"The fourteen centuries fall away
Between us and the Afric saint,
And at his side we urge, to-day,
The immemorial quest and old complaint.
No outward sign to us is given,
From sea or earth comes no reply;
Hushed as the warm Numidian heaven,
He vainly questioned bends our frozen sky."
It is true, the style of the book is not all that could be desired: there are passages which can possess an interest only to the antiquarian; there are others with nothing to redeem them but the glow of their eloquence; there are many repetitions; there is an occasional use of arguments "plus ingenieux que solides," as M. Saisset says. Augustin's great admirer, Erasmus, does not scruple to call him a writer "obscuræ, subtilitatis et parum amoenæ prolixitatis; [24] but "the toil of penetrating the apparent obscurities will be rewarded by finding a real wealth of insight and enlightenment." Some who have read the opening chapters of the City of God, may have considered it would be a waste of time to proceed; but no one, we are persuaded, ever regretted reading it all. The book has its faults; but it effectually introduces us to the most influential of theologians, and the greatest popular teacher; to a genius that cannot nod for many lines together; to a reasoner whose dialectic is more formidable, more keen and sifting, than that of Socrates or Aquinas; to a saint whose ardent and genuine devotional feeling bursts up through the severest argumentation; to a man whose kindliness and wit, universal sympathies and breadth of intelligence, lend piquancy and vitality to the most abstract dissertation.
The propriety of publishing a translation of so choice a specimen of ancient literature needs no defence. As Poujoulat very sensibly remarks, there are not a great many men now-a-days who will read a work in Latin of twenty-two books. Perhaps there are fewer still who ought to do so. With our busy neighbors in France, this work has been a prime favorite for 400 years. There may be said to be eight independent translations of it into the French tongue, though some of these are in part merely revisions. One of these translations has gone through as many as four editions. The most recent is that which forms part of the Nisard series; but the best, so far as we have seen, is that of the accomplished Professor of Philosophy in the College of France, Emile Saisset. This translation is indeed all that can be desired: here and there an omission occurs, and about one or two renderings a difference of opinion may exist; but the exceeding felicity and spirit of the whole show it to have been a labor of love, the fond homage of a disciple proud of his master. The preface of M. Saisset is one of the most valuable contributions ever made to the understanding of Augustin's philosophy. [25]
Of English translations there has been an unaccountable poverty. Only one exists, [26] and this so exceptionally bad, so unlike the racy translations of the seventeenth century in general, so inaccurate, and so frequently unintelligible, that it is not impossible it may have done something towards giving the English public a distaste for the book itself. That the present translation also might be improved, we know; that many men were fitter for the task, on the score of scholarship, we are very sensible; but that any one would have executed it with intenser affection and veneration for the author, we are not prepared to admit. A few notes have been added where it appeared to be necessary. Some are original, some from the Benedictine Augustin, and the rest from the elaborate commentary of Vives. [27]
Marcus Dods.
Glasgow, 1871.
[On the back of the title pages to vols. I. and II. of the Edinburgh edition, Dr. Dods indicates his associates in the work of translation and annotation as follows:
"Books IV., XVII. and XVIII. have been translated by the Rev. George Wilson, Glenluce; Books V., VI., VII. and VIII. by the Rev. J. J. Smith."]
[4] A.D. 410.
[5] Retractations, ii. 43.
[6] Letters, 132-8.
[7] See some admirable remarks on this subject in the useful work of Beugnot, Histoire de la Destruction du Paganisme, ii. 83 et sqq.
[8] As Waterland (iv. 760) does call it, adding that it is "his most learned, most correct, and most elaborate work."
[9] For proof, see the Benedictine Preface.
[10] "Hitherto the Apologies had been framed to meet particular exigencies: they were either brief and pregnant statements of the Christian doctrines; refutations of prevalent calumnies; invectives against the follies and crimes of Paganism; or confutations of anti-Christian works like those of Celsus, Porphyry, or Julian, closely following their course of argument, and rarely expanding into general and comprehensive views of the great conflict."--Milman, History of Christianity, iii. c. 10. We are not acquainted with any more complete preface to the City of God than is contained in the two or three pages which Milman has devoted to this subject.
[11] See the interesting remarks of Lactantius, Instit. vii. 25.
[12] ^ "Hæret vox et singultus intercipiunt verba dictantis. Capitur urbs quætotum cepit orbem."--Jerome, iv. 783.
[13] See below, iv. 7.
[14] This is well brought out by Merivale, Conversion of the Roman Empire, p. 145, etc.
[15] Ozanam, History of Civilisation in the Fifth Century (Eng. trans.), ii. 160.
[16] Abstracts of the work at greater or less length are given by Dupin, Bindemann, Böhringer, Poujoulat, Ozanam, and others.
[17] His words are: "Plus on examine la Cité de Dieu, plus on reste convaincu que cet ouvrage dût exercea tres-peu d'influence sur l'esprit des paiens" (ii. 122.); and this though he thinks one cannot but be struck with the grandeur of the ideas it contains.
[18] History of Ecclesiastical Writers, i. 406.
[19] Huetiana, p. 24.
[20] Flottes, Etudes sur S. Augustin (Paris, 1861), pp. 154-6, one of the most accurate and interesting even of French monographs on theological writers.
[21] These editions will be found detailed in the second volume of Schoenemann's Bibliotheca Pat.
[22] His words (in Ep. vi.) are quite worth quoting: "Cura rogo te, ut excudantur aliquot centena exemplarium istius operis a reliquo Augustini corpore separata; nam multi erunt studiosi qui Augustinum totum emere vel nollent, vel non poterunt, quia non egebunt, seu quia tantum pecuniænon habebunt. Scio enim fere a deditis studiis istis elegantioribus præter hoc Augustini opus nullum fere aliud legi ejusdem autoris."
[23] The fullest and fairest discussion of the very simple yet never settled question of Augustin's learning will be found in Nourrisson's Philosophie de S. Augustin, ii. 92-100. [Comp. the first vol. of this Nicene Library, p. 9.--P.S.]
[24] Erasmi Epistoloe xx. 2.
[25] A large part of it has been translated in Saisset's Pantheism (Clark, Edinburgh).
[26] By J. H., published in 1610, and again in 1620, with Vives' commentary.
[27] As the letters of Vives are not in every library, we give his comico-pathetic account of the result of his Augustinian labors on his health: "Ex quo Augustinum perfeci, nunquam valui ex sententia; proximâ vero hebdomade et hac, fracto corpore cuncto, et nervis lassitudine quadam et debilitate dejectis, in caput decem turres incumbere mihi videntur incidendo pondere, ac mole intolerabili; isti sunt fructus studiorum, et merces pulcherrimi laboris; quid labor et benefacta juvant?"
The City of God.