City of God
Augustine of Hippo (354–430)
First published 426
Augustine's De civitate Dei, staged here in the public-domain NPNF English translation by Marcus Dods.
Book 1
Caput I: Preface, Explaining His Design in Undertaking This Work.
Caput I: Of the Adversaries of the Name of Christ, Whom the Barbarians for Christ’s Sake Spared When They Stormed the City.
Caput II: That It is Quite Contrary to the Usage of War, that the Victors Should Spare the Vanquished for the Sake of Their Gods.
Caput III: 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 Troy.
Caput IV: 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 All Who Fled to Them.
Caput V: Cæsar’s Statement Regarding the Universal Custom of an Enemy When Sacking a City.
Caput VI: That Not Even the Romans, When They Took Cities, Spared the Conquered in Their Temples.
Caput VII: 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 the Influence of Christ’s Name.
Caput VIII: Of the Advantages and Disadvantages Which Often Indiscriminately Accrue to Good and Wicked Men.
Caput IX: Of the Reasons for Administering Correction to Bad and Good Together.
Caput X: That the Saints Lose Nothing in Losing Temporal Goods.
Caput XI: Of the End of This Life, Whether It is Material that It Be Long Delayed.
Caput XII: Of the Burial of the Dead: that the Denial of It to Christians Does Them No Injury.
Caput XIII: Reasons for Burying the Bodies of the Saints.
Caput XIV: Of the Captivity of the Saints, and that Divine Consolation Never Failed Them Therein.
Caput XV: 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, Though He Was a Worshipper of the Gods.
Caput XVI: Of the Violation of the Consecrated and Other Christian Virgins, to Which They Were Subjected in Captivity and to Which Their Own Will Gave No Consent; And Whether This Contaminated Their Souls.
Caput XVII: Of Suicide Committed Through Fear of Punishment or Dishonor.
Caput XVIII: Of the Violence Which May Be Done to the Body by Another’s Lust, While the Mind Remains Inviolate.
Caput XIX: Of Lucretia, Who Put an End to Her Life Because of the Outrage Done Her.
Caput XX: That Christians Have No Authority for Committing Suicide in Any Circumstances Whatever.
Caput XXI: Of the Cases in Which We May Put Men to Death Without Incurring the Guilt of Murder.
Caput XXII: That Suicide Can Never Be Prompted by Magnanimity.
Caput XXIII: What We are to Think of the Example of Cato, Who Slew Himself Because Unable to Endure Cæsar’s Victory.
Caput XXIV: That in that Virtue in Which Regulus Excels Cato, Christians are Pre-Eminently Distinguished.
Caput XXV: That We Should Not Endeavor By Sin to Obviate Sin.
Caput XXVI: That in Certain Peculiar Cases the Examples of the Saints are Not to Be Followed.
Caput XXVII: Whether Voluntary Death Should Be Sought in Order to Avoid Sin.
Caput XXVIII: By What Judgment of God the Enemy Was Permitted to Indulge His Lust on the Bodies of Continent Christians.
Caput XXIX: 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 of Their Enemies.
Caput XXX: That Those Who Complain of Christianity Really Desire to Live Without Restraint in Shameful Luxury.
Caput XXXI: By What Steps the Passion for Governing Increased Among the Romans.
Caput XXXII: Of the Establishment of Scenic Entertainments.
Caput XXXIII: That the Overthrow of Rome Has Not Corrected the Vices of the Romans.
Caput XXXIV: Of God’s Clemency in Moderating the Ruin of the City.
Caput XXXV: Of the Sons of the Church Who are Hidden Among the Wicked, and of False Christians Within the Church.
Caput XXXVI: What Subjects are to Be Handled in the Following Discourse.
Book 2
Caput I: Of the Limits Which Must Be Put to the Necessity of Replying to an Adversary.
Caput II: Recapitulation of the Contents of the First Book.
Caput III: 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 the Worship of the Gods.
Caput IV: That the Worshippers of the Gods Never Received from Them Any Healthy Moral Precepts, and that in Celebrating Their Worship All Sorts of Impurities Were Practiced.
Caput V: Of the Obscenities Practiced in Honor of the Mother of the Gods.
Caput VI: That the Gods of the Pagans Never Inculcated Holiness of Life.
Caput VII: That the Suggestions of Philosophers are Precluded from Having Any Moral Effect, Because They Have Not the Authority Which Belongs to Divine Instruction, and Because Man’s Natural Bias to Evil Induces Him Rather to Follow the Examples of the Gods Than to Obey the Precepts of Men.
Caput VIII: That the Theatrical Exhibitions Publishing the Shameful Actions of the Gods, Propitiated Rather Than Offended Them.
Caput IX: That the Poetical License Which the Greeks, in Obedience to Their Gods, Allowed, Was Restrained by the Ancient Romans.
Caput X: That the Devils, in Suffering Either False or True Crimes to Be Laid to Their Charge, Meant to Do Men a Mischief.
Caput XI: That the Greeks Admitted Players to Offices of State, on the Ground that Men Who Pleased the Gods Should Not Be Contemptuously Treated by Their Fellows.
It was a part of this same reasonableness of the Greeks which induced them to bestow upon the actors of these same plays no inconsiderable civic honors. In the above-mentioned book of the De Republica, it is mentioned that Aeschines, a very eloquent Athenian, who had been a tragic actor in his youth, became a statesman, and that the Athenians again and again sent another tragedian, Aristodemus, as their plenipotentiary to Philip. For they judged it unbecoming to condemn and treat as infamous persons those who were the chief actors in the scenic entertainments which they saw to be so pleasing to the gods. No doubt this was immoral of the Greeks, but there can be as little doubt they acted in conformity with the character of their gods; for how could they have presumed to protect the conduct of the citizens from being cut to pieces by the tongues of poets and players, who were allowed, and even enjoined by the gods, to tear their divine reputation to tatters? And how could they hold in contempt the men who acted in the theatres those dramas which, as they had ascertained, gave pleasure to the gods whom they worshipped? Nay, how could they but grant to them the highest civic honors? On what plea could they honor the priests who offered for them acceptable sacrifices to the gods, if they branded with infamy the actors who in behalf of the people gave to the gods that pleasure or honour which they demanded, and which, according to the account of the priests, they were angry at not receiving. Labeo, whose learning makes him an authority on such points, is of opinion that the distinction between good and evil deities should find expression in a difference of worship; that the evil should be propitiated by bloody sacrifices and doleful rites, but the good with a joyful and pleasant observance, as, e.g. (as he says himself), with plays, festivals, and banquets. All this we shall, with God’s help, hereafter discuss. At present, and speaking to the subject on hand, whether all kinds of offerings are made indiscriminately to all the gods, as if all were good (and it is an unseemly thing to conceive that there are evil gods; but these gods of the pagans are all evil, because they are not gods, but evil spirits), or whether, as Labeo thinks, a distinction is made between the offerings presented to the different gods the Greeks are equally justified in honoring alike the priests by whom the sacrifices are offered, and the players by whom the dramas are acted, that they may not be open to the charge of doing an injury to all their gods, if the plays are pleasing to all of them, or (which were still worse) to their good gods, if the plays are relished only by them.