EDITOR'S PREFACE.

“Rome having been stormed and sacked by the Goths
under Alaric their king,[1] the worshippers of false
gods, or pagans, as we commonly call them, made an attempt
to attribute this calamity to the Christian religion, and began
to blaspheme the true God with even more than their wonted
bitterness and acerbity. It was this which kindled my zeal
for the house of God, and prompted me to undertake the
defence of the city of God against the charges and misrepresentations
of its assailants. This work was in my hands
for several years, owing to the interruptions occasioned by
many other affairs which had a prior claim on my attention,
and which I could not defer. However, this great undertaking
was at last completed in twenty-two books. Of these,
the first five refute those who fancy that the polytheistic
worship is necessary in order to secure worldly prosperity,
and that all these overwhelming calamities have befallen us
in consequence of its prohibition. In the following five
books I address myself to those who admit that such calamities
have at all times attended, and will at all times attend,
the human race, and that they constantly recur in forms more
or less disastrous, varying only in the scenes, occasions, and
persons on whom they light, but, while admitting this, maintain
that the worship of the gods is advantageous for the life
to come. In these ten books, then, I refute these two
opinions, which are as groundless as they are antagonistic to
the Christian religion.

“But that no one might have occasion to say, that though
I had refuted the tenets of other men, I had omitted to
establish my own, I devote to this object the second part of[Pg viii]
this work, which comprises twelve books, although I have
not scrupled, as occasion offered, either to advance my own
opinions in the first ten books, or to demolish the arguments
of my opponents in the last twelve. Of these twelve books,
the first four contain an account of the origin of these two
cities—the city of God, and the city of the world. The
second four treat of their history or progress; the third and
last four, of their deserved destinies. And so, though all
these twenty-two books refer to both cities, yet I have
named them after the better city, and called them The City
of God.”

Such is the account given by Augustine himself[2] of the
occasion and plan of this his greatest work. But in addition
to this explicit information, we learn from the correspondence[3]
of Augustine, that it was due to the importunity of his friend
Marcellinus that this defence of Christianity extended beyond
the limits of a few letters. Shortly before the fall of Rome,
Marcellinus had been sent to Africa by the Emperor Honorius
to arrange a settlement of the differences between the Donatists
and the Catholics. This brought him into contact not
only with Augustine, but with Volusian, the proconsul of
Africa, and a man of rare intelligence and candour. Finding
that Volusian, though as yet a pagan, took an interest in the
Christian religion, Marcellinus set his heart on converting
him to the true faith. The details of the subsequent significant
intercourse between the learned and courtly bishop and
the two imperial statesmen, are unfortunately almost entirely
lost to us; but the impression conveyed by the extant correspondence
is, that Marcellinus was the means of bringing his
two friends into communication with one another. The first
overture was on Augustine’s part, in the shape of a simple
and manly request that Volusian would carefully peruse the
Scriptures, accompanied by a frank offer to do his best to
solve any difficulties that might arise in such a course of
inquiry. Volusian accordingly enters into correspondence
with Augustine; and in order to illustrate the kind of difficulties
experienced by men in his position, he gives some
graphic notes of a conversation in which he had recently[Pg ix]
taken part at a gathering of some of his friends. The difficulty
to which most weight is attached in this letter, is the
apparent impossibility of believing in the Incarnation. But
a letter which Marcellinus immediately despatched to Augustine,
urging him to reply to Volusian at large, brought the
intelligence that the difficulties and objections to Christianity
were thus limited merely out of a courteous regard to the
preciousness of the bishop’s time, and the vast number of his
engagements. This letter, in short, brought out the important
fact, that a removal of speculative doubts would not suffice
for the conversion of such men as Volusian, whose life was
one with the life of the empire. Their difficulties were rather
political, historical, and social. They could not see how the
reception of the Christian rule of life was compatible with
the interests of Rome as the mistress of the world.[4] And
thus Augustine was led to take a more distinct and wider
view of the whole relation which Christianity bore to the old
state of things,—moral, political, philosophical, and religious,—and
was gradually drawn on to undertake the elaborate
work now presented to the English reader, and which may
more appropriately than any other of his writings be called
his masterpiece[5] or life-work. It was begun the very year of
Marcellinus’ death, a.d. 413, and was issued in detached
portions from time to time, until its completion in the year
426. It thus occupied the maturest years of Augustine’s
life—from his fifty-ninth to his seventy-second year.[6]

From this brief sketch, it will be seen that though the
accompanying work is essentially an Apology, the Apologetic
of Augustine can be no mere rehabilitation of the somewhat
threadbare, if not effete, arguments of Justin and Tertullian.[7]
In fact, as Augustine considered what was required of him,—to
expound the Christian faith, and justify it to enlightened[Pg x]
men; to distinguish it from, and show its superiority to, all
those forms of truth, philosophical or popular, which were
then striving for the mastery, or at least for standing-room;
to set before the world’s eye a vision of glory that might win
the regard even of men who were dazzled by the fascinating
splendour of a world-wide empire,—he recognised that a task
was laid before him to which even his powers might prove
unequal,—a task certainly which would afford ample scope for
his learning, dialectic, philosophical grasp and acumen, eloquence,
and faculty of exposition.

But it is the occasion of this great Apology which invests
it at once with grandeur and vitality. After more than eleven
hundred years of steady and triumphant progress, Rome had
been taken and sacked. It is difficult for us to appreciate,
impossible to overestimate, the shock which was thus communicated
from centre to circumference of the whole known
world. It was generally believed, not only by the heathen,
but also by many of the most liberal-minded of the Christians,
that the destruction of Rome would be the prelude to the
destruction of the world.[8] Even Jerome, who might have
been supposed to be embittered against the proud mistress
of the world by her inhospitality to himself, cannot conceal
his profound emotion on hearing of her fall. “A terrible
rumour,” he says, “reaches me from the West, telling of Rome
besieged, bought for gold, besieged again, life and property
perishing together. My voice falters, sobs stifle the words I
dictate; for she is a captive, that city which enthralled the
world.”[9] Augustine is never so theatrical as Jerome in the
expression of his feeling, but he is equally explicit in lamenting
the fall of Rome as a great calamity; and while he does
not scruple to ascribe her recent disgrace to the profligate[Pg xi]
manners, the effeminacy, and the pride of her citizens, he is
not without hope that, by a return to the simple, hardy, and
honourable mode of life which characterized the early Romans,
she may still be restored to much of her former prosperity.[10]
But as Augustine contemplates the ruins of Rome’s greatness,
and feels, in common with all the world at this crisis, the
instability of the strongest governments, the insufficiency of
the most authoritative statesmanship, there hovers over these
ruins the splendid vision of the city of God “coming down
out of heaven, adorned as a bride for her husband.” The old
social system is crumbling away on all sides, but in its place
he seems to see a pure Christendom arising. He sees that
human history and human destiny are not wholly identified
with the history of any earthly power—not though it be as
cosmopolitan as the empire of Rome.[11] He directs the attention
of men to the fact that there is another kingdom on
earth,—a city which hath foundations, whose builder and
maker is God. He teaches men to take profounder views of
history, and shows them how from the first the city of God,
or community of God’s people, has lived alongside of the
kingdoms of this world and their glory, and has been silently
increasing, “crescit occulto velut arbor ævo.” He demonstrates
that the superior morality, the true doctrine, the
heavenly origin of this city, ensure its success; and over
against this, he depicts the silly or contradictory theorizings
of the pagan philosophers, and the unhinged morals of the
people, and puts it to all candid men to say, whether in the
presence of so manifestly sufficient a cause for Rome’s downfall,
there is room for imputing it to the spread of Christianity.
He traces the antagonism of these two grand communities
of rational creatures, back to their first divergence
in the fall of the angels, and down to the consummation of all
things in the last judgment and eternal destination of the good
and evil. In other words, the city of God is “the first real
effort to produce a philosophy of history,”[12] to exhibit historical[Pg xii]
events in connection with their true causes, and in their real
sequence. This plan of the work is not only a great conception,
but it is accompanied with many practical advantages;
the chief of which is, that it admits, and even requires, a full
treatment of those doctrines of our faith that are more directly
historical,—the doctrines of creation, the fall, the incarnation,
the connection between the Old and New Testaments, and the
doctrine of “the last things.”[13]

The effect produced by this great work it is impossible
to determine with accuracy. Beugnot, with an absoluteness
which we should condemn as presumption in any less competent
authority, declares that its effect can only have been
very slight.[14] Probably its effect would be silent and slow;
telling first upon cultivated minds, and only indirectly upon
the people. Certainly its effect must have been weakened
by the interrupted manner of its publication. It is an easier
task to estimate its intrinsic value. But on this also patristic
and literary authorities widely differ. Dupin admits that it
is very pleasant reading, owing to the surprising variety of
matters which are introduced to illustrate and forward the
argument, but censures the author for discussing very useless
questions, and for adducing reasons which could satisfy no
one who was not already convinced.[15] Huet also speaks of
the book as “un amas confus d’excellents materiaux; c’est de
l’or en barre et en lingots.”[16] L’Abbé Flottes censures these
opinions as unjust, and cites with approbation the unqualified
eulogy of Pressensé.[17] But probably the popularity of the
book is its best justification. This popularity may be
measured by the circumstance that, between the year 1467
and the end of the fifteenth century, no fewer than twenty[Pg xiii]
editions were called for, that is to say, a fresh edition every
eighteen months.[18] And in the interesting series of letters
that passed between Ludovicus Vives and Erasmus, who had
engaged him to write a commentary on the City of God for
his edition of Augustine’s works, we find Vives pleading for
a separate edition of this work, on the plea that, of all the
writings of Augustine, it was almost the only one read by
patristic students, and might therefore naturally be expected
to have a much wider circulation.[19]

If it were asked to what this popularity is due, we should
be disposed to attribute it mainly to the great variety of ideas,
opinions, and facts that are here brought before the reader’s
mind. Its importance as a contribution to the history of
opinion cannot be overrated. We find in it not only indications
or explicit enouncement of the author’s own views upon
almost every important topic which occupied his thoughts,
but also a compendious exhibition of the ideas which most
powerfully influenced the life of that age. It thus becomes,
as Poujoulat says, “comme l’encyclopédie du cinquième siècle.”
All that is valuable, together with much indeed that is not so,
in the religion and philosophy of the classical nations of
antiquity, is reviewed. And on some branches of these subjects
it has, in the judgment of one well qualified to judge,
“preserved more than the whole surviving Latin literature.”
It is true we are sometimes wearied by the too elaborate
refutation of opinions which to a modern mind seem self-evident
absurdities; but if these opinions were actually prevalent
in the fifth century, the historical inquirer will not
quarrel with the form in which his information is conveyed,
nor will commit the absurdity of attributing to Augustine the
foolishness of these opinions, but rather the credit of exploding
them. That Augustine is a well-informed and impartial[Pg xiv]
critic, is evinced by the courteousness and candour which he
uniformly displays to his opponents, by the respect he won
from the heathen themselves, and by his own early life. The
most rigorous criticism has found him at fault regarding
matters of fact only in some very rare instances, which can
be easily accounted for. His learning would not indeed stand
comparison with what is accounted such in our day: his
life was too busy, and too devoted to the poor and to the
spiritually necessitous, to admit of any extraordinary acquisition.
He had access to no literature but the Latin; or at
least he had only sufficient Greek to enable him to refer to
Greek authors on points of importance, and not enough to
enable him to read their writings with ease and pleasure.[20]
But he had a profound knowledge of his own time, and a
familiar acquaintance not only with the Latin poets, but with
many other authors, some of whose writings are now lost to
us, save the fragments preserved through his quotations.

But the interest attaching to the City of God is not merely
historical. It is the earnestness and ability with which he
developes his own philosophical and theological views which
gradually fascinate the reader, and make him see why the
world has set this among the few greatest books of all time.
The fundamental lines of the Augustinian theology are here
laid down in a comprehensive and interesting form. Never
was thought so abstract expressed in language so popular.
He handles metaphysical problems with the unembarrassed
ease of Plato, with all Cicero’s accuracy and acuteness, and
more than Cicero’s profundity. He is never more at home
than when exposing the incompetency of Neoplatonism, or
demonstrating the harmony of Christian doctrine and true
philosophy. And though there are in the City of God, as
in all ancient books, things that seem to us childish and
barren, there are also the most surprising anticipations of
modern speculation. There is an earnest grappling with
those problems which are continually re-opened because they
underlie man’s relation to God and the spiritual world,—the[Pg xv]
problems which are not peculiar to any one century. As we
read these animated discussions,

“The fourteen centuries fall away

Between us and the Afric saint,

And at his side we urge, to-day,

The immemorial quest and old complaint.

No outward sign to us is given,

From sea or earth comes no reply;

Hushed as the warm Numidian heaven

He vainly questioned bends our frozen sky.”

It is true, the style of the book is not all that could be
desired: there are passages which can possess an interest
only to the antiquarian; there are others with nothing to
redeem them but the glow of their eloquence; there are
many repetitions; there is an occasional use of arguments
“plus ingenieux que solides,” as M. Saisset says. Augustine’s
great admirer, Erasmus, does not scruple to call him a writer
“obscuræ subtilitatis et parum amœnæ prolixitatis;”[21] but
“the toil of penetrating the apparent obscurities will be rewarded
by finding a real wealth of insight and enlightenment.”
Some who have read the opening chapters of the City of God,
may have considered it would be a waste of time to proceed;
but no one, we are persuaded, ever regretted reading it all.
The book has its faults; but it effectually introduces us to
the most influential of theologians, and the greatest popular
teacher; to a genius that cannot nod for many lines together;
to a reasoner whose dialectic is more formidable, more keen
and sifting, than that of Socrates or Aquinas; to a saint whose
ardent and genuine devotional feeling bursts up through the
severest argumentation; to a man whose kindliness and wit,
universal sympathies and breadth of intelligence, lend piquancy
and vitality to the most abstract dissertation.

The propriety of publishing a translation of so choice a
specimen of ancient literature needs no defence. As Poujoulat
very sensibly remarks, there are not a great many men
now-a-days who will read a work in Latin of twenty-two
books. Perhaps there are fewer still who ought to do so.
With our busy neighbours in France, this work has been a[Pg xvi]
prime favourite for 400 years. There may be said to be
eight independent translations of it into the French tongue,
though some of these are in part merely revisions. One of
these translations has gone through as many as four editions.
The most recent is that which forms part of the Nisard series;
but the best, so far as we have seen, is that of the accomplished
Professor of Philosophy in the College of France, Emile Saisset.
This translation is indeed all that can be desired: here and
there an omission occurs, and about one or two renderings a
difference of opinion may exist; but the exceeding felicity
and spirit of the whole show it to have been a labour of
love, the fond homage of a disciple proud of his master. The
preface of M. Saisset is one of the most valuable contributions
ever made to the understanding of Augustine’s philosophy.[22]

Of English translations there has been an unaccountable
poverty. Only one exists,[23] and this so exceptionally bad, so
unlike the racy translations of the seventeenth century in
general, so inaccurate, and so frequently unintelligible, that
it is not impossible it may have done something towards
giving the English public a distaste for the book itself. That
the present translation also might be improved, we know;
that many men were fitter for the task, on the score of
scholarship, we are very sensible; but that any one would
have executed it with intenser affection and veneration for
the author, we are not prepared to admit. A few notes have
been added where it appeared to be necessary. Some are
original, some from the Benedictine Augustine, and the rest
from the elaborate commentary of Vives.[24]

The Editor.

Glasgow, 1871.

[Pg 1]

THE CITY OF GOD.