I have obeyed your instructions, most blessed father Augustine — and would that I had done so as effectively as I have done it willingly. Yet I am little troubled, one way or the other, about the result, whether I have acted rightly or otherwise:
1 Praeceptis tuis parui, beatissime pater Augustine; atque utinam tam efficaciter quam libenter. quamquam ego in utramuis partem parum de explicito mouear, rectene an secus egerim:
for you have already taken on the labour of that judgement, whether I was able to do what you instructed; I, for my part, am content with the witness of obedience alone, if indeed I have adorned it with good will and effort.
2 tu enim iam isto iudicio laborasti, utrumne hoc, quod praeciperes, possem; ego autem solius oboedientiae, si tamen eam uoluntate conatuque decoraui, testimonio contentus sum.
For in the great house of a great householder, though there are many animals of different kinds that serve the needs of the household, the care of the dogs is by no means the last. To them alone nature has given the instinct to be driven willingly towards that for which they are trained, and, by a kind of inborn rule of obedience, to be held back solely by the expectation of a disciplined fear, until they are let loose to do their work by a nod or a sign.
3 nam et in magna magni patrisfamilias domo cum sint multa diuersi generis animalia adiumento rei familiaris commoda, non est tamen canum cura postrema; quibus solis natura insitum est, uoluntarie ad id quod praeparantur urgueri et per ingenitam quandam oboedientiae formulam sola disciplinati timoris exspectatione suspendi, donec ad peragendi licentiam nutu signoue mittantur.
For they have appetites of their own, which raise them as far above the brutes as they bring them near to rational beings: that is, to discern, to love, and to serve.
4 habent enim proprios appetitus, quantum brutis excellentiores tantum rationabilibus propinquantes, hoc est discernere amare seruire.
Discerning between masters and strangers, they do not hate those whom they chase, but are zealous for those whom they love; and loving their master and his house, they keep watch not as if from a body fitted for it by nature, but keep vigil out of the conscience of an anxious love.
5 nam discernentes inter dominos atque extraneos non eos quos insectantur oderunt sed iis quos amant zelant, et amantes dominum ac domum non quasi ex natura apti corporis uigilant sed ex conscientia solliciti amoris inuigilant.
Hence, too, in a mystical sacrament in the Gospels, the Canaanite woman was not ashamed to say, and the Lord did not disdain to hear, that the little dogs eat the crumbs under their masters’ table.
6 unde etiam mystico sacramento in Euangeliis, quod edant micas catelli sub mensa dominorum, et Chananaea non erubuit dicere et Dominus non fastidiuit audire.
Blessed Tobias too, following an angel as his guide, did not scorn to have a dog as his companion.
7 beatus etiam Tobias, ducem angelum sequens, canem comitem habere non spreuit.
Bound to you, then, by a special love within your love for all, I have willingly obeyed your will. For since my submission owes the deed to the command of your fatherhood, and the whole work is yours, returning from you to you, I have repaid it with something of my own in this one thing only: that I did it gladly.
8 igitur generali amori tuo speciali amore conexus uoluntati tuae uolens parui. nam cum subiectio mea praecepto paternitatis tuae factum debeat totumque tuum sit, quod ex te ad te redit, opus meum, hoc solo meo cumulatius reddidi, quod libens feci.
You had instructed me to answer the empty-worded perversity of those who, strangers to the City of God, are called pagans (pagani) from the crossroads and villages (pagi) of the countryside, or gentiles because they savour of earthly things; who, though they do not seek the future and either forget or do not know the past, nevertheless defame the present times as though they were beset beyond the ordinary by evils, for this reason alone: that Christ is believed and God worshipped, while idols are worshipped less —1
9 Praeceperas mihi, uti aduersus uaniloquam prauitatem eorum, qui alieni a ciuitate Dei ex locorum agrestium conpitis et pagis pagani uocantur siue gentiles quia terrena sapiunt, qui cum futura non quaerant, praeterita autem aut obliuiscantur aut nesciant, praesentia tamen tempora ueluti malis extra solitum infestatissima ob hoc solum quod creditur Christus et colitur Deus, idola autem minus coluntur, infamant: -
1Orosius derives pagani from pagi, the country districts, making the pagans “rustics”. The Christian use of paganus for a non-Christian was then fairly new, and its origin is still disputed.
you had instructed me, then, that from all the records of histories and annals that can be had at present, I should set out in a brief and orderly volume whatever I had found in ages past that was heavy with wars, corrupted by plagues, grim with famine, terrible with earthquakes, unheard-of in floods, fearful with eruptions of fire, savage with strokes of lightning and storms of hail, or wretched too with parricides and crimes.
10 praeceperas ergo, ut ex omnibus qui haberi ad praesens possunt historiarum atque annalium fastis, quaecumque aut bellis grauia aut corrupta morbis aut fame tristia aut terrarum motibus terribilia aut inundationibus aquarum insolita aut eruptionibus ignium metuenda aut ictibus fulminum plagisque grandinum saeua uel etiam parricidiis flagitiisque misera per transacta retro saecula repperissem, ordinato breuiter uoluminis textu explicarem.
For it was not fitting that your Reverence, intent on completing the eleventh book against these same pagans — books whose first ten, like rays rising in the east, shone over the whole world as soon as they were raised from the watchtower of the Church’s brightness —2
11 maxime cum reuerentiam tuam perficiendo aduersum hos ipsos paganos undecimo libro insistentem - quorum iam decem orientes radii mox ut de specula ecclesiasticae claritatis elati sunt toto orbe fulserunt -
2Augustine’s City of God. Its first ten books, the polemic against paganism, were finished; Augustine was now at work on Book 11.
should be taken up with a slight little work; and your holy son Julian of Carthage, a servant of God, demanded that his request in this matter be satisfied with the same confidence with which he had made it.
12 leui opusculo occupari non oporteret et sanctus filius tuus, Iulianus Carthaginiensis, seruus Dei, satisfieri super hac re petitioni suae eadem fiducia qua poposcit exigeret:
So I set to work, and first of all I put myself to shame; for as I reflected on it, the disasters of the present times had often seemed to me to have boiled over beyond all measure.
13 dedi operam et me ipsum in primis confusione pressi, cui plerumque reputanti super modum exaestuauisse praesentium clades temporum uidebantur.
But I found the days gone by not only as grievous as these, but all the more terribly wretched the further they were from the remedy of the true religion. This inquiry has thus rightly made it clear that death, greedy for blood, reigned while the religion that would hold men back from blood was unknown; that as this religion dawned, death stood stunned; that death is being shut in now that religion prevails; and that it will be nothing at all when religion alone reigns —
14 nanctus sum enim praeteritos dies non solum aeque ut hos graues, uerum etiam tanto atrocius miseros quanto longius a remedio uerae religionis alienos: ut merito hac scrutatione claruerit regnasse mortem auidam sanguinis, dum ignoratur religio quae prohiberet a sanguine; ista inlucescente, illam constupuisse; illam concludi, cum ista iam praeualet; illam penitus nullam futuram, cum haec sola regnabit:
excepting, of course, and setting apart those last days at the end of the age, at the appearing of Antichrist, or even at the conclusion of the Judgement, for which the Lord Christ, through the holy Scriptures and by his own testimony as well, foretold distresses such as there had never been before;
15 exceptis uidelicet semotisque illis diebus nouissimis sub fine saeculi et sub apparitione Antichristi uel etiam sub conclusione iudicii, quibus futuras angustias, quales ante non fuerint, dominus Christus per scripturas sanctas sua etiam contestatione praedixit,
when, by the same measure that holds both now and always, but in a more open and more grievous trial, the unbearable tribulations of those times will bring testing to the saints and perdition to the ungodly.
16 cum secundum ipsum quidem qui et nunc et semper est modum, uerum apertiore ac grauiore discrimine, per intolerabiles tribulationes temporum illorum sanctos probatio, impios perditio consequetur.