City of God by Augustine (available from Amazon or free on the internet, here for example)
Firstly he looks at Varro's record of transformations of human beings into animals.
Next comes accounts of the beginning of the Roman Empire.
A strange prophecy about Jesus Christ is then given from Sibyl.
Then Augustine starts looking at the prophecies concerning Christ in the Jewish prophets: Hosea, Amos, Isaiah, Micah, Jonah, Joel, Obadiah, Nahum and Habbakuk.
What grabbed me
Interesting to see Augustine's explanation of the strange miracles that are recorded by the City of Man: 'While as for the story that the birds bring water in their beaks and sprinkle Diomede's temple, and that they show deference to men of Greek blood, but attack foreigners, it is not to be wondered at that the demons prompt this behaviour; for it is to their advantage to promote the belief that Diomede became a god, so that they can deceive men in this way. Their purpose is that men should worship many false gods and thus insult the one true God, and should show their devotion to dead men (who were not truly living even when they were alive) by means of temples, altars, sacrifices, and priests - all of which belong right solely to the one true and living God.'
The natural reaction for me was that such records are fiction but we should never discount the power of demons to lead people astray with the supernatural.
Continue Book 18 by reading Chapters 32 to 43.
Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.
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