The City of God — Book 6

St. Augustine of Hippo

  1. 0. Greeting
  2. 1. — Of Those Who Maintain that They Worship the Gods Not for the Sake of Temporal But Eternal Advantages.
  3. Chapter 2
  4. 3. — Varro's Distribution of His Book Which He Composed Concerning the Antiquities of Human and Divine Things.
  5. 4. — That from the Disputation of Varro, It Follows that the Worshippers of the Gods Regard Human Things as More Ancient Than Divine Things.
  6. 5. — Concerning the Three Kinds of Theology According to Varro, Namely, One Fabulous, the Other Natural, the Third Civil.
  7. 6. — Concerning the Mythic, that Is, the Fabulous, Theology, and the Civil, Against Varro.
  8. 7. — Concerning the Likeness and Agreement of the Fabulous and Civil Theologies.
  9. 8. — Concerning the Interpretations, Consisting of Natural Explanations, Which the Pagan Teachers Attempt to Show for Their Gods.
  10. 9. — Concerning the Special Offices of the Gods.
  11. 10. — Concerning the Liberty of Seneca, Who More Vehemently Censured the Civil Theology Than Varro Did the Fabulous.
  12. 11. — What Seneca Thought Concerning the Jews.
  13. 12. — That When Once the Vanity of the Gods of the Nations Has Been Exposed, It Cannot Be Doubted that They are Unable to Bestow Eternal Life on Any One, When They Cannot Afford Help Even with Respect to the Things Of this Temporal Life.

Hitherto the argument has been conducted against those who believe that the gods are to be worshipped for the sake of temporal advantages, now it is directed against those who believe that they are to be worshipped for the sake of eternal life. Augustine devotes the five following books to the confutation of this latter belief, and first of all shows how mean an opinion of the gods was held by Varro himself, the most esteemed writer on heathen theology. Of this theology Augustine adopts Varro's division into three kinds, mythical, natural, and civil; and at once demonstrates that neither the mythical nor the civil can contribute anything to the happiness of the future life.

In the five former books, I think I have sufficiently disputed against those who believe that the many false gods, which the Christian truth shows to be useless images, or unclean spirits and pernicious demons, or certainly creatures, not the Creator, are to be worshipped for the advantage of this mortal life, and of terrestrial affairs, with that rite and service which the Greeks call λατρεία, and which is due to the one true God. And who does not know that, in the face of excessive stupidity and obstinacy, neither these five nor any other number of books whatsoever could be enough, when it is esteemed the glory of vanity to yield to no amount of strength on the side of truth — certainly to his destruction over whom so heinous a vice tyrannizes? For, notwithstanding all the assiduity of the physician who attempts to effect a cure, the disease remains unconquered, not through any fault of his, but because of the incurableness of the sick man. But those who thoroughly weigh the things which they read, having understood and considered them, without any, or with no great and excessive degree of that obstinacy which belongs to a long-cherished error, will more readily judge that, in the five books already finished, we have done more than the necessity of the question demanded, than that we have given it less discussion than it required. And they cannot have doubted but that all the hatred which the ignorant attempt to bring upon the Christian religion on account of the disasters of this life, and the destruction and change which befall terrestrial things, while the learned do not merely dissimulate, but encourage that hatred, contrary to their own consciences, being possessed by a mad impiety — they cannot have doubted, I say, but that this hatred is devoid of right reflection and reason, and full of most light temerity, and most pernicious animosity.