The City of God

This is a truly COLOSSAL book! Why, exactly, do I say that?

Because, you know, there are two ways of getting answers in the world... there’s getting the world’s answers (and that’s sometimes doublethink) and there’s getting SYMBOLIC answers!

Sub specie aeternitatis, symbolic answers are the ONLY important ones. Rather than show the world’s Real face, they Suggest it.

And they’re what Augustine gives us when he divides the world RIGHT UP THE MIDDLE.

If you cut through the layers of your illusions about it, it's all about that one central fact, from which you can then draw your own conclusions:

There are TWO PARALLEL WORLDS on this planet.

One of them is a cold, grasping, calculating - in a word, selfish - world; the other is a world of warm, compassionate, caring, but quite ordinary, human beings.

In a word, a loving world.

Hard to believe?

Take a closer look at the people around you. Some of them uniformly choose to do good. They‘d be lost if they didn’t!

So, why are they JUST SO PLAIN NICE?

It’s not just to please you...

Maybe, just maybe, they think if they lose their way in the world they JUST MIGHT LOSE THEIR SOULS.

‘You’re kidding me, of course! NOBODY’S like THAT any more...’

That’s where you’re wrong, my friend. There are MILLIONS like that.

They’re from the Second City (now I KNOW you’re gonna find that funny)!

NO - we’re not talking standup comedy, for heaven’s sake; it’s the queue that’s forming RIGHT NOW for Heaven - Stage Right!

This Second City is ‘the best of all possible Worlds.’ It don’t get any better than this.

God threw away the mold when He made that city...

The first city Augustine calls the the City of Man: you know it well - its grit, grime and corruption have done some Serious Damage to our planet, and some DEADLY serious damage to our Hearts.

It’s the first city, because unfortunately it’s the only one most folks believe in... and it’s OUR first city, in time.

It’s the familiar city of THE FALL OF MAN.

If ONLY all the people who are still living there knew they had another, better choice of city to live in...

The second, of course, is the City of God. Hence the title.

The fabled Stairway to Heaven (no apologies to Led Zeppelin)!

The City of SALVATION. Now, that’s an overused word!

Did you ever play that Ancient board game Snakes & Ladders? The City of the Man is full of hidden snakes, who will take us down to the Underworld, and hence back to square one.

The City of Salvation, though, is full of Ladders - taking us up to paradise - and the finish line.

Going up, up to our Lost First World - you know, the one we knew when we were very little... so vivid, so clear - so Really There.

And all those many people we hear about who’ve been brought back from near-death by modern medicine have ACTUALLY SEEN IT.

Take the nomenclature as you will - the fact remains that this is no pie-in-sky pipe dream, as turned out so unfortunately for the young female social climber in Zeppelin’s lyrics.

She was going DOWN that UP STAIRWAY. Down on a Snake’s back to Discouragement and Dusty Death. Instead of going UP to SALVATION.

These two worlds DO exist, and they're engaged in an ongoing battle.

To death!

And BEYOND...

And you know what else?

We must - each of us - choose a side! Here and now - in THIS world.

Which side will WE be on?

The Side of the Winners - or the LOSERS - sub specie aeternitatis?

Will we gain Happiness or lose Everything?

That’s entirely up to each one of us...

So let’s always take the UP Ladder to paradise - rather than ride the back of a Snake, Deep Down Under the Earth into Endless Darkness:

And lose the whole game!

I did it. Feels good man.

Took me about two months and I’m finally done. And it was the hardest and most challenging book I’ve ever read. So yes this is my bragging book. But seriously there was so much good stuff in here and so much confusing stuff. It really covered everything. I definitely see why this os one of the most influential works in Christian theology/philosophy.

Very polemic text exegesis. Particularly in the first part, Augustine recollects the themes from his "Confessions", but more prominent. As in that book this contains sometimes ingenious insights (eg relationship God-time), but sometimes also the most stupid arguments (eg speculation about resurrection in the flesh and how that will go). The thesis of the city of God is not really systematically worked out; however, the main insight prevails that this city is already active on earth, and that was a really revolutionary view! Interesting, but a really tough read.

What more can be said that hasn’t been said about one of the most important and well known theological works ever? For me, it was a refreshing look at Scripture from an ancient source, which has reinvigorated my interest in reading theology; something a more recent
monograph is likely not to do. Lastly, Papists have no special claim over Augustine as is very obvious from reading him. His musings and thinking are hugely influential on the Protestant Reformation, and resounds throughout the ages to Evangelical Protestants today. Thank God for men like Bishop Augustine of Hippo. May he rest in glory.

After two years, a painfully stretched attention span, and forgetting 90% of what I’ve read, I can finally say I’ve finished City of God. This obviously means a review is in order, since, you know, if there’s anything your average 21st century young adult is qualified for, it’s reviewing City of God.

Often brilliant. Occasionally tedious.

Here are some quotes that stood out to me:

"I am sick of recalling the many acts of revolting injustice which have disturbed the city's history; the powerful classes did their best to subjugate the lower orders, and the lower orders resisted - the leaders of each side motivated more by ambition for victory than by any ideas of equity and morality." Book II, 17

"At the beginning of history the supreme power over races and nations rested with kings, who rose to that summit of authority not by canvassing popular support, but because their moderation was recognized by good men. The peoples were not under the restraint of laws: it was their custom to protect, not to extend, the frontiers of their dominion, and their realms were confined within the limits of their own country." Book IV, p. 141 (quoting Justinus' abbridgement of Trogus Pompeius).

"Do not imagine that is was by force of arms that our ancestors made a great nation out of a small community. If that were true, we should today have a far more glorious nation. In allies, in our own citizens, in armaments, in horses, we have greater resources than they enjoyed. But is was other causes that made them great, causes that with us have ceased to exist: energy in our own land, a rule of justice outside our borders; in forming policy, a mind that is free because not at the mercy of criminal passions. Instead of these we have self-indulgence and greed, public poverty and private opulence. We praise riches: we pursue a course of sloth. No distinction is made between good men and bad: the intrigues of ambition win the prizes due to merit. No wonder, when each of you thinks only of his own private interest; when at home you are slaves to your appetites, and to money and influence in your public life. The consequence is that an attack is being launched on a republic left without defences." Book V, p. 200 (quoting Cato).

"Besides the benefits which God lavishes on good and bad alike in accordance with his government of the natural order, about which I have already said something, he has given us a striking proof of his great love, a proof which is the special privilege of the good. We can, to be sure, never give him adequate thanks for our existence, our life, our sight of sky and earth, or our possession of intelligence and reason, which enable us to search for him who created all these things. But there is more than this. When we were overwhelmed by the load of ours sins, when we had turned away from the contemplation of his light and had been blinded by our love of darkness, that is, of wickedness, even then he did not abandon us. He sent to us his Word, who is his only Son, who was born and who suffered in the flesh which he assumed for our sake - so that we might know the value God placed on mankind, and might be purified from all our sins by that unique sacrifice, and so that, when love has been diffused in our hearts by his Spirit, and when all difficulties have been surmounted, we may come to eternal rest and to the ineffable sweetness of the contemplation of God. In view of all that, what heart or what tongue would claim to be competent to give him thanks?" Book VII, pp. 292-293.

"For the specific gravity of a body is, in a manner, its love, whether a body tends downwards by reason of its heaviness or strives upwards because of its lightness. A material body is borne along by its weight in a particular direction, as a soul is by its love." Book XI, chapter 28, p. 463

"Consequently, in those areas of the universe where such creatures have their proper being, we see a constant succession, as some things pass away and others arise, as the weaker succumb to the stronger, and those that are overwhelmed change into the qualities of their conquerors; and thus we have a pattern of a world of continual transience. We, for our part, can see no beauty in this pattern to give us delight; and the reason is that we are involved in a section of it, under our condition of mortality, and so we cannot observe the whole design, in which these small parts, which are to us so disagreeable, fit together to make a scheme of ordered beauty. Hence the right course for us, when faced with things in which we are ill-equipped to contemplate God's providential design, is to obey the command to believe in the Creator's providence. We must not, in the rashness of human folly, allow ourselves to find fault, in any particular, with the work of that great Artificer who created all things." Book XII, p. 475.

"Arrogant as they are, they think that by their own righteousness, not God's, they can please God, who is 'the God of all knowledge' and therefore also the judge of men's inner thoughts; for in them he sees men's imaginations, knowing them to be futile, if they are only men's, and do not come from him." Book XVII, p. 719.

"Hence a 'bishop' who has set his heart on a position of eminence rather than an opportunity for service should realize that he is no bishop. So then, no one is debarred from devoting himself to the pursuit of truth, for that involves a praiseworthy kind of leisure. But high position, although without it a people cannot be ruled, is not in itself a respectable object of ambition, even if that position be held and exercised in a manner worthy of respect. We see then that it is love of truth that looks for sanctified leisure, while it is the compulsion of love that undertakes righteous engagement in affairs. If this latter burden is not imposed on us, we should employ our freedom from business in the quest for truth and in its contemplation, while if it is laid upon us, it is to be undertaken because of the compulsion of love." Book XIX, p. 881.

"... when the child arrives at years of discretion, when he can now understand the commandments and can be subject to the rule of the Law, then he must take up the struggle against evil impulses, and fight vigorously, to avoid being led into sins which will bring damnation. And if those impulses have not yet grown strong and their victory has not become habitual, then they are more easily overcome, and they yield to the victor; but if they have grown accustomed to conquest and command, victory over them is difficult, and costs great hardship. And this warfare is not waged with genuinely whole-hearted purpose, unless the motive is the love of true righteousness, which comes through faith in Christ. For if the Law is there with its commands, but the Spirit with its help is absent, the very prohibition of the sin increases the craving for sin, and when that craving wins the day, the guilt of transgression is added to the evil impulses. Not infrequently, to be sure, the obvious vices are overcome by vices so masked that they are reputed virtues; and the king of those is pride, an exalted self-satisfaction which brings a disastrous fall." Book XXI, pp. 993-4.

"Evil men do many things contrary to the will of God; but so great is his wisdom, and so great his power, that all things which seem to oppose his will tend towards those results or ends which he himself has foreknown as good and just." Book XXII, p. 1023.

Okay, from what I read, which certainly wasn't the whole book, there are a few useful ideas here. Augustine does an excellent job (though unintentionally) of showing how religious doctrines do not come about by an organic, bottom up process, but are the products of artificial acts of committees and compilers. And he also shows how large institutions are necessary in order to keep a doctrine going once it gains a modicum of acceptance. But honestly, I found this work overall to be hopelessly reactionary (to be fair, it is a defense and does not claim to be anything else), but his arguments are piss-poor and he cherry picks evidence in a manner which comes across as being childish and willful. It definitely gave me a better understanding of why Christianity is such a fragmented belief system. Any religion which claims unfocused crap like this as being "foundational" is going to have huge problems down the road. Throughout all of the sections I read, I kept getting the feeling that on some level, Augustine really didn't seem to have the energy or the will to make something this ambitious work. I guess if your obsessed with early church history then it might be bearable. Otherwise, look elsewhere.