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De civitate Dei (CCSL)

Caput I: De aduersitatibus, quas solas mali metuunt et quas semper passus est mundus, cum deos coleret.

Iam satis dictum arbitror de morum malis et animorum, quae praecipue cauenda sunt, nihil deos falsos populo cultori suo, quominus eorum malorum aggere premeretur, subuenire curasse, sed potius, ut maxime premeretur, egisse. nunc de illis malis uideo dicendum, quae sola isti perpeti nolunt, qualia sunt fames morbus, bellum exspoliatio, captiuitas trucidatio, et si qua similia iam in primo libro commemorauimus. haec enim sola mali deputant mala, quae non faciunt malos; nec erubescunt inter bona, quae laudant, ipsi mali esse qui laudant, magisque stomachantur, si uillam malam habeant, quam si uitam, quasi hoc sit hominis maximum bonum, habere bona omnia praeter se ipsum. sed neque talia mala, quae isti sola formidant, di eorum, quando ab eis libere colebantur, ne illis acciderent obstiterunt. cum enim uariis per diuersa temporibus ante aduentum redemptoris nostri innumerabilibus nonnullisque etiam incredibilibus cladibus genus contereretur humanum, quos alios quam istos deos mundus colebat, excepto uno populo Hebraeo et quibusdam extra ipsum populum, ubicumque gratia diuina digni occultissimo atque iustissimo dei iudicio fuerunt? uerum ne nimis longum faciam, tacebo aliarum usquequaque gentium mala grauissima; quod ad Romam pertinet Romanumque imperium tantum loquar, id est ad ipsam proprie ciuitatem et quaecumque illi terrarum uel societate coniunctae uel condicione subiectae sunt, quae sint perpessae ante aduentum Christi, cum iam ad eius quasi corpus reipublicae pertinerent.

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The City of God

Chapter 1.--Of the Ills Which Alone the Wicked Fear, and Which the World Continually Suffered, Even When the Gods Were Worshipped.

Of moral and spiritual evils, which are above all others to be deprecated, I think enough has already been said to show that the false gods took no steps to prevent the people who worshipped them from being overwhelmed by such calamities, but rather aggravated the ruin. I see I must now speak of those evils which alone are dreaded by the heathen--famine, pestilence, war, pillage, captivity, massacre, and the like calamities, already enumerated in the first book. For evil men account those things alone evil which do not make men evil; neither do they blush to praise good things, and yet to remain evil among the good things they praise. It grieves them more to own a bad house than a bad life, as if it were man's greatest good to have everything good but himself. But not even such evils as were alone dreaded by the heathen were warded off by their gods, even when they were most unrestrictedly worshipped. For in various times and places before the advent of our Redeemer, the human race was crushed with numberless and sometimes incredible calamities; and at that time what gods but those did the world worship, if you except the one nation of the Hebrews, and, beyond them, such individuals as the most secret and most just judgment of God counted worthy of divine grace? ¹ But that I may not be prolix, I will be silent regarding the heavy calamities that have been suffered by any other nations, and will speak only of what happened to Rome and the Roman empire, by which I mean Rome properly so called, and those lands which already, before the coming of Christ, had by alliance or conquest become, as it were, members of the body of the state.