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There are some disputed points in Roman law and practice concerning abortion; they are discussed in Balestrini's valuable book, Aborto, pp. 30 et seq. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, Bk. XXII, Ch. The development of opinion and law concerning abortion has been traced by Eugène Bausset, L'Avortement Criminel, Thèse de Paris, 1907.

Take, for example, the case as he states it generally in the De Civitate Dei, Bk. xii. ch. 21.

The sacking of Rome by the Goths they cast upon Christianity; for the vindication of it from which reproach St. Austin did write those renowned books de Civitate Dei. So liable are the best and most innocent sort of men to be calumniously accused in this manner.

He sees Rome fall; and what the fate of Babylon was to the Hebrew prophet the fate of Rome becomes to Augustinus the symbol of divine wrath, the punishment of her pride, her idolatry, and her sin. Rome falls as Babylon, as Assyria fell; but in the De Civitate, to which he devotes some fifteen years of his life, is delineated the city which shall not pass away.

"Speak, you are permitted," said the Grand Master "speak, and say, knowest thou the capital of our holy rule, 'De commilitonibus Templi in sancta civitate, qui cum miserrimis mulieribus versantur, propter oblectationem carnis?" "Surely, most reverend father," answered the Preceptor, "I have not risen to this office in the Order, being ignorant of one of its most important prohibitions."

He seems however to have been drawn into the remark by a reminiscence of what Augustine says in his De Civitate Dei, bk. xii., ch. xiii. In the fatalistic myths of the ancients all that can be regarded as fabulous is the prediction of the future; that is, if we refuse to consider the possibility of magnetic clairvoyance and second sight.

The sack of Rome by Alaric having caused the Christians of Rome to doubt the efficacy of their faith, Augustine, while he himself wrote his "De Civitate Dei" to show from the history of the Church that the preaching of the Gospel could not augment the world's misery, incited Orosius to show the same thing in a compendium of profane history also.

Augustine's De Civitate Dei from its place in the book shelves lining one side of the room. There should be peace in the soul, surely, emancipation from questioning of transitory things in reading of the City of God? But, alas, his attention strayed. That sense of subdued excitement was upon him yet.

So to speak of him is perhaps to idealise him; but one can only idealise that which suggests the ideal, and at the least he had a more perfect participation in the ideal than falls to the general lot of humanity." Such he was: and now he too is dead. His tutor had once written in his copy of the Vulgate: "Esto vir fortis, et pugnemus pro populo nostro et pro civitate Dei nostri."

Those who had no children, were courted at Rome for the sake of their property. Vid. Sen. Consol. ad Marc. 19: in civitate nostra, plus gratiae orbitas confert, quam eripit.