I have obeyed your instructions, blessed Augustine, and may my achievement match my good intentions. I am not at all certain, however, that I have done the work well. You, indeed, have already assumed the burden of judging whether I was capable of doing what you requested, but I am content with the evidence of obedience alone, if I have really done justice to that obedience by my will and my effort. So on a great and spacious family estate many different animals are able to help in the work of the estate, yet the care of the dogs is a particular concern. For these animals alone are so endowed by nature that they are driven on instinctively to do the things in which they are trained; through some inborn spirit of obedience they are held in check only by their fear of certain punishment, until the time when they are given permission, by word or sign, to do as they please. Indeed they have qualities peculiarly their own, so superior to those of brutes that they approach those of human beings, that is, they distinguish, they love, and they serve. When they distinguish between masters and strangers they do not really hate the strangers whom they attack but rather are zealous for their masters whom they love; in their attachment to their master and home they keep watch, not because they are so disposed naturally, but because they are inspired by a love filled with anxiety. Hence, according to the mystic revelation in the Gospels, the woman of Canaan was not ashamed to mention, nor did our Lord disdain to hear, that little dogs were eating the crumbs under their master's table. Nor did the blessed Tobias, following the guidance of an angel, scorn to have a dog as his companion. Therefore, since the love that all have for you is in my case united with a special love, I have willingly obeyed your wish. My humble self owes all that I have accomplished to your fatherly advice, and my entire work is yours, because it proceeds from you and returns to you, so that my only contribution must be that I did it gladly.
You bade me reply to the empty chatter and perversity of those who, aliens to the City of God, are called "pagans" (pagani) because they come from the countryside (ex pagis) and the crossroads of the rural districts, or "heathen" (gentiles) because of their wisdom in earthly matters. Although these people do not seek out the future and moreover either forget or know nothing of the past, nevertheless they charge that the present times are unusually beset with calamities for the sole reason that men believe in Christ and worship God while idols are increasingly neglected. You bade me, therefore, discover from all the available data of histories and annals whatever instances past ages have afforded of the burdens of war, the ravages of disease, the horrors of famine, of terrible earthquakes, extraordinary floods, dreadful eruptions of fire, thunderbolts and hailstorms, and also instances of the cruel miseries caused by parricides and disgusting crimes. I was to set these forth systematically and briefly in the course of my book. It certainly is not right for your reverence to be bothered with so trifling a treatise as this while you are intent on completing the eleventh book of your work against these same pagans. When your ten previous books appeared, they, like a beacon from the watchtower of your high position in the Church, at once flashed their shining rays over all the world. Also your holy son, Julian of Carthage, a servant of God, strongly urged me to carry out his request in this matter in such a way that I might justify his confidence in asking me.
I started to work and at first went astray, for as I repeatedly turned over these matters in my mind the disasters of my own times seemed to have boiled over and exceeded all usual limits. But now I have discovered that the days of the past were not only as oppressive as those of the present but that they were the more terribly wretched the further they were removed from the consolation of true religion. My investigation has shown, as was proper it should, that death and a thirst for bloodshed prevailed during the time in which the religion that forbids bloodshed was unknown; that as the new faith dawned, the old grew faint; that while the old neared its end, the new was already victorious; that the old beliefs will be dead and gone when the new religion shall reign alone. We must, of course, make an exception of those last, remote days at the end of the world when Antichrist shall appear and when judgment shall be pronounced, for in these days there shall be distress such as there never was before, as the Lord Christ by His own testimony predicted in the Holy Scriptures. At that time, according to that very standard which now is and ever shall be—yes, by a clearer and more searching discrimination—the saints shall be rewarded for the unbearable sufferings of those days and the wicked shall be destroyed.
