--- title: "City of God · De civitate Dei" author: "Augustine" translator: "Marcus Dods" languages: [la, en] shelf: "Church Fathers" section: 3 of 116 url: https://scriptura.si/works/augustine-city-of-god/3/ cite: "Augustine, tr. Marcus Dods, City of God · De civitate Dei, section 3. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/augustine-city-of-god/3/" --- # City of God · De civitate Dei *Augustine, tr. Marcus Dods* “Two loves have made two cities.” Augustine’s Latin, in Hoffmann’s critical text, beside Dods’s English, chapter by chapter. > Latin: Augustine, De civitate Dei, ed. Emanuel Hoffmann, CSEL 40 (Vienna: Tempsky, 1899–1900), as encoded by the Open Greek and Latin project, University of Leipzig (stoa0040.stoa003.opp-lat3, CC BY-SA 4.0); apparatus omitted. > English: Marcus Dods, The City of God (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, first series, vol. 2, 1887). > Chapters are matched one to one except where the two editions divide them differently; within a chapter the Latin sentences are shared out over the English paragraphs by position. ## 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 Troy. Source: https://scriptura.si/works/augustine-city-of-god/3/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/augustine-city-of-god/3/#p-N [¶0] 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 Troy. > Latin: Caput III. Quam inprudenter Romani deos penates, qui Troiam custodire non potuerant, sibi crediderint profuturos. [¶1] And these be the gods to whose protecting care the Romans were delighted to entrust their city! O too, too piteous mistake! And they are enraged at us when we speak thus about their gods, though, so far from being enraged at their own writers, they part with money to learn what they say; and, indeed, the very teachers of these authors are reckoned worthy of a salary from the public purse, and of other honors. There is Virgil, who is read by boys, in order that this great poet, this most famous and approved of all poets, may impregnate their virgin minds, and may not readily be forgotten by them, according to that saying of Horace, > Latin: Ecce qualibus dis Urbem Romani seruandam se commisisse gaudebant!s o nimium miserabilem errorem! Et nobis suscensent, cum de dis eorum talia dicimus; nec suscensent auctoribus suis, quos ut ediscerent mercedem dederunt doctoresque ipsos insuper et salario publico et honoribus dignissimos habuerunt. [¶2] “The fresh cask long keeps its first tang.” > Latin: Nempe aput Vergilium, quem propterea paruuli legunt, ut uidelicet poeta magnus omniumque praeclarissimus adque optimus teneris ebibitus animis non facile obliuione possit aboleri, secundum illud Horatii: Quo semel est inbuta recens sernabit odorem Testa diu - aput hunc ergo Vergilium nempe Iuno inducitur infesta Troianis Aeolo uentorum regi aduersus eos inritando dicere: Gens inimica mihi Tyrrhenum nauigat aequor Ilium in Italiam portans uictosque penates. [¶3] Well, in this Virgil, I say, Juno is introduced as hostile to the Trojans, and stirring up Æolus, the king of the winds, against them in the words, [¶4] “A race I hate now ploughs the sea, [¶5] Transporting Troy to Italy, [¶6] And home-gods conquered”… [¶7] And ought prudent men to have entrusted the defence of Rome to these conquered gods? But it will be said, this was only the saying of Juno, who, like an angry woman, did not know what she was saying. What, then, says Æneas himself,—Æneas who is so often designated “pious?” Does he not say, > Latin: Itane istis penatibus uictis Romam, ne uinceretur. prudentes commendare debuerunt? Sed haec Iuno dicebat uelut irata mulier, quid loqueretur ignorans. [¶8] “Lo! Panthus, ’scaped from death by flight, [¶9] Priest of Apollo on the height, [¶10] His conquered gods with trembling hands > Latin: Quid Aeneas ipse, pius totiens appellatus, nonne ita narrat: Panthus Othryades, arcis Phoebique sacerdos, Sacra manu uictosque deos paruumque nepotem Ipse trahit cursuque amens ad limina tendit? [¶11] He bears, and shelter swift demands?” [¶12] Is it not clear that the gods (whom he does not scruple to call “conquered”) were rather entrusted to Æneas than he to them, when it is said to him, [¶13] “The gods of her domestic shrines > Latin: Nonne deos ipsos, quos uictos non dubitat dicere, sibi potius quam se illis perhibet commendatos, cum ei dicitur: Sacra suosqne tibi commendat Troia penates? [¶14] Your country to your care consigns?” [¶15] If, then, Virgil says that the gods were such as these, and were conquered, and that when conquered they could not escape except under the protection of a man, what a madness is it to suppose that Rome had been wisely entrusted to these guardians, and could not have been taken unless it had lost them! Indeed, to worship conquered gods as protectors and champions, what is this but to worship, not good divinities, but evil omens? Would it not be wiser to believe, not that Rome would never have fallen into so great a calamity had not they first perished, but rather that they would have perished long since had not Rome preserved them as long as she could? For who does not see, when he thinks of it, what a foolish assumption it is that they could not be vanquished under vanquished defenders, and that they only perished because they had lost their guardian gods, when, indeed, the only cause of their perishing was that they chose for their protectors gods condemned to perish? The poets, therefore, when they composed and sang these things about the conquered gods, had no intention to invent falsehoods, but uttered, as honest men, what the truth extorted from them. This, however, will be carefully and copiously discussed in another and more fitting place. Meanwhile I will briefly, and to the best of my ability, explain what I meant to say about these ungrateful men who blasphemously impute to Christ the calamities which they deservedly suffer in consequence of their own wicked ways, while that which is for Christ’s sake spared them in spite of their wickedness they do not even take the trouble to notice; and in their mad and blasphemous insolence, they use against His name those very lips wherewith they falsely claimed that same name that their lives might be spared. In the places consecrated to Christ, where for His sake no enemy would injure them, they restrained their tongues that they might be safe and protected; but no sooner do they emerge from these sanctuaries, than they unbridle these tongues to hurl against Him curses full of hate. > Latin: Si igitur Vergilius tales deos et uictos dicit et, ut uel uicti quoquo modo euaderent, homini commendatos: quae dementia est existimare his tutoribus Romam sapienter fuisse commissam et nisi eos amisisset non potuisse uastari? Immo uero uictos deos tamquam praesides ac defensores colere, quid est aliud quam tenere non numina bona, sed nomina mala? Quanto enim sapientius creditur, non Romam ad istam cladem non fuisse uenturam, nisi prius illi periissent, sed illos potius olim fuisse perituros, nisi eos quantum potuisset Roma seruasset! Nam quis non, cum aduerterit, uideat quanta sit uanitate praesumtum non posse uinci sub defensoribus uictis et ideo periisse, quia custodes perdidit deos, cum uel sola esse potuerit causa pereundi custodes habere uoluisse perituros? Non itaque, cum de dis uictis illa conscriberentur adque canerentur, poetas libebat mentiri, sed cordatos homines cogebat ueritas confiteri. Verum ista opportunius alio loco diligenter copioseque tractanda sunt: nunc, quod institueram de ingratis hominibus dicere, parumper expediam ut possum, qui ea mala, quae pro suorum morum peruersitate merito patiuntur, blasphemantes Christo inputant; quod autem illis etiam talibus propter Christum parcitur, nec dignantur adtendere et eas linguas aduersus eius nomen dementia sacrilegae peruersitatis exercent, quibus linguis usurpauerunt mendaciter ipsum nomen, ut uiuerent, uel quas linguas in locis ei sacratis metuendo presserunt, ut illic tuti adque muniti, ubi propter eum inlaesi ab hostibus fuerunt, inde in eum maledictis hostilibus prosilirent.