Author: Saint Augustine of Hippo / Year: (354 - 430) / Genre: Religon Rome having been stormed and sacked by the Goths under Alaric their king, the worshipers of false gods,
or pagans, as we commonly call them, made an attempt to attribute this calamity to the Christian religion,
and began to blaspheme the true God with even more than their wonted bitterness and acerbity. It was
this which kindled my zeal for the house of God, and prompted me to undertake the defense of the city
of God against the charges and misrepresentations of its assailants. This work was in my hands for
several years, owing to the interruptions occasioned by many other affairs which had a prior claim
on my attention, and which I could not defer.
However, this great undertaking was at last completed in twenty-two books. Of these, the first five
refute those who fancy that the polytheistic worship is necessary in order to secure worldly prosperity,
and that all these overwhelming calamities have befallen us in consequence of its prohibition. In the
following five books I address myself to those who admit that such calamities have at all times
attended, and will at all times attend, the human race, and that they constantly recur in forms more
or less disastrous, varying only in the scenes, occasions, and persons on whom they light, but, while
admitting this, maintain that the worship of the gods is advantageous for the life to come. In these
ten books, then, I refute these two opinions, which are as groundless as they are antagonistic to the Christian religion.
