—That the Flaw of Wickedness is Not Nature, But Contrary to Nature, and Has Its Origin, Not in the Creator, But in the Will.

 Chapter 18.—Of the Beauty of the Universe, Which Becomes, by God’s Ordinance, More Brilliant by the Opposition of Contraries.

 Chapter 19.—What, Seemingly, We are to Understand by the Words, “God Divided the Light from the Darkness.”

 Chapter 20.—Of the Words Which Follow the Separation of Light and Darkness, “And God Saw the Light that It Was Good.”

 Chapter 21.—Of God’s Eternal and Unchangeable Knowledge and Will, Whereby All He Has Made Pleased Him in the Eternal Design as Well as in the Actual R

 Chapter 22.—Of Those Who Do Not Approve of Certain Things Which are a Part of This Good Creation of a Good Creator, and Who Think that There is Some N

 Chapter 23.—Of the Error in Which the Doctrine of Origen is Involved.

 Chapter 24.—Of the Divine Trinity, and the Indications of Its Presence Scattered Everywhere Among Its Works.

 Chapter 25.—Of the Division of Philosophy into Three Parts.

 Chapter 26.—Of the Image of the Supreme Trinity, Which We Find in Some Sort in Human Nature Even in Its Present State.

 Chapter 27.—Of Existence, and Knowledge of It, and the Love of Both.

 Chapter 28.—Whether We Ought to Love the Love Itself with Which We Love Our Existence and Our Knowledge of It, that So We May More Nearly Resemble the

 Chapter 29.—Of the Knowledge by Which the Holy Angels Know God in His Essence, and by Which They See the Causes of His Works in the Art of the Worker,

 Chapter 30.—Of the Perfection of the Number Six, Which is the First of the Numbers Which is Composed of Its Aliquot Parts.

 Chapter 31.—Of the Seventh Day, in Which Completeness and Repose are Celebrated.

 Chapter 32.—Of the Opinion that the Angels Were Created Before the World.

 Chapter 33.—Of the Two Different and Dissimilar Communities of Angels, Which are Not Inappropriately Signified by the Names Light and Darkness.

 Chapter 34.—Of the Idea that the Angels Were Meant Where the Separation of the Waters by the Firmament is Spoken Of, and of that Other Idea that the W

 Book XII.

 Chapter 1.—That the Nature of the Angels, Both Good and Bad, is One and the Same.

 This may be enough to prevent any one from supposing, when we speak of the apostate angels, that they could have another nature, derived, as it were,

 Chapter 3.—That the Enemies of God are So, Not by Nature, But by Will, Which, as It Injures Them, Injures a Good Nature For If Vice Does Not Injure,

 Chapter 4.—Of the Nature of Irrational and Lifeless Creatures, Which in Their Own Kind and Order Do Not Mar the Beauty of the Universe.

 Chapter 5.—That in All Natures, of Every Kind and Rank, God is Glorified.

 Chapter 6.—What the Cause of the Blessedness of the Good Angels Is, and What the Cause of the Misery of the Wicked.

 Chapter 7.—That We Ought Not to Expect to Find Any Efficient Cause of the Evil Will.

 Chapter 8.—Of the Misdirected Love Whereby the Will Fell Away from the Immutable to the Mutable Good.

 Chapter 9.—Whether the Angels, Besides Receiving from God Their Nature, Received from Him Also Their Good Will by the Holy Spirit Imbuing Them with Lo

 Chapter 10.—Of the Falseness of the History Which Allots Many Thousand Years to the World’s Past.

 Chapter 11.—Of Those Who Suppose that This World Indeed is Not Eternal, But that Either There are Numberless Worlds, or that One and the Same World is

 Chapter 12.—How These Persons are to Be Answered, Who Find Fault with the Creation of Man on the Score of Its Recent Date.

 Chapter 13.—Of the Revolution of the Ages, Which Some Philosophers Believe Will Bring All Things Round Again, After a Certain Fixed Cycle, to the Same

 Chapter 14.—Of the Creation of the Human Race in Time, and How This Was Effected Without Any New Design or Change of Purpose on God’s Part.

 Chapter 15.—Whether We are to Believe that God, as He Has Always Been Sovereign Lord, Has Always Had Creatures Over Whom He Exercised His Sovereignty

 Chapter 16.—How We are to Understand God’s Promise of Life Eternal, Which Was Uttered Before the “Eternal Times.”

 Chapter 17.—What Defence is Made by Sound Faith Regarding God’s Unchangeable Counsel and Will, Against the Reasonings of Those Who Hold that the Works

 As for their other assertion, that God’s knowledge cannot comprehend things infinite, it only remains for them to affirm, in order that they may sound

 I do not presume to determine whether God does so, and whether these times which are called “ages of ages” are joined together in a continuous series,

 Chapter 20.—Of the Impiety of Those Who Assert that the Souls Which Enjoy True and Perfect Blessedness, Must Yet Again and Again in These Periodic Rev

 Chapter 21.—That There Was Created at First But One Individual, and that the Human Race Was Created in Him.

 Chapter 22.—That God Foreknew that the First Man Would Sin, and that He at the Same Time Foresaw How Large a Multitude of Godly Persons Would by His G

 Chapter 23.—Of the Nature of the Human Soul Created in the Image of God.

 Chapter 24.—Whether the Angels Can Be Said to Be the Creators of Any, Even the Least Creature.

 Chapter 25.—That God Alone is the Creator of Every Kind of Creature, Whatever Its Nature or Form.

 Chapter 26.—Of that Opinion of the Platonists, that the Angels Were Themselves Indeed Created by God, But that Afterwards They Created Man’s Body.

 Chapter 27.—That the Whole Plenitude of the Human Race Was Embraced in the First Man, and that God There Saw the Portion of It Which Was to Be Honored

 Book XIII.

 Chapter 1.—Of the Fall of the First Man, Through Which Mortality Has Been Contracted.

 Chapter 2.—Of that Death Which Can Affect an Immortal Soul, and of that to Which the Body is Subject.

 Chapter 3.—Whether Death, Which by the Sin of Our First Parents Has Passed Upon All Men, is the Punishment of Sin, Even to the Good.

 Chapter 4.—Why Death, the Punishment of Sin, is Not Withheld from Those Who by the Grace of Regeneration are Absolved from Sin.

 Chapter 5.—As the Wicked Make an Ill Use of the Law, Which is Good, So the Good Make a Good Use of Death, Which is an Ill.

 Chapter 6.—Of the Evil of Death in General, Considered as the Separation of Soul and Body.

 For whatever unbaptized persons die confessing Christ, this confession is of the same efficacy for the remission of sins as if they were washed in the

 Chapter 8.—That the Saints, by Suffering the First Death for the Truth’s Sake, are Freed from the Second.

 Chapter 9.—Whether We Should Say that The Moment of Death, in Which Sensation Ceases, Occurs in the Experience of the Dying or in that of the Dead.

 Chapter 10.—Of the Life of Mortals, Which is Rather to Be Called Death Than Life.

 Chapter 11.—Whether One Can Both Be Living and Dead at the Same Time.

 Chapter 12.—What Death God Intended, When He Threatened Our First Parents with Death If They Should Disobey His Commandment.

 Chapter 13.—What Was the First Punishment of the Transgression of Our First Parents.

 Chapter 14.—In What State Man Was Made by God, and into What Estate He Fell by the Choice of His Own Will.

 Chapter 15.—That Adam in His Sin Forsook God Ere God Forsook Him, and that His Falling Away From God Was the First Death of the Soul.

 Chapter 16.—Concerning the Philosophers Who Think that the Separation of Soul and Body is Not Penal, Though Plato Represents the Supreme Deity as Prom

 Chapter 17.—Against Those Who Affirm that Earthly Bodies Cannot Be Made Incorruptible and Eternal.

 Chapter 18.—Of Earthly Bodies, Which the Philosophers Affirm Cannot Be in Heavenly Places, Because Whatever is of Earth is by Its Natural Weight Attra

 Chapter 19.—Against the Opinion of Those Who Do Not Believe that the Primitive Men Would Have Been Immortal If They Had Not Sinned.

 Chapter 20.—That the Flesh Now Resting in Peace Shall Be Raised to a Perfection Not Enjoyed by the Flesh of Our First Parents.

 Chapter 21.—Of Paradise, that It Can Be Understood in a Spiritual Sense Without Sacrificing the Historic Truth of the Narrative Regarding The Real Pla

 Chapter 22.—That the Bodies of the Saints Shall After the Resurrection Be Spiritual, and Yet Flesh Shall Not Be Changed into Spirit.

 Chapter 23.—What We are to Understand by the Animal and Spiritual Body Or of Those Who Die in Adam, And of Those Who are Made Alive in Christ.

 Chapter 24.—How We Must Understand that Breathing of God by Which “The First Man Was Made a Living Soul,” And that Also by Which the Lord Conveyed His

 Book XIV.

 Chapter 1.—That the Disobedience of the First Man Would Have Plunged All Men into the Endless Misery of the Second Death, Had Not the Grace of God Res

 Chapter 2.—Of Carnal Life, Which is to Be Understood Not Only of Living in Bodily Indulgence, But Also of Living in the Vices of the Inner Man.

 Chapter 3.—That the Sin is Caused Not by the Flesh, But by the Soul, and that the Corruption Contracted from Sin is Not Sin But Sin’s Punishment.

 Chapter 4.—What It is to Live According to Man, and What to Live According to God.

 Chapter 5.—That the Opinion of the Platonists Regarding the Nature of Body and Soul is Not So Censurable as that of the Manichæans, But that Even It i

 Chapter 6.—Of the Character of the Human Will Which Makes the Affections of the Soul Right or Wrong.

 Chapter 7.—That the Words Love and Regard (Amor and Dilectio) are in Scripture Used Indifferently of Good and Evil Affection.

 Chapter 8.—Of the Three Perturbations, Which the Stoics Admitted in the Soul of the Wise Man to the Exclusion of Grief or Sadness, Which the Manly Min

 Chapter 9.—Of the Perturbations of the Soul Which Appear as Right Affections in the Life of the Righteous.

 Chapter 10.—Whether It is to Be Believed that Our First Parents in Paradise, Before They Sinned, Were Free from All Perturbation.

 Chapter 11.—Of the Fall of the First Man, in Whom Nature Was Created Good, and Can Be Restored Only by Its Author.

 Chapter 12.—Of the Nature of Man’s First Sin.

 Chapter 13.—That in Adam’s Sin an Evil Will Preceded the Evil Act.

 Chapter 14.—Of the Pride in the Sin, Which Was Worse Than the Sin Itself.

 Chapter 15.—Of the Justice of the Punishment with Which Our First Parents Were Visited for Their Disobedience.

 Chapter 16.—Of the Evil of Lust,—A Word Which, Though Applicable to Many Vices, is Specially Appropriated to Sexual Uncleanness.

 Chapter 17.—Of the Nakedness of Our First Parents, Which They Saw After Their Base and Shameful Sin.

 Chapter 18.—Of the Shame Which Attends All Sexual Intercourse.

 Chapter 19.—That It is Now Necessary, as It Was Not Before Man Sinned, to Bridle Anger and Lust by the Restraining Influence of Wisdom.

 Chapter 20.—Of the Foolish Beastliness of the Cynics.

 Chapter 21.—That Man’s Transgression Did Not Annul the Blessing of Fecundity Pronounced Upon Man Before He Sinned But Infected It with the Disease of

 Chapter 22.—Of the Conjugal Union as It Was Originally Instituted and Blessed by God.

 Chapter 23.—Whether Generation Should Have Taken Place Even in Paradise Had Man Not Sinned, or Whether There Should Have Been Any Contention There Bet

 Chapter 24.—That If Men Had Remained Innocent and Obedient in Paradise, the Generative Organs Should Have Been in Subjection to the Will as the Other

 Chapter 25.—Of True Blessedness, Which This Present Life Cannot Enjoy.

 Chapter 26.—That We are to Believe that in Paradise Our First Parents Begat Offspring Without Blushing.

 Chapter 27.—Of the Angels and Men Who Sinned, and that Their Wickedness Did Not Disturb the Order of God’s Providence.

 Chapter 28.—Of the Nature of the Two Cities, the Earthly and the Heavenly.

 Book XV.

 Chapter 1.—Of the Two Lines of the Human Race Which from First to Last Divide It.

 Chapter 2.—Of the Children of the Flesh and the Children of the Promise.

 Chapter 3.—That Sarah’s Barrenness was Made Productive by God’s Grace.

 Chapter 4.—Of the Conflict and Peace of the Earthly City.

 Chapter 5.—Of the Fratricidal Act of the Founder of the Earthly City, and the Corresponding Crime of the Founder of Rome.

 Chapter 6.—Of the Weaknesses Which Even the Citizens of the City of God Suffer During This Earthly Pilgrimage in Punishment of Sin, and of Which They

 Chapter 7.—Of the Cause of Cain’s Crime and His Obstinacy, Which Not Even the Word of God Could Subdue.

 Chapter 8.—What Cain’s Reason Was for Building a City So Early in the History of the Human Race.

 Chapter 9.—Of the Long Life and Greater Stature of the Antediluvians.

 Wherefore, although there is a discrepancy for which I cannot account between our manuscripts and the Hebrew, in the very number of years assigned to

 Chapter 11.—Of Methuselah’s Age, Which Seems to Extend Fourteen Years Beyond the Deluge.

 Chapter 12.—Of the Opinion of Those Who Do Not Believe that in These Primitive Times Men Lived So Long as is Stated.

 Chapter 13.—Whether, in Computing Years, We Ought to Follow the Hebrew or the Septuagint.

 Chapter 14.—That the Years in Those Ancient Times Were of the Same Length as Our Own.

 Chapter 15.—Whether It is Credible that the Men of the Primitive Age Abstained from Sexual Intercourse Until that Date at Which It is Recorded that Th

 Chapter 16.—Of Marriage Between Blood-Relations, in Regard to Which the Present Law Could Not Bind the Men of the Earliest Ages.

 Chapter 17.—Of the Two Fathers and Leaders Who Sprang from One Progenitor.

 Chapter 18.—The Significance of Abel, Seth, and Enos to Christ and His Body the Church.

 Chapter 19.—The Significance Of Enoch’s Translation.

 Chapter 20.—How It is that Cain’s Line Terminates in the Eighth Generation, While Noah, Though Descended from the Same Father, Adam, is Found to Be th

 Chapter 21.—Why It is That, as Soon as Cain’s Son Enoch Has Been Named, the Genealogy is Forthwith Continued as Far as the Deluge, While After the Men

 Chapter 22.—Of the Fall of the Sons of God Who Were Captivated by the Daughters of Men, Whereby All, with the Exception of Eight Persons, Deservedly P

 Chapter 23.—Whether We are to Believe that Angels, Who are of a Spiritual Substance, Fell in Love with the Beauty of Women, and Sought Them in Marriag

 Chapter 24.—How We are to Understand This Which the Lord Said to Those Who Were to Perish in the Flood:  “Their Days Shall Be 120 Years.”

 Chapter 25.—Of the Anger of God, Which Does Not Inflame His Mind, Nor Disturb His Unchangeable Tranquillity.

 Chapter 26.—That the Ark Which Noah Was Ordered to Make Figures In Every Respect Christ and the Church.

 Chapter 27.—Of the Ark and the Deluge, and that We Cannot Agree with Those Who Receive the Bare History, But Reject the Allegorical Interpretation, No

 Book XVI.

 Chapter 1.—Whether, After the Deluge, from Noah to Abraham, Any Families Can Be Found Who Lived According to God.

 Chapter 2.—What Was Prophetically Prefigured in the Sons of Noah.

 Chapter 3.—Of the Generations of the Three Sons of Noah.

 Chapter 4.—Of the Diversity of Languages, and of the Founding of Babylon.

 Chapter 5.—Of God’s Coming Down to Confound the Languages of the Builders of the City.

 Chapter 6.—What We are to Understand by God’s Speaking to the Angels.

 Chapter 7.—Whether Even the Remotest Islands Received Their Fauna from the Animals Which Were Preserved, Through the Deluge, in the Ark.

 Chapter 8.—Whether Certain Monstrous Races of Men are Derived from the Stock of Adam or Noah’s Sons.

 Chapter 9.—Whether We are to Believe in the Antipodes.

 Chapter 10.—Of the Genealogy of Shem, in Whose Line the City of God is Preserved Till the Time of Abraham.

 Chapter 11.—That the Original Language in Use Among Men Was that Which Was Afterwards Called Hebrew, from Heber, in Whose Family It Was Preserved When

 Chapter 12.—Of the Era in Abraham’s Life from Which a New Period in the Holy Succession Begins.

 Chapter 13.—Why, in the Account of Terah’s Emigration, on His Forsaking the Chaldeans and Passing Over into Mesopotamia, No Mention is Made of His Son

 Chapter 14.—Of the Years of Terah, Who Completed His Lifetime in Haran.

 Chapter 15.—Of the Time of the Migration of Abraham, When, According to the Commandment of God, He Went Out from Haran.

 Chapter 16.—Of the Order and Nature of the Promises of God Which Were Made to Abraham.

 Chapter 17.—Of the Three Most Famous Kingdoms of the Nations, of Which One, that is the Assyrian, Was Already Very Eminent When Abraham Was Born.

 Chapter 18.—Of the Repeated Address of God to Abraham, in Which He Promised the Land of Canaan to Him and to His Seed.

 Chapter 19.—Of the Divine Preservation of Sarah’s Chastity in Egypt, When Abraham Had Called Her Not His Wife But His Sister.

 Chapter 20.—Of the Parting of Lot and Abraham, Which They Agreed to Without Breach of Charity.

 Chapter 21.—Of the Third Promise of God, by Which He Assured the Land of Canaan to Abraham and His Seed in Perpetuity.

 Chapter 22.—Of Abraham’s Overcoming the Enemies of Sodom, When He Delivered Lot from Captivity and Was Blessed by Melchizedek the Priest.

 Chapter 23.—Of the Word of the Lord to Abraham, by Which It Was Promised to Him that His Posterity Should Be Multiplied According to the Multitude of

 Chapter 24.—Of the Meaning of the Sacrifice Abraham Was Commanded to Offer When He Supplicated to Be Taught About Those Things He Had Believed.

 Chapter 25.—Of Sarah’s Handmaid, Hagar, Whom She Herself Wished to Be Abraham’s Concubine.

 Chapter 26.—Of God’s Attestation to Abraham, by Which He Assures Him, When Now Old, of a Son by the Barren Sarah, and Appoints Him the Father of the N

 Chapter 27.—Of the Male, Who Was to Lose His Soul If He Was Not Circumcised on the Eighth Day, Because He Had Broken God’s Covenant.

 Chapter 28.—Of the Change of Name in Abraham and Sarah, Who Received the Gift of Fecundity When They Were Incapable of Regeneration Owing to the Barre

 Chapter 29.—Of the Three Men or Angels, in Whom the Lord is Related to Have Appeared to Abraham at the Oak of Mamre.

 Chapter 30.—Of Lot’s Deliverance from Sodom, and Its Consumption by Fire from Heaven And of Abimelech, Whose Lust Could Not Harm Sarah’s Chastity.

 Chapter 31.—Of Isaac, Who Was Born According to the Promise, Whose Name Was Given on Account of the Laughter of Both Parents.

 Chapter 32.—Of Abraham’s Obedience and Faith, Which Were Proved by the Offering Up, of His Son in Sacrifice, and of Sarah’s Death.

 Chapter 33.—Of Rebecca, the Grand-Daughter of Nahor, Whom Isaac Took to Wife.

 Chapter 34.—What is Meant by Abraham’s Marrying Keturah After Sarah’s Death.

 Chapter 35.—What Was Indicated by the Divine Answer About the Twins Still Shut Up in the Womb of Rebecca Their Mother.

 Chapter 36.—Of the Oracle and Blessing Which Isaac Received, Just as His Father Did, Being Beloved for His Sake.

 Chapter 37.—Of the Things Mystically Prefigured in Esau and Jacob.

 Chapter 38.—Of Jacob’s Mission to Mesopotamia to Get a Wife, and of the Vision Which He Saw in a Dream by the Way, and of His Getting Four Women When

 Chapter 39.—The Reason Why Jacob Was Also Called Israel.

 Chapter 40.—How It is Said that Jacob Went into Egypt with Seventy-Five Souls, When Most of Those Who are Mentioned Were Born at a Later Period.

 Chapter 41.—Of the Blessing Which Jacob Promised in Judah His Son.

 Chapter 42.—Of the Sons of Joseph, Whom Jacob Blessed, Prophetically Changing His Hands.

 Chapter 43.—Of the Times of Moses and Joshua the Son of Nun, of the Judges, and Thereafter of the Kings, of Whom Saul Was the First, But David is to B

 Book XVII.

 Chapter 1.—Of the Prophetic Age.

 Chapter 2.—At What Time the Promise of God Was Fulfilled Concerning the Land of Canaan, Which Even Carnal Israel Got in Possession.

 Chapter 3.—Of the Three-Fold Meaning of the Prophecies, Which are to Be Referred Now to the Earthly, Now to the Heavenly Jerusalem, and Now Again to B

 Chapter 4.—About the Prefigured Change of the Israelitic Kingdom and Priesthood, and About the Things Hannah the Mother of Samuel Prophesied, Personat

 Chapter 5.—Of Those Things Which a Man of God Spake by the Spirit to Eli the Priest, Signifying that the Priesthood Which Had Been Appointed According

 Chapter 6.—Of the Jewish Priesthood and Kingdom, Which, Although Promised to Be Established for Ever, Did Not Continue So that Other Things are to Be

 Chapter 7.—Of the Disruption of the Kingdom of Israel, by Which the Perpetual Division of the Spiritual from the Carnal Israel Was Prefigured.

 Chapter 8.—Of the Promises Made to David in His Son, Which are in No Wise Fulfilled in Solomon, But Most Fully in Christ.

 Chapter 9.—How Like the Prophecy About Christ in the 89th Psalm is to the Things Promised in Nathan’s Prophecy in the Books of Samuel.

 Chapter 10.—How Different the Acts in the Kingdom of the Earthly Jerusalem are from Those Which God Had Promised, So that the Truth of the Promise Sho

 Chapter 11.—Of the Substance of the People of God, Which Through His Assumption of Flesh is in Christ, Who Alone Had Power to Deliver His Own Soul fro

 Chapter 12.—To Whose Person the Entreaty for the Promises is to Be Understood to Belong, When He Says in the Psalm, “Where are Thine Ancient Compassio

 Chapter 13.—Whether the Truth of This Promised Peace Can Be Ascribed to Those Times Passed Away Under Solomon.

 Chapter 14.—Of David’s Concern in the Writing of the Psalms.

 Chapter 15.—Whether All the Things Prophesied in the Psalms Concerning Christ and His Church Should Be Taken Up in the Text of This Work.

 Chapter 16.—Of the Things Pertaining to Christ and the Church, Said Either Openly or Tropically in the 45th Psalm.

 Chapter 17.—Of Those Things in the 110th Psalm Which Relate to the Priesthood of Christ, and in the 22d to His Passion.

 Chapter 18.—Of the 3d, 41st, 15th, and 68th Psalms, in Which the Death and Resurrection of the Lord are Prophesied.

 Chapter 19.—Of the 69th Psalm, in Which the Obstinate Unbelief of the Jews is Declared.

 Chapter 20.—Of David’s Reign and Merit And of His Son Solomon, and that Prophecy Relating to Christ Which is Found Either in Those Books Which are Jo

 Chapter 21.—Of the Kings After Solomon, Both in Judah and Israel.

 Chapter 22.—Of Jeroboam, Who Profaned the People Put Under Him by the Impiety of Idolatry, Amid Which, However, God Did Not Cease to Inspire the Proph

 Chapter 23.—Of the Varying Condition of Both the Hebrew Kingdoms, Until the People of Both Were at Different Times Led into Captivity, Judah Being Aft

 Chapter 24.—Of the Prophets, Who Either Were the Last Among the Jews, or Whom the Gospel History Reports About the Time of Christ’s Nativity.

 Book XVIII.

 Chapter 1.—Of Those Things Down to the Times of the Saviour Which Have Been Discussed in the Seventeen Books.

 Chapter 2.—Of the Kings and Times of the Earthly City Which Were Synchronous with the Times of the Saints, Reckoning from the Rise of Abraham.

 Chapter 3.—What Kings Reigned in Assyria and Sicyon When, According to the Promise, Isaac Was Born to Abraham in His Hundredth Year, and When the Twin

 Chapter 4.—Of the Times of Jacob and His Son Joseph.

 Chapter 5.—Of Apis King of Argos, Whom the Egyptians Called Serapis, and Worshipped with Divine Honors.

 Chapter 6.—Who Were Kings of Argos, and of Assyria, When Jacob Died in Egypt.

 Chapter 7.—Who Were Kings When Joseph Died in Egypt.

 Chapter 8.—Who Were Kings When Moses Was Born, and What Gods Began to Be Worshipped Then.

 Chapter 9.—When the City of Athens Was Founded, and What Reason Varro Assigns for Its Name.

 Chapter 10.—What Varro Reports About the Term Areopagus, and About Deucalion’s Flood.

 Chapter 11.—When Moses Led the People Out of Egypt And Who Were Kings When His Successor Joshua the Son of Nun Died.

 Chapter 12.—Of the Rituals of False Gods Instituted by the Kings of Greece in the Period from Israel’s Exodus from Egypt Down to the Death of Joshua t

 Chapter 13.—What Fables Were Invented at the Time When Judges Began to Rule the Hebrews.

 Chapter 14.—Of the Theological Poets.

 Chapter 15.—Of the Fall of the Kingdom of Argos, When Picus the Son of Saturn First Received His Father’s Kingdom of Laurentum.

 Chapter 16.—Of Diomede, Who After the Destruction of Troy Was Placed Among the Gods, While His Companions are Said to Have Been Changed into Birds.

 Chapter 17.—What Varro Says of the Incredible Transformations of Men.

 Chapter 18.—What We Should Believe Concerning the Transformations Which Seem to Happen to Men Through the Art of Demons.

 Chapter 19.—That Æneas Came into Italy When Abdon the Judge Ruled Over the Hebrews.

 Chapter 20.—Of the Succession of the Line of Kings Among the Israelites After the Times of the Judges.

 Chapter 21.—Of the Kings of Latium, the First and Twelfth of Whom, Æneas and Aventinus, Were Made Gods.

 Chapter 22.—That Rome Was Founded When the Assyrian Kingdom Perished, at Which Time Hezekiah Reigned in Judah.

 Some say the Erythræan sibyl prophesied at this time.  Now Varro declares there were many sibyls, and not merely one.  This sibyl of Erythræ certainly

 Chapter 24.—That the Seven Sages Flourished in the Reign of Romulus, When the Ten Tribes Which Were Called Israel Were Led into Captivity by the Chald

 Chapter 25.—What Philosophers Were Famous When Tarquinius Priscus Reigned Over the Romans, and Zedekiah Over the Hebrews, When Jerusalem Was Taken and

 Chapter 26.—That at the Time When the Captivity of the Jews Was Brought to an End, on the Completion of Seventy Years, the Romans Also Were Freed from

 Chapter 27.—Of the Times of the Prophets Whose Oracles are Contained in Books and Who Sang Many Things About the Call of the Gentiles at the Time When

 Chapter 28.—Of the Things Pertaining to the Gospel of Christ Which Hosea and Amos Prohesied.

 Chapter 29.—What Things are Predicted by Isaiah Concerning Christ and the Church.

 Chapter 30.—What Micah, Jonah, and Joel Prophesied in Accordance with the New Testament.

 Chapter 31.—Of the Predictions Concerning the Salvation of the World in Christ, in Obadiah, Nahum, and Habakkuk.

 Chapter 32.—Of the Prophecy that is Contained in the Prayer and Song of Habakkuk.

 Chapter 33.—What Jeremiah and Zephaniah Have, by the Prophetic Spirit, Spoken Before Concerning Christ and the Calling of the Nations.

 Chapter 34.—Of the Prophecy of Daniel and Ezekiel, Other Two of the Greater Prophets.

 Chapter 35.—Of the Prophecy of the Three Prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.

 Chapter 36.—About Esdras and the Books of the Maccabees.

 Chapter 37.—That Prophetic Records are Found Which are More Ancient Than Any Fountain of the Gentile Philosophy.

 Chapter 38.—That the Ecclesiastical Canon Has Not Admitted Certain Writings on Account of Their Too Great Antiquity, Lest Through Them False Things Sh

 Chapter 39.—About the Hebrew Written Characters Which that Language Always Possessed.

 Chapter 40.—About the Most Mendacious Vanity of the Egyptians, in Which They Ascribe to Their Science an Antiquity of a Hundred Thousand Years.

 Chapter 41.—About the Discord of Philosophic Opinion, and the Concord of the Scriptures that are Held as Canonical by the Church.

 Chapter 42.—By What Dispensation of God’s Providence the Sacred Scriptures of the Old Testament Were Translated Out of Hebrew into Greek, that They Mi

 Chapter 43.—Of the Authority of the Septuagint Translation, Which, Saving the Honor of the Hebrew Original, is to Be Preferred to All Translations.

 Chapter 44.—How the Threat of the Destruction of the Ninevites is to Be Understood Which in the Hebrew Extends to Forty Days, While in the Septuagint

 Chapter 45.—That the Jews Ceased to Have Prophets After the Rebuilding of the Temple, and from that Time Until the Birth of Christ Were Afflicted with

 Chapter 46.—Of the Birth of Our Saviour, Whereby the Word Was Made Flesh And of the Dispersion of the Jews Among All Nations, as Had Been Prophesied.

 Chapter 47.—Whether Before Christian Times There Were Any Outside of the Israelite Race Who Belonged to the Fellowship of the Heavenly City.

 This house of God is more glorious than that first one which was constructed of wood and stone, metals and other precious things.  Therefore the proph

 Chapter 49.—Of the Indiscriminate Increase of the Church, Wherein Many Reprobate are in This World Mixed with the Elect.

 Chapter 50.—Of the Preaching of the Gospel, Which is Made More Famous and Powerful by the Sufferings of Its Preachers.

 Chapter 51.—That the Catholic Faith May Be Confirmed Even by the Dissensions of the Heretics.

 Chapter 52.—Whether We Should Believe What Some Think, That, as the Ten Persecutions Which are Past Have Been Fulfilled, There Remains No Other Beyond

 Chapter 53.—Of the Hidden Time of the Final Persecution.

 Chapter 54.—Of the Very Foolish Lie of the Pagans, in Feigning that the Christian Religion Was Not to Last Beyond Three Hundred and Sixty-Five Years.

 Book XIX.

 Chapter 1.—That Varro Has Made Out that Two Hundred and Eighty-Eight Different Sects of Philosophy Might Be Formed by the Various Opinions Regarding t

 Chapter 2.—How Varro, by Removing All the Differences Which Do Not Form Sects, But are Merely Secondary Questions, Reaches Three Definitions of the Ch

 Chapter 3.—Which of the Three Leading Opinions Regarding the Chief Good Should Be Preferred, According to Varro, Who Follows Antiochus and the Old Aca

 Chapter 4.—What the Christians Believe Regarding the Supreme Good and Evil, in Opposition to the Philosophers, Who Have Maintained that the Supreme Go

 Chapter 5.—Of the Social Life, Which, Though Most Desirable, is Frequently Disturbed by Many Distresses.

 Chapter 6.—Of the Error of Human Judgments When the Truth is Hidden.

 Chapter 7.—Of the Diversity of Languages, by Which the Intercourse of Men is Prevented And of the Misery of Wars, Even of Those Called Just.

 Chapter 8.—That the Friendship of Good Men Cannot Be Securely Rested In, So Long as the Dangers of This Life Force Us to Be Anxious.

 Chapter 9.—Of the Friendship of the Holy Angels, Which Men Cannot Be Sure of in This Life, Owing to the Deceit of the Demons Who Hold in Bondage the W

 Chapter 10.—The Reward Prepared for the Saints After They Have Endured the Trial of This Life.

 Chapter 11.—Of the Happiness of the Eternal Peace, Which Constitutes the End or True Perfection of the Saints.

 Chapter 12.—That Even the Fierceness of War and All the Disquietude of Men Make Towards This One End of Peace, Which Every Nature Desires.

 Chapter 13.—Of the Universal Peace Which the Law of Nature Preserves Through All Disturbances, and by Which Every One Reaches His Desert in a Way Regu

 Chapter 14.—Of the Order and Law Which Obtain in Heaven and Earth, Whereby It Comes to Pass that Human Society Is Served by Those Who Rule It.

 Chapter 15.—Of the Liberty Proper to Man’s Nature, and the Servitude Introduced by Sin,—A Servitude in Which the Man Whose Will is Wicked is the Slave

 Chapter 16.—Of Equitable Rule.

 Chapter 17.—What Produces Peace, and What Discord, Between the Heavenly and Earthly Cities.

 Chapter 18.—How Different the Uncertainty of the New Academy is from the Certainty of the Christian Faith.

 Chapter 19.—Of the Dress and Habits of the Christian People.

 Chapter 20.—That the Saints are in This Life Blessed in Hope.

 Chapter 21.—Whether There Ever Was a Roman Republic Answering to the Definitions of Scipio in Cicero’s Dialogue.

 Chapter 22.—Whether the God Whom the Christians Serve is the True God to Whom Alone Sacrifice Ought to Be Paid.

 Chapter 23.—Porphyry’s Account of the Responses Given by the Oracles of the gods Concerning Christ.

 Chapter 24.—The Definition Which Must Be Given of a People and a Republic, in Order to Vindicate the Assumption of These Titles by the Romans and by O

 Chapter 25.—That Where There is No True Religion There are No True Virtues.

 Chapter 26.—Of the Peace Which is Enjoyed by the People that are Alienated from God, and the Use Made of It by the People of God in the Time of Its Pi

 Chapter 27.—That the Peace of Those Who Serve God Cannot in This Mortal Life Be Apprehended in Its Perfection.

 Chapter 28.—The End of the Wicked.

 Book XX.

 Chapter 1.—That Although God is Always Judging, It is Nevertheless Reasonable to Confine Our Attention in This Book to His Last Judgment.

 Chapter 2.—That in the Mingled Web of Human Affairs God’s Judgment is Present, Though It Cannot Be Discerned.

 Chapter 3.—What Solomon, in the Book of Ecclesiastes, Says Regarding the Things Which Happen Alike to Good and Wicked Men.

 Chapter 4.—That Proofs of the Last Judgment Will Be Adduced, First from the New Testament, and Then from the Old.

 Chapter 5.—The Passages in Which the Saviour Declares that There Shall Be a Divine Judgment in the End of the World.

 Chapter 6.—What is the First Resurrection, and What the Second.

 Chapter 7.—What is Written in the Revelation of John Regarding the Two Resurrections, and the Thousand Years, and What May Reasonably Be Held on These

 Chapter 8.—Of the Binding and Loosing of the Devil.

 Chapter 9.—What the Reign of the Saints with Christ for a Thousand Years Is, and How It Differs from the Eternal Kingdom.

 Chapter 10.—What is to Be Replied to Those Who Think that Resurrection Pertains Only to Bodies and Not to Souls.

 Chapter 11.—Of Gog and Magog, Who are to Be Roused by the Devil to Persecute the Church, When He is Loosed in the End of the World.

 Chapter 12.—Whether the Fire that Came Down Out of Heaven and Devoured Them Refers to the Last Punishment of the Wicked.

 Chapter 13.—Whether the Time of the Persecution or Antichrist Should Be Reckoned in the Thousand Years.

 Chapter 14.—Of the Damnation of the Devil and His Adherents And a Sketch of the Bodily Resurrection of All the Dead, and of the Final Retributive Jud

 Chapter 15.—Who the Dead are Who are Given Up to Judgment by the Sea, and by Death and Hell.

 Chapter 16.—Of the New Heaven and the New Earth.

 Chapter 17.—Of the Endless Glory of the Church.

 Chapter 18.—What the Apostle Peter Predicted Regarding the Last Judgment.

 Chapter 19.—What the Apostle Paul Wrote to the Thessalonians About the Manifestation of Antichrist Which Shall Precede the Day of the Lord.

 Chapter 20.—What the Same Apostle Taught in the First Epistle to the Thessalonians Regarding the Resurrection of the Dead.

 Chapter 21.—Utterances of the Prophet Isaiah Regarding the Resurrection of the Dead and the Retributive Judgment.

 Chapter 22.—What is Meant by the Good Going Out to See the Punishment of the Wicked.

 Chapter 23.—What Daniel Predicted Regarding the Persecution of Antichrist, the Judgment of God, and the Kingdom of the Saints.

 Chapter 24.—Passages from the Psalms of David Which Predict the End of the World and the Last Judgment.

 Chapter 25.—Of Malachi’s Prophecy, in Which He Speaks of the Last Judgment, and of a Cleansing Which Some are to Undergo by Purifying Punishments.

 Chapter 26.—Of the Sacrifices Offered to God by the Saints, Which are to Be Pleasing to Him, as in the Primitive Days and Former Years.

 Chapter 27.—Of the Separation of the Good and the Bad, Which Proclaim the Discriminating Influence of the Last Judgment.

 Chapter 28.—That the Law of Moses Must Be Spiritually Understood to Preclude the Damnable Murmurs of a Carnal Interpretation.

 Chapter 29.—Of the Coming of Elias Before the Judgment, that the Jews May Be Converted to Christ by His Preaching and Explanation of Scripture.

 Chapter 30.—That in the Books of the Old Testament, Where It is Said that God Shall Judge the World, the Person of Christ is Not Explicitly Indicated,

 Book XXI.

 Chapter 1.—Of the Order of the Discussion, Which Requires that We First Speak of the Eternal Punishment of the Lost in Company with the Devil, and The

 Chapter 2.—Whether It is Possible for Bodies to Last for Ever in Burning Fire.

 Chapter 3.—Whether Bodily Suffering Necessarily Terminates in the Destruction of the Flesh.

 Chapter 4.—Examples from Nature Proving that Bodies May Remain Unconsumed and Alive in Fire.

 Chapter 5.—That There are Many Things Which Reason Cannot Account For, and Which are Nevertheless True.

 Chapter 6.—That All Marvels are Not of Nature’s Production, But that Some are Due to Human Ingenuity and Others to Diabolic Contrivance.

 Chapter 7.—That the Ultimate Reason for Believing Miracles is the Omnipotence of the Creator.

 Chapter 8.—That It is Not Contrary to Nature That, in an Object Whose Nature is Known, There Should Be Discovered an Alteration of the Properties Whic

 Chapter 9.—Of Hell, and the Nature of Eternal Punishments.

 Chapter 10.—Whether the Fire of Hell, If It Be Material Fire, Can Burn the Wicked Spirits, that is to Say, Devils, Who are Immaterial.

 Chapter 11.—Whether It is Just that the Punishments of Sins Last Longer Than the Sins Themselves Lasted.

 Chapter 12.—Of the Greatness of the First Transgression, on Account of Which Eternal Punishment is Due to All Who are Not Within the Pale of the Savio

 Chapter 13.—Against the Opinion of Those Who Think that the Punishments of the Wicked After Death are Purgatorial.

 Chapter 14.—Of the Temporary Punishments of This Life to Which the Human Condition is Subject.

 Chapter 15.—That Everything Which the Grace of God Does in the Way of Rescuing Us from the Inveterate Evils in Which We are Sunk, Pertains to the Futu

 Chapter 16.—The Laws of Grace, Which Extend to All the Epochs of the Life of the Regenerate.

 Chapter 17.—Of Those Who Fancy that No Men Shall Be Punished Eternally.

 Chapter 18.—Of Those Who Fancy That, on Account of the Saints’ Intercession, Man Shall Be Damned in the Last Judgment.

 Chapter 19.—Of Those Who Promise Impunity from All Sins Even to Heretics, Through Virtue of Their Participation of the Body of Christ.

 Chapter 20.—Of Those Who Promise This Indulgence Not to All, But Only to Those Who Have Been Baptized as Catholics, Though Afterwards They Have Broken

 Chapter 21.—Of Those Who Assert that All Catholics Who Continue in the Faith Even Though by the Depravity of Their Lives They Have Merited Hell Fire,

 Chapter 22.—Of Those Who Fancy that the Sins Which are Intermingled with Alms-Deeds Shall Not Be Charged at the Day of Judgment.

 Chapter 23.—Against Those Who are of Opinion that the Punishment Neither of the Devil Nor of Wicked Men Shall Be Eternal.

 Chapter 24.—Against Those Who Fancy that in the Judgment of God All the Accused Will Be Spared in Virtue of the Prayers of the Saints.

 Chapter 25.—Whether Those Who Received Heretical Baptism, and Have Afterwards Fallen Away to Wickedness of Life Or Those Who Have Received Catholic B

 Chapter 26.—What It is to Have Christ for a Foundation, and Who They are to Whom Salvation as by Fire is Promised.

 Chapter 27.—Against the Belief of Those Who Think that the Sins Which Have Been Accompanied with Almsgiving Will Do Them No Harm.

 Book XXII.

 Chapter 1.—Of the Creation of Angels and Men.

 Chapter 2.—Of the Eternal and Unchangeable Will of God.

 Chapter 3.—Of the Promise of Eternal Blessedness to the Saints, and Everlasting Punishment to the Wicked.

 Chapter 4.—Against the Wise Men of the World, Who Fancy that the Earthly Bodies of Men Cannot Be Transferred to a Heavenly Habitation.

 Chapter 5.—Of the Resurrection of the Flesh, Which Some Refuse to Believe, Though the World at Large Believes It.

 Chapter 6.—That Rome Made Its Founder Romulus a God Because It Loved Him But the Church Loved Christ Because It Believed Him to Be God.

 Chapter 7.—That the World’s Belief in Christ is the Result of Divine Power, Not of Human Persuasion.

 Chapter 8.—Of Miracles Which Were Wrought that the World Might Believe in Christ, and Which Have Not Ceased Since the World Believed.

 Chapter 9.—That All the Miracles Which are Done by Means of the Martyrs in the Name of Christ Testify to that Faith Which the Martyrs Had in Christ.

 Chapter 10.—That the Martyrs Who Obtain Many Miracles in Order that the True God May Be Worshipped, are Worthy of Much Greater Honor Than the Demons,

 Chapter 11.—Against the Platonists, Who Argue from the Physical Weight of the Elements that an Earthly Body Cannot Inhabit Heaven.

 Chapter 12.—Against the Calumnies with Which Unbelievers Throw Ridicule Upon the Christian Faith in the Resurrection of the Flesh.

 Chapter 13.—Whether Abortions, If They are Numbered Among the Dead, Shall Not Also Have a Part in the Resurrection.

 Chapter 14.—Whether Infants Shall Rise in that Body Which They Would Have Had Had They Grown Up.

 Chapter 15.—Whether the Bodies of All the Dead Shall Rise the Same Size as the Lord’s Body.

 Chapter 16.—What is Meant by the Conforming of the Saints to the Image of The Son of God.

 Chapter 17.—Whether the Bodies of Women Shall Retain Their Own Sex in the Resurrection.

 Chapter 18.—Of the Perfect Man, that Is, Christ And of His Body, that Is, The Church, Which is His Fullness.

 Chapter 19.—That All Bodily Blemishes Which Mar Human Beauty in This Life Shall Be Removed in the Resurrection, the Natural Substance of the Body Rema

 Chapter 20.—That, in the Resurrection, the Substance of Our Bodies, However Disintegrated, Shall Be Entirely Reunited.

 Chapter 21.—Of the New Spiritual Body into Which the Flesh of the Saints Shall Be Transformed.

 Chapter 22.—Of the Miseries and Ills to Which the Human Race is Justly Exposed Through the First Sin, and from Which None Can Be Delivered Save by Chr

 Chapter 23.—Of the Miseries of This Life Which Attach Peculiarly to the Toil of Good Men, Irrespective of Those Which are Common to the Good and Bad.

 Chapter 24.—Of the Blessings with Which the Creator Has Filled This Life, Obnoxious Though It Be to the Curse.

 Chapter 25.—Of the Obstinacy of Those Individuals Who Impugn the Resurrection of the Body, Though, as Was Predicted, the Whole World Believes It.

 Chapter 26.—That the Opinion of Porphyry, that the Soul, in Order to Be Blessed, Must Be Separated from Every Kind of Body, is Demolished by Plato, Wh

 Chapter 27.—Of the Apparently Conflicting Opinions of Plato and Porphyry, Which Would Have Conducted Them Both to the Truth If They Could Have Yielded

 Chapter 28.—What Plato or Labeo, or Even Varro, Might Have Contributed to the True Faith of the Resurrection, If They Had Adopted One Another’s Opinio

 Chapter 29.—Of the Beatific Vision.

 Chapter 30.—Of the Eternal Felicity of the City of God, and of the Perpetual Sabbath.

Chapter 23.—Porphyry’s Account of the Responses Given by the Oracles of the gods Concerning Christ.

For in his book called ἐκ λογίων φιλοσοφίας, in which he collects and comments upon the responses which he pretends were uttered by the gods concerning divine things, he says—I give his own words as they have been translated from the Greek:  “To one who inquired what god he should propitiate in order to recall his wife from Christianity, Apollo replied in the following verses.”  Then the following words are given as those of Apollo:  “You will probably find it easier to write lasting characters on the water, or lightly fly like a bird through the air, than to restore right feeling in your impious wife once she has polluted herself.  Let her remain as she pleases in her foolish deception, and sing false laments to her dead God, who was condemned by right-minded judges, and perished ignominiously by a violent death.”  Then after these verses of Apollo (which we have given in a Latin version that does not preserve the metrical form), he goes on to say:  “In these verses Apollo exposed the incurable corruption of the Christians, saying that the Jews, rather than the Christians, recognized God.”  See how he misrepresents Christ, giving the Jews the preference to the Christians in the recognition of God.  This was his explanation of Apollo’s verses, in which he says that Christ was put to death by right-minded or just judges,—in other words, that He deserved to die.  I leave the responsibility of this oracle regarding Christ on the lying interpreter of Apollo, or on this philosopher who believed it or possibly himself invented it; as to its agreement with Porphyry’s opinions or with other oracles, we shall in a little have something to say.  In this passage, however, he says that the Jews, as the interpreters of God, judged justly in pronouncing Christ to be worthy of the most shameful death.  He should have listened, then, to this God of the Jews to whom he bears this testimony, when that God says, “He that sacrificeth to any other god save to the Lord alone shall be utterly destroyed.”  But let us come to still plainer expressions, and hear how great a God Porphyry thinks the God of the Jews is.  Apollo, he says, when asked whether word, i.e., reason, or law is the better thing, replied in the following verses.  Then he gives the verses of Apollo, from which I select the following as sufficient:  “God, the Generator, and the King prior to all things, before whom heaven and earth, and the sea, and the hidden places of hell tremble, and the deities themselves are afraid, for their law is the Father whom the holy Hebrews honor.”  In this oracle of his god Apollo, Porphyry avowed that the God of the Hebrews is so great that the deities themselves are afraid before Him.  I am surprised, therefore, that when God said, He that sacrificeth to other gods shall be utterly destroyed, Porphyry himself was not afraid lest he should be destroyed for sacrificing to other gods.

This philosopher, however, has also some good to say of Christ, oblivious, as it were, of that contumely of his of which we have just been speaking; or as if his gods spoke evil of Christ only while asleep, and recognized Him to be good, and gave Him His deserved praise, when they awoke.  For, as if he were about to proclaim some marvellous thing passing belief, he says, “What we are going to say will certainly take some by surprise.  For the gods have declared that Christ was very pious, and has become immortal, and that they cherish his memory:  that the Christians, however, are polluted, contaminated, and involved in error.  And many other such things,” he says, “do the gods say against the Christians.”  Then he gives specimens of the accusations made, as he says, by the gods against them, and then goes on:  “But to some who asked Hecate whether Christ were a God, she replied, You know the condition of the disembodied immortal soul, and that if it has been severed from wisdom it always errs.  The soul you refer to is that of a man foremost in piety:  they worship it because they mistake the truth.”  To this so-called oracular response he adds the following words of his own:  “Of this very pious man, then, Hecate said that the soul, like the souls of other good men, was after death dowered with immortality, and that the Christians through ignorance worship it.  And to those who ask why he was condemned to die, the oracle of the goddess replied, The body, indeed, is always exposed to torments, but the souls of the pious abide in heaven.  And the soul you inquire about has been the fatal cause of error to other souls which were not fated to receive the gifts of the gods, and to have the knowledge of immortal Jove.  Such souls are therefore hated by the gods; for they who were fated not to receive the gifts of the gods, and not to know God, were fated to be involved in error by means of him you speak of.  He himself, however, was good, and heaven has been opened to him as to other good men.  You are not, then, to speak evil of him, but to pity the folly of men:  and through him men’s danger is imminent.”

Who is so foolish as not to see that these oracles were either composed by a clever man with a strong animus against the Christians, or were uttered as responses by impure demons with a similar design,—that is to say, in order that their praise of Christ may win credence for their vituperation of Christians; and that thus they may, if possible, close the way of eternal salvation, which is identical with Christianity?  For they believe that they are by no means counter working their own hurtful craft by promoting belief in Christ, so long as their calumniation of Christians is also accepted; for they thus secure that even the man who thinks well of Christ declines to become a Christian, and is therefore not delivered from their own rule by the Christ he praises.  Besides, their praise of Christ is so contrived that whosoever believes in Him as thus represented will not be a true Christian but a Photinian heretic, recognizing only the humanity, and not also the divinity of Christ, and will thus be precluded from salvation and from deliverance out of the meshes of these devilish lies.  For our part, we are no better pleased with Hecate’s praises of Christ than with Apollo’s calumniation of Him.  Apollo says that Christ was put to death by right-minded judges, implying that He was unrighteous.  Hecate says that He was a most pious man, but no more.  The intention of both is the same, to prevent men from becoming Christians, because if this be secured, men shall never be rescued from their power.  But it is incumbent on our philosopher, or rather on those who believe in these pretended oracles against the Christians, first of all, if they can, to bring Apollo and Hecate to the same mind regarding Christ, so that either both may condemn or both praise Him.  And even if they succeeded in this, we for our part would notwithstanding repudiate the testimony of demons, whether favorable or adverse to Christ.  But when our adversaries find a god and goddess of their own at variance about Christ the one praising, the other vituperating Him, they can certainly give no credence, if they have any judgment, to mere men who blaspheme the Christians.

When Porphyry or Hecate praises Christ, and adds that He gave Himself to the Christians as a fatal gift, that they might be involved in error, he exposes, as he thinks, the causes of this error.  But before I cite his words to that purpose, I would ask, If Christ did thus give Himself to the Christians to involve them in error, did He do so willingly, or against His will?  If willingly, how is He righteous?  If against His will, how is He blessed?  However, let us hear the causes of this error.  “There are,” he says,” in a certain place very small earthly spirits, subject to the power of evil demons.  The wise men of the Hebrews, among whom was this Jesus, as you have heard from the oracles of Apollo cited above, turned religious persons from these very wicked demons and minor spirits, and taught them rather to worship the celestial gods, and especially to adore God the Father.  This,” he said, “the gods enjoin; and we have already shown how they admonish the soul to turn to God, and command it to worship Him.  But the ignorant and the ungodly, who are not destined to receive favors from the gods, nor to know the immortal Jupiter, not listening to the gods and their messages, have turned away from all gods, and have not only refused to hate, but have venerated the prohibited demons.  Professing to worship God, they refuse to do those things by which alone God is worshipped.  For God, indeed, being the Father of all, is in need of nothing; but for us it is good to adore Him by means of justice, chastity, and other virtues, and thus to make life itself a prayer to Him, by inquiring into and imitating His nature.  For inquiry,” says he, “purifies and imitation deifies us, by moving us nearer to Him.”  He is right in so far as he proclaims God the Father, and the conduct by which we should worship Him.  Of such precepts the prophetic books of the Hebrews are full, when they praise or blame the life of the saints.  But in speaking of the Christians he is in error, and caluminates them as much as is desired by the demons whom he takes for gods, as if it were difficult for any man to recollect the disgraceful and shameful actions which used to be done in the theatres and temples to please the gods, and to compare with these things what is heard in our churches, and what is offered to the true God, and from this comparison to conclude where character is edified, and where it is ruined.  But who but a diabolical spirit has told or suggested to this man so manifest and vain a lie, as that the Christians reverenced rather than hated the demons, whose worship the Hebrews prohibited?  But that God, whom the Hebrew sages worshipped, forbids sacrifice to be offered even to the holy angels of heaven and divine powers, whom we, in this our pilgrimage, venerate and love as our most blessed fellow-citizens.  For in the law which God gave to His Hebrew people He utters this menace, as in a voice of thunder:  “He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed.”1272    Ex. xxii. 20.  And that no one might suppose that this prohibition extends only to the very wicked demons and earthly spirits, whom this philosopher calls very small and inferior,—for even these are in the Scripture called gods, not of the Hebrews, but of the nations, as the Septuagint translators have shown in the psalm where it is said, “For all the gods of the nations are demons,”1273    Ps. xcvi. 5.—that no one might suppose, I say, that sacrifice to these demons was prohibited, but that sacrifice might be offered to all or some of the celestials, it was immediately added, “save unto the Lord alone.”1274    Augustin here warns his readers against a possible misunderstanding of the Latin word for alone (soli), which might be rendered “the sun.”  The God of the Hebrews, then, to whom this renowned philosopher bears this signal testimony, gave to His Hebrew people a law, composed in the Hebrew language, and not obscure and unknown, but published now in every nation, and in this law it is written, “He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the Lord alone, he shall be utterly destroyed.”  What need is there to seek further proofs in the law or the prophets of this same thing?  Seek, we need not say, for the passages are neither few nor difficult to find; but what need to collect and apply to my argument the proofs which are thickly sown and obvious, and by which it appears clear as day that sacrifice may be paid to none but the supreme and true God?  Here is one brief but decided, even menacing, and certainly true utterance of that God whom the wisest of our adversaries so highly extol.  Let this be listened to, feared, fulfilled, that there may be no disobedient soul cut off.  “He that sacrifices,” He says, not because He needs anything, but because it behoves us to be His possession.  Hence the Psalmist in the Hebrew Scriptures sings, “I have said to the Lord, Thou art my God, for Thou needest not my good.”1275    Ps. xvi. 2.  For we ourselves, who are His own city, are His most noble and worthy sacrifice, and it is this mystery we celebrate in our sacrifices, which are well known to the faithful, as we have explained in the preceding books.  For through the prophets the oracles of God declared that the sacrifices which the Jews offered as a shadow of that which was to be would cease, and that the nations, from the rising to the setting of the sun, would offer one sacrifice.  From these oracles, which we now see accomplished, we have made such selections as seemed suitable to our purpose in this work.  And therefore, where there is not this righteousness whereby the one supreme God rules the obedient city according to His grace, so that it sacrifices to none but Him, and whereby, in all the citizens of this obedient city, the soul consequently rules the body and reason the vices in the rightful order, so that, as the individual just man, so also the community and people of the just, live by faith, which works by love, that love whereby man loves God as He ought to be loved, and his neighbor as himself,—there, I say, there is not an assemblage associated by a common acknowledgment of right, and by a community of interests.  But if there is not this, there is not a people, if our definition be true, and therefore there is no republic; for where there is no people there can be no republic.

CAPUT XXIII. Quae Porphyrius dicat oraculis deorum responsa esse de Christo.

1. Nam in libris quos ἐκ λογίων φιλοσοφίας appellat, in quibus exsequitur atque conscribit rerum ad philosophiam pertinentium velut divina responsa , ut ipsa verba ejus, quemadmodum ex lingua graeca in latinam interpretata sunt, ponam: Interroganti, inquit, quem deum placando revocare possit uxorem suam a Christianismo, haec ait versibus Apollo. Deinde verba velut Apollinis ista sunt: Forte magis poteris in aqua impressis litteris scribere, aut adinflanspennas 0651leves per aera ut avis volare, quam pollutaerevoces impiae uxoris sensum. Pergatquomodo vult inanibus fallaciis perseverans, et lamentationibus fallacissimis mortuum Deum cantans , quem a judicibus recta sentientibus perditum, pessima in speciosis ferro vincta mors interfecit. Deinde post hos versus Apollinis, qui non stante metro latine interpretati sunt, subjunxit atque ait: In his quidem tergiversationemirremediabilis sententiae eorum manifestavit, dicens quoniam Judaei suscipiunt Deum magis quam isti. Ecce ubi decolorans Christum, Judaeos praeposuit Christianis, confitens quod Judaei suscipiant Deum. Sic enim exposuit versus Apollinis, ubi a judicibus recta sentientibus Christum dicit occisum, tanquam illis juste judicantibus, merito sit ille punitus. Viderit quid de Christo vates mendax Apollinis dixerit, atque iste crediderit, aut fortasse vatem, quod non dixit, dixisse iste ipse confinxerit: quam vero sibi constet, vel ipsa oracula inter se faciat convenire, postea videbimus. Hic tamen Judaeos, tanquam Dei susceptores, recte dicit judicasse de Christo, quod eum morte pessima excruciandum esse censuerint. Deus itaque Judaeorum, cui perhibet testimonium, audiendus fuit, dicens: Sacrificans diis eradicabitur, nisi Domino tantum (Exod. XXII, 20). Sed ad manifestiora veniamus, et audiamus quam magnum Deum dicat esse Judaeorum. Item ad ea quae interrogavit Apollinem, quid melius, verbum sive ratio, an lex; respondit, inquit, versibus haec dicens. Ac deinde subjicit Apollinis versus, in quibus et isti sunt, ut quantum satis est inde decerpam: In Deum vero, inquit, generatorem, et in regem ante omnia , quem tremit et coelum, et terra, atque mare, et infernorum abdita, et ipsa numina perhorrescunt: quorum lex est Pater, quem valde sancti honorant Hebraei . Tali oraculo dei sui Apollinis, Porphyrius tam magnum Deum dixit Hebraeorum, ut eum et ipsa numina perhorrescant. Cum ergo Deus iste dixerit, Sacrificans diis eradicabitur, miror quod ipse Porphyrius non perhorruerit, et sacrificans diis eradicari non formidaverit.

2. Dicit etiam bona philosophus iste de Christo, quasi oblitus illius, de qua paulo ante locuti sumus, contumeliae suae; aut quasi in somnis dii ejus maledixerint 0652 Christo, et evigilantes eum bonum esse cognoverint, digneque laudaverint. Denique tanquam mirabile aliquid atque incredibile prolaturus, Praeter opinionem, inquit, profecto quibusdam videatur esse quod dicturi sumus. Christum enim dii piissimum pronuntiaverunt et immortalem factum, et cum bona praedicatione ejus meminerunt: Christianos vero pollutos, inquit, et contaminatos, et errore implicatos esse dicunt; et multis talibus adversus eos blasphemiis utuntur. Deinde subjicit velut deorum oracula blasphemantium Christianos. Et post haec, De Christo autem, inquit, interrogantibus si est Deus, ait Hecate: Quoniam quidem immortalis anima post corpus ut incedit, nosti, a sapientia autem abscissa semper errat, viri pietate praestantissimi est illa anima, hanc colunt aliena a se veritate. Deinde post verba hujus quasi oraculi sua ipse contexens, Piissimum igitur virum, inquit, eum dixit, et ejus animam, sicut et aliorum piorum, post obitum immortalitate donatam , et hanc colere Christianos ignorantes . Interrogantibus autem, inquit, Cur ergo damnatus est? oraculo respondit dea, Corpus quidem debilitantibus tormentis semper oppositum est: anima autem piorum coelesti sedi insidet. Illa vero anima aliis animabus fataliter dedit, quibus fata non annuerunt deorum obtinere dona, neque habere Jovis immortalis agnitionem, errore implicari. Propterea ergo diis exosi: quia quibus fato non fuit nosse Deum, nec dona a diis accipere, his fataliter dedit iste errore implicari. Ipse vero pius, et in coelum, sicut pii, concessit. Itaque hunc quidem non blasphemabis, misereberis autem hominum dementiam: ex eo in eis facile praecepsque periculum .

3. Quis ita stultus est, ut non intelligat aut ab homine callido, eoque Christianis inimicissimo haec oracula fuisse conficta, aut consilio simili ab impuris daemonibus ista fuisse responsa; ut scilicet, quoniam laudant Christum, propterea credantur veraciter vituperare Christianos; atque ita, si possint, intercludant viam salutis aeternae, in qua fit quisque christianus? Suae quippe nocendi astutiae milleformi sentiunt non esse contrarium , si credatur eis laudantibus Christum, dum tamen credatur etiam vituperantibus Christianos; ut eum qui utrumque crediderit, talem Christi faciant laudatorem, ne velit esse christianus: ac sic quamvis ab illo laudatus, ab istorum tamen daemonum dominatu eum non liberet Christus. Praesertim quia ita laudant Christum, ut quisquis in eum talem crediderit, qualis ab eis praedicatur, Christianus verus non sit, sed Photinianus haereticus, qui tantummodo hominem, non etiam Deum noverit Christum : et ideo per eum salvus esse non possit, nec istorum mendaciloquorum daemonum laqueos vitare vel solvere. Nos autem neque 0653 Apollinem vituperantem Christum, neque Hecaten possumus approbare laudantem. Ille quippe tanquam iniquum Christum vult credi, quem a judicibus recta sentientibus dicit occisum; ista, hominem piissimum, sed hominem tantum. Una est tamen et illius et hujus intentio, ut nolint homines esse Christianos; quia nisi Christiani erunt, ab eorum erui potestate non poterunt. Iste vero philosophus, vel potius qui talibus adversus Christianos quasi oraculis credunt, prius faciant, si possunt, ut inter se de ipso Christo Hecate atque Apollo concordent, eumque aut ambo condemnent, aut ambo collaudent. Quod si facere potuissent, nihilominus nos et vituperatores et laudatores Christi fallaces daemones vitaremus. Cum vero eorum deus et dea inter se de Christo, ille vituperando, ista laudando dissentiant; profecto eis blasphemantibus Christianos non credunt homines, si recte ipsi sentiant.

4. Sane Christum laudans, vel Porphyrius, vel Hecate, cum dicat eum ipsum dedisse fataliter Christianis, ut implicarentur errore, causas tamen ejusdem, sicut putat, pandit erroris. Quas antequam ex verbis ejus exponam, prius quaero, Si fataliter dedit Christus Christianis erroris implicationem, utrum volens, an nolens dederit. Si volens, quomodo justus? si nolens, quomodo beatus? Sed jam causas ipsius audiamus erroris. Sunt, inquit, spiritus terreni minimi loco quodammalorum daemonum potestati subjecti. Ab his sapientes Hebraeorum, quorum unus iste etiam Jesus fuit, sicut audisti divina Apollinis , quae superius dicta sunt; ab his ergo Hebraei daemonibus pessimis et minoribus spiritibus vetabant religiosos, et ipsis vacare prohibebant: venerari autem magis coelestes deos, amplius autem venerari Deum Patrem. Hoc autem, inquit, et dii praecipiunt, et in superioribus ostendimus, quemadmodum animum advertere ad Deum monent, et illum colere ubique imperant. Verum indocti et impiae naturae, quibus vere fatum non concessit a diis dona obtinere, neque habere Jovis immortalis notionem, non audientes et deos et divinos viros, deos quidem omnes recusaverunt, prohibitos autem daemones et hos non odisse, sed revereri. Deum autem simulantes colere , ea sola per quae Deus adoratur, non agunt. Nam Deus quidem, utpote omnium Pater, nullius indiget: sed nobis est bene, cum eum per justitiam et castitatem aliasque virtutes adoramus, ipsam vitam precem ad ipsum facientes, per imitationem et inquisitionem de ipso. Inquisitio enim purgat, inquit: imitatio deificat affectionem ad ipsum operando. Bene quidem praedicavit Deum Patrem, et quibus sit colendus moribus dixit. Quibus praeceptis prophetici Libri pleni sunt Hebraeorum, quando sanctorum vita sive vituperatur , sive 0654 laudatur. Sed in Christianis tantum errat, aut tantum calumniatur, quantum volunt daemones, quos opinatur deos, quasi cuiquam difficile sit recolere, quae turpia, quae dedecora erga deorum obsequium in theatris agebantur et templis; et attendere quae legantur, dicantur, audiantur in ecclesiis, vel Deo vero quid offeratur; et hinc intelligere ubi aedificium, et ubi ruina sit morum. Quis autem huic dixit vel inspiravit, nisi diabolicus spiritus, tam vanum apertumque mendacium, quod daemones ab Hebraeis coli prohibitos revereantur potius, quam oderint Christiani? Sed Deus ille quem coluerunt sapientes Hebraeorum, etiam coelestibus sanctis Angelis et Virtutibus Dei, quos beatissimos tanquam cives in hac nostra peregrinatione mortali veneramur et amamus, sacrificari vetat, intonans in lege sua, quam dedit populo suo Hebraeo, et valde minaciter dicens, Sacrificans diis eradicabitur. Et ne quisquam putaret daemonibus pessimis terrenisque spiritibus, quos iste dicit minimos vel minores, ne sacrificetur esse praeceptum; quia et ipsi in Scripturis sanctis dicti sunt dii, non Hebraeorum, sed gentium; quod evidenter in Psalmo Septuaginta interpretes posuerunt, dicentes, Quo niam omnes dii gentium daemonia (Psal. XCV, 5): ne quis ergo putaret istis quidem daemoniis prohibitum, coelestibus autem vel omnibus, vel aliquibus sacrificari esse permissum, mox addidit, nisi Domino soli, id est, nisi Domino tantum: ne forte in eo quod ait, nisi Domino soli, Dominum solem credat esse quispiam, cui sacrificandum putat : quod non ita esse intelligendum, in Scripturis graecis facillime reperitur.

5. Deus igitur Hebraeorum, cui tam magnum tantus etiam iste philosophus perhibet testimonium, legem dedit Hebraeo populo suo, hebraeo sermone conscriptam, non obscuram et incognitam, sed omnibus jam gentibus diffamatam, in qua lege scriptum est, Sacrificans diis eradicabitur, nisi Domino tantum. Quid opus est in hac ejus lege, ejusque Prophetis de hac re multa perquirere? Imo non perquirere, non enim abstrusa vel rara sunt; sed aperta et crebra colligere, et in hac disputatione mea ponere: quibus luce clarius apparet , nulli omnino nisi tantum sibi Deum verum et summum voluisse sacrificari. Ecce hoc unum breviter, imo granditer, minaciter, sed veraciter dictum ab illo Deo, quem tam excellenter eorum doctissimi praedicant, audiatur, timeatur, impleatur, ne inobedientes eradicatio consequatur. Sacrificans, inquit, diis eradicabitur, nisi Domino tantum: non quo rei egeat alicujus, sed quia nobis expedit ut res ejus simus. Hinc enim canitur in sacris 0655 Litteris Hebraeorum: Dixi Domino, Deus meus es tu, quoniam bonorum meorum non eges (Psal. XV, 2). Hujus autem praeclarissimum atque optimum sacrificium nos ipsi sumus, hoc est civitas ejus, cujus rei mysterium celebramus oblationibus nostris, quae fidelibus notae sunt, sicut in libris praecedentibus disputavimus (Lib. 10, cap. 6, et alibi). Cessaturas enim victimas, quas in umbra futuri offerebant Judaei, et unum sacrificium gentes a solis ortu usque ad occasum, sicut jam fieri cernimus oblaturas, per Prophetas Hebraeos oracula increpuere divina: ex quibus quantum satis visum est, nonnulla protulimus, et huic jam operi aspersimus. Quapropter ubi non est ista justitia, ut secundum suam gratiam civitati obedienti Deus imperet unus et summus, ne cuiquam sacrificet, nisi tantum sibi; et per hoc in omnibus hominibus ad eamdem civitatem pertinentibus atque obedientibus Deo, animus etiam corpori, atque ratio vitiis, ordine legitimo fideliter imperet; ut quemadmodum justus unus, ita coetus populusque justorum vivat ex fide, quae operatur per dilectionem, qua homo diligit Deum, sicut diligendus est Deus, et proximum sicut semetipsum: ubi ergo non est ista justitia, profecto non est coetus hominum juris consensu et utilitatis communione sociatus. Quod si non est, utique populus non est, si vera est haec populi definitio. Ergo nec respublica est: quia res populi non est, ubi ipse populus non est.