"Catholic Church, which should include all nations and speak
in all tongues." In Books 1-5 St. Augustine shows that the
catastrophe of Rome was not due to the neglect of the old
mythological superstitions; and in Books 6-10 that the heathen
cult was helpless for the life after death. Books 11-14 deal
with the origin of the two cities, namely, of God and the
World; Books 15-18 with their respective histories, and Books
19-22 with their respective ultimate destinies.

_I.--THE ORIGIN OF THE TWO CITIES_

I write, dear Marcellinus, of that most glorious City of God, both in
her present pilgrimage and life by faith, and in that fixed and
everlasting seat which she awaits in patience. I write to defend her
against those who place their gods above her Founder--a great and
arduous work, but God is my aid. I well know what power a writer needs
who would show the proud how great is the virtue of humility. For the
law of our King and Founder is this: "God is against the proud but gives
grace to the humble"; but the swollen and insolent soul loves herein to
usurp the divine Majesty, and itself "to spare the subject and subdue
the proud." Wherefore I may not pass over in silence that earthly city
also, enslaved by its lust of empire.

For it is from this City of the World that those enemies have arisen,
against whom we have to defend the City of God; Romans, spared by the
barbarians on Christ's account, are haters of the name of Christ. The
shrines of the martyrs and the basilicas of the apostles received, in
the devastation of the city, not their own people only, but every
fugitive; and the fury and greed of the invaders were quenched at these
holy thresholds. Yet with thankless arrogance and impious frenzy these
men, who took refuge under that Name in order that they might enjoy the
light of fugitive years, perversely oppose it now, that they may
languish in sempiternal gloom.

Never has it been known, in so many wars as are recorded from before the
foundation of Rome to the present day, that an enemy, having reduced any
city, should have spared those who had fled to the temples of their
gods; not even the Romans themselves, whose moderation in victory has so
often been justly praised, have respected the sanctuary of vanquished
deities. The devastation and massacre and pillage and conflagrations of
the sack of Rome were nothing new. But this one thing was new and
unheard of--these sava