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Will some one say that these miracles are false, that they never
happened, and that the records of them are lies? Whoever says so,
and asserts that in such matters no records whatever can be credited,
may also say that there are no gods who care for human affairs. For
they have induced men to worship them only by means of miraculous
works, which the heathen histories testify, and by which the gods have
made a display of their own power rather than done any real service.
This is the reason why we have not undertaken in this work, of which
we are now writing the tenth book, to refute those who either deny that
there is any divine power, or contend that it does not interfere with
human affairs, but those who prefer their own god to our God, the
Founder of the holy and most glorious city, not knowing that He is
also the invisible and unchangeable Founder of this visible and
changing world, and the truest bestower of the blessed life which
resides not in things created, but in Himself. For thus speaks His
most trustworthy prophet: "It is good for me to be united to God."
Among philosophers it is a question, what is that end and good to the
attainment of which all our duties are to have a relation? The
Psalmist did not say, It is good for me to have great wealth, or to
wear imperial insignia, purple, sceptre, and diadem; or, as some
even of the philosophers have not blushed to say, It is good for me to
enjoy sensual pleasure; or, as the better men among them seemed to
say, My good is my spiritual strength; but, "It is good for me to
be united to God." This he had learned from Him whom the holy
angels, with the accompanying witness of miracles, presented as the
sole object of worship. And hence he himself became the sacrifice of
God, whose spiritual love inflamed him, and into whose ineffable and
incorporeal embrace he yearned to cast himself. Moreover, if the
worshippers of many gods (whatever kind of gods they fancy their own to
be) believe that the miracles recorded in their civil histories, or in
the books of magic, or of the more respectable theurgy, were wrought
by these gods, what reason have they for refusing to believe the
miracles recorded in those writings, to which we owe a credence as much
greater as He is greater to whom alone these writings teach us to
sacrifice?
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