[7] "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.
[8] See the interesting remarks of Lactantius, Instit. vii. 25.
[9] "Hæret vox et singultus intercipiunt verba dictantis. Capitur urbs quæ totum cepit orbem."—Jerome, iv. 783.
[10] See below, iv. 7.
[11] This is well brought out by Merivale, Conversion of the Roman Empire, p. 145, etc.
[12] Ozanam, History of Civilisation in the Fifth Century (Eng. trans.), ii. 160.
[13] Abstracts of the work at greater or less length are given by Dupin, Bindemann, Böhringer, Poujoulat, Ozanam, and others.
[14] 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 païens" (ii. 122); and this though he thinks one cannot but be struck with the grandeur of the ideas it contains.
[15] History of Ecclesiastical Writers, i. 406.
[16] Huetiana, p. 24.