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Therefore, that it might be known that these earthly good things,
after which those pant who cannot imagine better things, remain in the
power of the one God Himself, not of the many false gods whom the
Romans have formerly believed worthy of worship, He multiplied His
people in Egypt from being very few, and delivered them out of it by
wonderful signs. Nor did their women invoke Lucina when their
offspring was being incredibly multiplied; and that nation having
increased incredibly, He Himself delivered, He Himself saved them
from the hands of the Egyptians, who persecuted them, and wished to
kill all their infants. Without the goddess Rumina they sucked;
without Cunina they were cradled, without Educa and Potina they took
food and drink: without all those puerile gods they were educated;
without the nuptial gods they were married; without the worship of
Priapus they had conjugal intercourse; without invocation of Neptune
the divided sea opened up a way for them to pass over, and overwhelmed
with its returning waves their enemies who pursued them. Neither did
they consecrate any goddess Mannia when they received manna from
heaven; nor, when the smitten rock poured forth water to them when
they thirsted, did they worship Nymphs and Lymphs. Without the mad
rites of Mars and Bellona they carried on war; and while, indeed,
they did not conquer without victory, yet they did not hold it to be a
goddess, but the gift of their God. Without Segetia they had
harvests; without Bubona, oxen; honey without Mellona; apples
without Pomona: and, in a word, everything for which the Romans
thought they must supplicate so great a crowd of false gods, they
received much more happily from the one true God. And if they had not
sinned against Him with impious curiosity, which seduced them like
magic arts, and drew them to strange gods and idols, and at last led
them to kill Christ, their kingdom would have remained. to them, and
would have been, if not more spacious, yet more happy, than that of
Rome. And now that they are dispersed through almost all lands and
nations, it is through the providence of that one true God; that
whereas the images, altars, groves, and temples of the false gods are
everywhere overthrown, and their sacrifices prohibited, it may be
shown from their books how this has been foretold by their prophets so
long before; lest, perhaps, when they should be read in ours, they
might seem to be invented by us. But now, reserving what is to follow
for the following book, we must here set a bound to the prolixity of
this one.
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