City of God by Augustine (available from Amazon or free on the internet, here for example)
Then Augustine explains why he has been so careful to point out the prophetic wisdom of the Old Testament - it proves that prophetic authority in the city of God antedates prophecy in the city of man found in pagan philosophy. To make his case he contrasts Hebrew wisdom with Egyptian and Greek.
Then to finish today's reading Augustine makes much of the way the Septuagint was apparently written.
What grabbed me
I thoroughly enjoyed the part of today's reading that drove home the superiority of the Old Testament to pagan literature.
Particularly how the pagans contradict one another in their writings whilst the Hebrew authors are of one accord: '...the philosophers themselves...do not seem to have had any other aim in their laborious pursuits than to discover how we should regulate our lives towards the attainment of happiness. How is it, then, that disciples have disagreed with teachers, and fellow-disciples with one another? Must it not be because they sought the answers to these questions as men relying on human senses and human powers of reasoning...It is to be noted that our authors do not disagree with one another in any way. Perish the thought! It is not for nothing that they provide the fixed and final canon of sacred literature. This agreement justifies the belief that when they wrote these books God was speaking to them or perhaps we should say through them.'
Such a large collection of authors and no contradictions? The Bible must be the word of an inerrant and infallible God.
Continue Book 18 by reading Chapters 44 to 54.
Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.
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