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.
Caput XII: 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 More Delicate Sensitiveness Regarding Themselves than Regarding the Gods.
Caput XIII: That the Romans Should Have Understood that Gods Who Desired to Be Worshipped in Licentious Entertainments Were Unworthy of Divine Honor.
Caput XIV: That Plato, Who Excluded Poets from a Well-Ordered City, Was Better Than These Gods Who Desire to Be Honoured by Theatrical Plays.
Caput XV: That It Was Vanity, Not Reason, Which Created Some of the Roman Gods.
Caput XVI: That If the Gods Had Really Possessed Any Regard for Righteousness, the Romans Should Have Received Good Laws from Them, Instead of Having to Borrow Them from Other Nations.
Caput XVII: Of the Rape of the Sabine Women, and Other Iniquities Perpetrated in Rome’s Palmiest Days.
Caput XVIII: What the History of Sallust Reveals Regarding the Life of the Romans, Either When Straitened by Anxiety or Relaxed in Security.
Caput XIX: Of the Corruption Which Had Grown Upon the Roman Republic Before Christ Abolished the Worship of the Gods.
Caput XX: Of the Kind of Happiness and Life Truly Delighted in by Those Who Inveigh Against the Christian Religion.
Caput XXI: Cicero’s Opinion of the Roman Republic.
Caput XXII: That the Roman Gods Never Took Any Steps to Prevent the Republic from Being Ruined by Immorality.
Caput XXIII: That the Vicissitudes of This Life are Dependent Not on the Favor or Hostility of Demons, But on the Will of the True God.
Caput XXIV: Of the Deeds of Sylla, in Which the Demons Boasted that He Had Their Help.
Caput XXV: How Powerfully the Evil Spirits Incite Men to Wicked Actions, by Giving Them the Quasi-Divine Authority of Their Example.
Caput XXVI: That the Demons Gave in Secret Certain Obscure Instructions in Morals, While in Public Their Own Solemnities Inculcated All Wickedness.
Caput XXVII: That the Obscenities of Those Plays Which the Romans Consecrated in Order to Propitiate Their Gods, Contributed Largely to the Overthrow of Public Order.
Caput XXVIII: That the Christian Religion is Health-Giving.
Caput XXIX: An Exhortation to the Romans to Renounce Paganism.
Book 3
Caput I: Of the Ills Which Alone the Wicked Fear, and Which the World Continually Suffered, Even When the Gods Were Worshipped.
Caput II: Whether the Gods, Whom the Greeks and Romans Worshipped in Common, Were Justified in Permitting the Destruction of Ilium.
Caput III: That the Gods Could Not Be Offended by the Adultery of Paris, This Crime Being So Common Among Themselves.
Caput IV: Of Varro’s Opinion, that It is Useful for Men to Feign Themselves the Offspring of the Gods.
Caput V: 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 Mother of Romulus.
Caput VI: That the Gods Exacted No Penalty for the Fratricidal Act of Romulus.
Caput VII: Of the Destruction of Ilium by Fimbria, a Lieutenant of Marius.
Caput VIII: Whether Rome Ought to Have Been Entrusted to the Trojan Gods.
Caput IX: Whether It is Credible that the Peace During the Reign of Numa Was Brought About by the Gods.
Caput X: 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 Safe by Following in the Peaceful Ways of Numa.
Caput XI: 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.
And it is still this weakness of the gods which is confessed in the story of the Cuman Apollo, who is said to have wept for four days during the war with the Achæans and King Aristonicus. And when the augurs were alarmed at the portent, and had determined to cast the statue into the sea, the old men of Cumæ interposed, and related that a similar prodigy had occurred to the same image during the wars against Antiochus and against Perseus, and that by a decree of the senate, gifts had been presented to Apollo, because the event had proved favorable to the Romans. Then soothsayers were summoned who were supposed to have greater professional skill, and they pronounced that the weeping of Apollo’s image was propitious to the Romans, because Cumæ was a Greek colony, and that Apollo was bewailing (and thereby presaging) the grief and calamity that was about to light upon his own land of Greece, from which he had been brought. Shortly afterwards it was reported that King Aristonicus was defeated and made prisoner,—a defeat certainly opposed to the will of Apollo; and this he indicated by even shedding tears from his marble image. And this shows us that, though the verses of the poets are mythical, they are not altogether devoid of truth, but describe the manners of the demons in a sufficiently fit style. For in Virgil, Diana mourned for Camilla, and Hercules wept for Pallas doomed to die. This is perhaps the reason why Numa Pompilius, too, when, enjoying prolonged peace, but without knowing or inquiring from whom he received it, he began in his leisure to consider to what gods he should entrust the safe keeping and conduct of Rome, and not dreaming that the true, almighty, and most high God cares for earthly affairs, but recollecting only that the Trojan gods which Æneas had brought to Italy had been able to preserve neither the Trojan nor Lavinian kingdom rounded by Æneas himself, concluded that he must provide other gods as guardians of fugitives and helpers of the weak, and add them to those earlier divinities who had either come over to Rome with Romulus, or when Alba was destroyed.