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De civitate Dei (CCSL)

Caput III: De adsumenda historia, qua ostendatur, quae mala acciderint Romanis, cum deos colerent, antequam religio Christiana obcresceret.

Memento autem me ista commemorantem adhuc contra inperitos agere, ex quorum inperitia illud quoque ortum est uulgare prouerbium: pluuia defit, causa Christiani sunt. nam qui eorum studiis liberalibus instituti amant historiam, facillime ista nouerunt: sed ut nobis ineruditorum turbas infestissimas reddant, se nosse dissimulant atque hoc apud uulgus confirmare nituntur, clades, quibus per certa interualla locorum et temporum genus humanum oportet adfligi, causa accidere nominis Christiani, quod contra deos suos ingenti fama et praeclarissima celebritate per cuncta diffunditur. recolant ergo nobis cum, antequam Christus uenisset in carne, antequam eius nomen ea, cui frustra inuident, gloria populis innotesceret, quibus calamitatibus res Romanae multipliciter uarieque contritae sint, et in his defendant, si possunt, deos suos, si propterea coluntur, ne ista mala patiantur cultores eorum; quorum si quid nunc passi fuerint, nobis inputanda esse contendunt. cur enim ea, quae dicturus sum, permiserunt accidere cultoribus suis, antequam eos declaratum Christi nomen offenderet eorumque sacrificia prohiberet?

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The City of God

Chapter 3.--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.

But remember that, in recounting these things, I have still to address myself to ignorant men; so ignorant, indeed, as to give birth to the common saying, "Drought and Christianity go hand in hand." ¹ There are indeed some among them who are thoroughly well-educated men, and have a taste for history, in which the things I speak of are open to their observation; but in order to irritate the uneducated masses against us, they feign ignorance of these events, and do what they can to make the vulgar believe that those disasters, which in certain places and at certain times uniformly befall mankind, are the result of Christianity, which is being everywhere diffused, and is possessed of a renown and brilliancy which quite eclipse their own gods. ² Let them then, along with us, call to mind with what various and repeated disasters the prosperity of Rome was blighted, before ever Christ had come in the flesh, and before His name had been blazoned among the nations with that glory which they vainly grudge. Let them, if they can, defend their gods in this article, since they maintain that they worship them in order to be preserved from these disasters, which they now impute to us if they suffer in the least degree. For why did these gods permit the disasters I am to speak of to fall on their worshippers before the preaching of Christ's name offended them, and put an end to their sacrifices?