be believed about the miracles whereby the people of God were
educated._
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."[408] 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?