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.

What an amazing literary and devotional accomplishment. My second time thru it and it left me in awe. Especially the ending is remarkable.

See my reading plan here ( #cityofgod2019 ). I read parts of this in an graduate English seminar at Baylor in 2012.

i: brief biography
vii–viii: chronology
- 312: Constantine (Con.) becomes Xn and declares Roman Empire a Xn empire
- 325: Council of Nicaea
- 354: A born
- 361–3: brief return to paganism under Julian the Apostate
- 384: A becomes professor of rhetoric in Milan
- 386: A converts to Xnity
- 395: A becomes bishop of Hippo (North Africa)
- 410: sack of Rome (A age 56); encounter with many exiles
- 413: begins to write CoG
- 430: death

Introduction
ix: "More than any other single episode the sacking of Rome gave Augustine a reason to write the City of God" (exiles asked "how he could explain this collapse of a Christian empire")

I. Augustine and His World
x: Ciceronian ["cardinal"] virtues; Quintilian's understanding of the connection between virtue, speaking, and citizenship; Julius Caesar killed in 1c for fear that he would seize "a more permanent and 'presidential' power"—ironic that later emperors did just that (Roman Republic slowly shifted to an Empire over centuries)
xi: Pliny's panegyric to Emperor Trajan compares T to Jupiter (benevolent god); Roman syncretism made Xns stand out (wouldn't treat emperors as gods)
xi–xii: mid-3c (century before A's birth), Roman legions were being challenged/defeated
xii–xiii: Roman Empire became too large and functionally split between Greek East (Diocletian) and Latin West (Maximianus)—two Augusti, with a Caesar beneath each of them; xii, n2: A learned a little Greek, but never spoke/read it well
xiii: Con. (early 4c) united imperial powers; capitals on either side of the Mediterranean world; Praetorian Prefects > vicarii > provincial governors; mystery to bureaucratic administrators (approaching them required passing through literal veils)
xiii–xiv: Con. had to navigate how not to be a god-emperor (see p. xi), but one who served God
xiv: Eusebius (E; first Xn biographer; wrote Con.'s biography) met Con. at Council of Nicaea (325); E set Con. as an example for emulation ("It was not a new idea that the imitation of the great man or saint might encourage attempts at moral self-improvement. It is to be found in the secular classics too."); theme of E's bio is that Con.'s life shows God's blessing (Con. was a better emperor bc he served a higher purpose); the problem with E's thesis (that temporal success = God's favor) is that A faced the opposite condition (failure of the Xn Empire) and had to account for it
xv: senectus mundi (old age of the world) —> lamentation that the golden age had passed
xvi: "the sense of senectus mundi...sets...the tone of the world in which A wrote his apologia and tried to answer the critics who said Christianity was what the modern world might call a 'failed experiment.'" [amazing that when "Xn" Rome fell, some people thought that was the end of the Xn experiment]
xvi: "So, where E had been able to point triumphantly to the overcoming of God's enemies, A was faced with the problem of showing a sophisticated and skeptical readership experiencing the collapse of their world, that quite the reverse pattern of events was now the will of God and that in this case divine lessons lay in the punishment rather than in the reward of Christians."
xvi: A wrote "open letters" to Marcellinus (M), "but M was asking for something more substantial"—so he got CoG (at least first few books)
xvii: assumption that citizens would be good public speakers; A's regret re: his taste for drama (fiction/fable/deceit)
xviii: rhetoric lecturer in Carthage (371)—viewed that career as deceitful as well
xviii: common for people to be baptized toward the end of their lives (avoid mortal sin); A's baptism was delayed; A found Genesis unsatisfactory stylistically
xix: Roman syncretism led to its destruction; premodern assumption of a world filled with spirits, both local and cosmic
xx: Plotinus denounced astrology; A renounced his earlier fascination with it
xx: Roman paganism was syncretistic (Greek, Egyptian)
xxi: Mithraism (from Persian/Indian sun-worship) entered Rome in mid-1c ("superficial" parallels with Xnity)
xxi–xxii: Sallustius on gods: need to have good character to study the gods; myths teach deeper truths; mundane and supramundane gods
xxii–xxiii: philosophically speaking, Christians were both separated from pagans (1c Jew Philo's problem with an eternal world) and fascinated by them (undiminished giving [Neoplatonic] and supernatural beings [Celsus])
xxiii–xxiv: Manichean syncretism (from Persia)—dualism (eternal battle between good and evil) —> seems to explain existence of evil well, but incompatible with Xn God; included Gnostic mistrust of matter (including the body), which led to asceticism (Porphyry and vegetarianism; cf. Jerome and celibacy)
xxv–xxvii: A was surprised by Faustus's rhetorical sophistry (383); A went to Italy to teach rhetoric (deceived his mother) and became a professor in 384; similarly surprised by Ambrose's rhetorical skill in preaching; mother arrived in 385; converted to Xnity in 386 (garden; tolle lege); resigned as rhetoric teacher
xxvii–xxix: baptized in 387; mother died; returned to Hippo and founded a sort of monastic order; son died; ordained priest in 391; consecrated as Bishop of Hippo in 395 (d. in 430 at age 76)
xxix–xxxi: Tertullian (Athens vs. Jersusalem) and Cyprian rigorists—no return for those who apostatize; Decius's decree required sacrifices to pagan gods (250–51); Diocletian's edict closing Xn churches and confiscating Scriptures; persecution ended in 305; Donatist issue
xxxi–xxxiii: Pelagius (from Britain?): effort makes one good (attractive to followers of Jerome's asceticism); A emphasized grace and the inability of sinners; practice of delaying baptism changed in A's lifetime (part of the path to remission of sins)

II. Augustine's Book
xxxiii: Books 1–10 are against pagan arguments; Books 11–14 are about the origin of the Two Cities [2C]; Books 15–17 are about the growth of the 2C; Books 18–22 are about the purposes of the 2C
xxxiv: written/published episodically
xxxiv–xxxvi: genre possibilities include letter, apologia, philosophical dialogue, and catechism
xxxvi: A "win[s] assent by recasting familiar ideas" (such as "true sacrifice")
xxvii: education began with Latin literary classics (to develop rhetorical style), and some philosophy; A used his knowledge of the three styles (high, middle, low) in his writing; digressions were virtues
xxxviii: exegesis (Tichonius and figurative interpretation [see On Christian Teaching); four-fold method didn't arrive until Gregory the Great (literal/historical, plus three allegorical) [see his dedicatory letter in Moralia (literal, moral, and allegorical; later thinkers split allegorical into typological and anagogical)]

III. The Plan of the Book
xxxix: A thought of this as his magnum opus (see p. 5)
xl: pagans A encountered blamed barbarian invasion on Xns who prohibited sacrifices to pagan gods; Ep. 118.2.11 showcases his knowledge of pagan literature, but his point is that Xnity surpasses anything in paganism
xl–xli: Books 1–10 address those who think barbarian invasion is the fault of Xns (it's not like famine/disease/war didn't happen under their "watch")
xlii: "gods" are angels (good and bad); obedient humans will move from a mean (between angels and beasts) to fellowship with angels (12.22); Books 6–10 concern alternatives to Xnity
xliii: Books 11–22 include more Scripture bc A assumes that anyone still with him has accepted his previous arguments; Books 11–14 are about the origin of the CoG, and Books 15–17 are about its growth; Books 18–22 concern the earthly city and its mixture with the CoG

IV. The City of God
xliv: citizenship involves a bond of common interest (see 15.8; lots of OT/NT references)
xlv: politics is a result of the fall
xlvi: ability to choose good is erased by the fall (but predestination isn't incompatible with free will); Jerusalem vs. Babylon
xlvii: "The good City of God is somehow enhanced by the existence of its dark sister-city, which would never have existed but for the sin of Lucifer and Adam." #felixculpa
xlvii: visible church is a mixed community (we don't know who's who); relationship between true citizenship and rewards is unclear, because otherwise people would choose God for the wrong reasons
xlix: themes of captivity/liberation (exile/return, longing for home) are commonplace in ancient literature—peregrinus; Donatist controversy (can an unworthy vessel channel God's grace?)
l: CoG is universal history; seven stages (Adam to Noah, Noah to Abraham, Abraham to David, David to Babylon captivity, Bab cap to X, X to end of the world, final Sabbath)
li: movement between microcosm and macrocosm
lii: we can only glimpse the CoG now; saints in CoG will derive comfort from know that they escaped torment; hierarchy doesn't disappear in the good city, but jealousy does
liii: fight temptation by replacing your desires

V. Augustine's Readership, Augustine's Influence
liii–liv: interest in Conf and CoG grew in 10c; copies found in monastery/cathedral libraries; decline of empire has an educational value for Xns
lv–lvii: A influenced Gregory of Tours, Gregory the Great, Anselm, John of Salisbury, Jacobus de Voragine (Golden Legend), Nicolas of Cusa, Calvin
lvii: RCC fights with Reformers over A; published in English for the first time in 1610
lvii: CoG is "a source of a main stream of ideas about every Christian's need in every age to work out for him- or herself the relationship between the world of political present reality and the world to come"; encouragement "to form the habit of setting what they do in the context of eternity"

Book 1
Preface: to Marcellinus; defending the CoG against those who prefer pagan gods; quotes the Aeneid (spare conquered; beat down proud); city of this world is dominated by its lust for dominion
1.1: world's city vs. CoG; barbarian who sacked Rome [Alaric] spared Xns who claimed sanctuary in sacred places; some who escaped now blame X and Xns, but they're inconsistent, bc they didn't praise X for either their escape or the good that happened before; God uses war
1.2: no examples of pagans sparing pagans who seek sanctuary in temples (see n8); Priam wasn't spared, though he clung to an altar [see Aeneid 2 and Inferno 12]; Diomedes and Ulysses killed temple guards; Minerva didn't protect those who guarded the palladium
1.3: Virgil is a great poet and was read by children to form their minds (Horace); Juno mentions "Troy's vanquished gods," and Aeneas calls them "conquered gods" (the poets weren't lying); it's irrational to say that Rome was sacked because the gods weren't honored—actually, Rome's gods would have perished long before if people hadn't been trying to preserve them
1.4: Troy, the mother of Romans, couldn't save its people, although they honored the gods; the sanctuary of Juno (queen of the gods) was used to hold prisoners; maybe the Greeks spared people in temples, but if so, Virgil lied
1.5: Sallust (truthful historian) makes no mention of sparing those in temples
1.6: other historical acts of kindness/tenderness are recorded
1.7: sack of Rome was unique in that large basilicas were filled with spared religious people; Christ honored
1.8: good and evil occurs to the virtuous and vicious alike (A gives reasons); difference is in the response (nature of those who suffer)
1.9: Xn suffering leads to moral improvement; "strangers" and "heavenly country" language; unfortunately, even virtuous people often love this life too much; good example of Job
1.10: saints aren't ultimately harmed by loss of temporal goods
1.11: Xns don't fear death, which is inevitable

Book 2


Book 3


Book 4


Book 5


Book 6


Book 7


Book 8


Book 9


Book 10


Book 11


Book 12


Book 13


Book 14


Book 15


Book 16


Book 17


Book 18


Book 19


Book 20


Book 21


Book 22

I like that he has an expansive view of history, was likely black, an eloquent and personable man and quotes Megasthenes. But honestly, why would anyone ever want to convert out of gnostic Manichean Dualism like he did no matter how much one loves one’s mother begging one to? All I have to say to that is listen to Elliott Smith’s “Wouldn’t Mama Be Proud?” And read poetic works by that brave gnostic Mani himself (a blood relative of Christ’s people’s per him and others testimony, and one who lived but a century from him and possessed inside information).

Also St Martin in Augustine’s day was willing to confront almost 9 foot tall Emperor Maximus when he had his friends, the gnostic Priscillians, burned alive in Spain - even though Martin said he lost his abilities to heal others after that encounter by making concessions to him (which leads me to believe Apollonius of Tyana was right about just avoiding those black hole types altogether). But Augustine and Ambrose stood by passively as people they knew enforced the burn and did nothing except write a few feeble letters to them. What does that say about him?

Ouspensky said in his book on Conscience that one would think being disengaged from ideas would make one more spiritual but actually the opposite is the case, the more one is emotionally commited to certain ideas and willing to do something about them and their truth beyond one’s personal life and ego the more inwardly alive that person is. He said those who were dead souls and the opposite of this are types like Pontius Pilate who say “what is truth?” But are good at socially leveraging.

Augustine was no Pontius Pilate but he was no St Martin or Ouspensky either. One must give him his proper due.

Also Cassian in his day had at least a few percentage points more balanced view of the works vs grace ongoing debate in Christianity in his criticism’s of Augustine, a debate that almost drove me mad as a young Christian youth and that Augustine furthered the grace side of against Pelagius in Briton.

It is work to become more self-conscious and intentionally be willing to suffer for one’s spiritual aim, it creates character of a celeb-ratory sort no different from the celestials yet oh so different from the outer ego do-gooders and “gatherers of sticks on the sabbath” types. And Charis in the New Testament means Character not Grace. How I wish someone would have told me these two things in my youth and cut out all my dread and confusion instead of feeding me the misunderstandings of Paul’s writings carried on by Augustine then Calvin and Luther. If one really loves someone one is careful what one is doing for them and what one is grateful about concerning them and one wants to be like them; not presumptively grateful one has gotten something from them and trying to sell this to others as a way of justifying how ok it is to now not yet be for however long “exactly like the guy sacrificed.” I should have just remembered my intuition was right when I had this critically discerning thought early on about such free-loading mindset and have just stayed with it. Such was a strain that need never have arose in Christianity anymore than the self flagellating alms givers.

Finally, by the title, you would think this book is going to be an epic Manichean battle revealing they of great character having at every step to get together, hold together and defend “The City of God” morally and metaphysically ever recurring through all times from low minded cretins and sadists and reductionists in every century. You would think it’s going to be transcendently heroic like the song No Quarter. It is nothing of the sort, very tame and disappointing how little it is about this at all.

So for all these reasons I give him a three though he is a nice guy and I love his reverence and anyone who has reverence to the extent they have it in a way that brings them into metaphysical mystical action.

n  Once on the beach at Utica, I saw with my own eyes—and there were others to bear me witness—a human molar tooth so big that it could have been cut up, I think, into a hundred pieces each as big as one of our modern teeth.n

I’m trying to think of books that might be equal to this one in importance to Western history: Plato’s Republic? the works of Aristotle? Euclid’s Elements? Homer’s epics? There aren’t many. This book arguably set the tone for the entire Middle Ages that followed. It is a vast, sweeping, powerful, and cockamamie book; it is a true classic.
tt
Augustine wrote The City of God over a period of 13 years. He began the work when he was 59, and finished it when he was 72. The work was occasioned by the capture of Rome in 410 by the ‘barbarian’ leader Alaric, king of the Visigoths. It was a brutal defeat for the Romans, with much destruction, rape, pillage, and death. More than that, it was a symbolic defeat, the first time Rome had been taken by a foreign enemy in hundreds of years. Unsurprisingly, the remaining pagans blamed the newly ascendant Christians for this calamity. If the old gods were worshiped, the critics argued, this never would have happened. Rome was never taken when Jupiter was praised and when Nike, goddess of victory, was gracing the Curia of the Roman Senate. (The statue of Nike, the Altar of Victory, had been removed from the Curia by Constantius II, briefly reinstalled by Julian the Apostate, and then removed again.) In short, the Roman Empire was collapsing and it was all the Christians’ fault.
tt
These accusations were what prompted Augustine to begin this work; but as the book grew, so did Augustine’s ambitions. By the middle, the beginning has been forgotten; and by the end, the middle is a distant memory. Because Augustine frequently interrupts his main points to indulge in lengthy digressions, the reader is often mired in pages and pages of side-issues and curiosities. Yet there does remain one vital central idea. It is therefore quite tough to give a fair impression of this book’s contents. To paraphrase Bertrand Russell, if I focus only on Augustine’s main thesis, then it will make this chaotic jumble seem too unified and focused; yet if I lose myself in the details, then I’ll omit its most lasting contribution. I even have it easier than most readers, since I read an abridgment—meant to cut out much of the extraneous material. Even so, there is a new topic on almost every page. So I think I’ll follow Russell’s approach in his History of Western Philosophy and give you a taste of some digressions before tackling Augustine’s more major themes.
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Early on in the book, Augustine considers whether virgins who were raped in the sack of Rome have lost their virginity. He argues that, as long as they did not consent and did not enjoy it, they are still virgins. Augustine even argues that being raped might have been a good thing for some of them, since it taught them not to be haughty about their virginity. (It's frightening that, at the time, this opinion was considered quite progressive.) He considers whether the extremely long lifespans reported of some Biblical figures (such as Adam’s purportedly 900-year long life) should be interpreted literally, or whether, as some argued, 10 years back then was equivalent to 1 of our years, thus arriving at a more realistic figure for Adam’s age, 90. (Augustine thinks Adam did live 900 years.) In resolving this question, Augustine notes that there are several discrepancies in the ages reported of certain people in different versions of the Bible; specifically, the original Hebrew Bible said one thing, and the Septuagint said another. (For those who don’t know, the Septuagint was a Greek translation of the Bible, done by 70 Jewish scribes in the 3rd or 2nd century BCE at the behest of the Egyptian king, Ptolemy II. The legend says that all 70 scribes completed their translations separately, only comparing them at the end, and they turned out to be all miraculously identical.) Augustine concludes that, though the Septuagint was indeed divinely inspired, where it differed from the original Hebrew, the original should be trusted.

In a lengthy section, Augustine attempts to correlate secular history with biblical history, doing his best to place the events of the Old Testament in the context of Greek and Roman history. He even speculates on the possibility that Plato might have read parts of the Old Testament, since parts of Plato’s Timeaus are so similar to the Book of Genesis. Augustine is against judicial torture, thinking it vile and illogical to torture witnesses and the accused. He anticipates Descartes’s cogito ergo sum: “In the face of these truths, the quibbles of the skeptics lose their force. If they say; ‘What if you are mistaken?’—well, if I am mistaken, I am. For, if one does not exist, he can be no means be mistaken. Therefore, I am, if I am mistaken.” (By the by, Augustine also anticipated Kant’s subjective theory of time, which Augustine put forth in the eleventh book of his Confessions.) Augustine attempts to prove that living, physical bodies can, indeed, be tortured endlessly in the fires of hell, since, as everyone knows, salamanders live in fire, and peacock meat never putrefies. So what’s so miraculous about human bodies endlessly burning in the flames?
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I actually can’t resist including a bit more about the peacock meat. Apparently, having heard from someone else that peacock meat never spoils, Augustine set aside a piece of roasted peacock meat when he was served it at a friend’s house. He observed this piece of meat for a whole year, noting that even after all that time it never began to stink; it only got dry and shriveled. Now, presumably the piece of meat had been thoroughly cooked and salted, so make of that what you will. While I’m at it, I also want to include a story Augustine tells about a friend of his who had hemorrhoids and had to have surgery. As the man was fearful of going under the knife, Augustine and several other friends had a loud and fervent prayer session before the surgery. (If I had to get surgery back then, I’d be praying too.) And the surgery was a success!
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Now for some more meaty issues. Augustine formulates here the idea of original sin, arguing that Adam’s fall changed the nature of humankind, filling us with sinful desires and causing death to enter the world. Augustine thinks, for example, that before the fall, Adam and Eve could choose to have sex without any feeling of sexual desire; all of the physiological prerequisites for intercourse (to use a polite expression) were under just as much control as our arms and legs. In short, Adam could just choose to have an erection without feeling horny. But now, in order to reproduce, we are at the mercy of our desires, which we cannot directly control and which threaten to overwhelm our rational minds. Thus is the sorry state of fallen man. As a consequence of this belief, Augustine also argues that unbaptized infants go to hell; not being cleansed of original sin, they simply must. By the way, there are several memorable passages in Augustine’s extraordinary autobiography, his Confessions, where he chastises his infant self for being so greedy of food and drink, and so selfish of love and attention.
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Several other ideas are connected to Augustine’s conception of original sin. Since humankind is fallen, it is impossible for us without God's aid to do good deeds and to achieve salvation; salvation is granted from God, it is a gift of divine grace, not something we earn. Augustine also believed in predestination. God, being omniscient, foreknew which people would end up saved, and which would end up damned. So in addition to anticipating Descartes and Kant, Augustine also anticipates Calvin. (From what I hear, a lot of the Protestant Reformation involved a return to Augustine’s teachings, but I’m not so knowledgeable about this.) I should point out that these ideas weren’t commonly accepted at the time. Just the reverse: many people argued vociferously against these doctrines. Notably, Pelagius, an ascetic from England, argued that humans were not born already damned (or, in other words, there was no ‘original sin’ in the Augustan sense); that humans had absolute free will, and thus were not predestined to be saved or damned; and that the grace of God was not necessary to do good works. Augustine combated Pelagius’s ideas with his typical intolerant zeal, considering them heresies, and succeeded, after a long fight, in making his own opinions orthodox for a long time to come.
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As befitting a great Christian thinker, Augustine also tackles some of the perennial problems of Christian philosophy. One of these is free will. Now, without free will, the entire worldview of Christianity collapses, since then there is no fair basis of separating people into the saved and the damned. Yet God is omnipotent and omniscient; this means that when He created the world, He knew exactly what was going to happen. So how can we reconcile these attributes of God with free will? Augustine does so by noting that, although God knows what you will do and whether you will be saved, His knowing doesn’t cause you to make the choices you make.
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Augustine also addresses the so-called problem of evil. This is another classic paradox of Christianity, which results from trying to harmonize the undeniable existence of evil in the world with God’s omnipotence and His infinite goodness. If God was truly all-powerful and purely good, why is there evil in the world? Augustine makes several classic replies.

First, he notes that, by allowing some evil in parts of creation, the whole might be, by consequence, even better, as the resulting goodness outweighs the evil. In short, goodness is cheap unless it is tested with temptation; so the presence of some evil is necessary for the existence of good. Augustine also notes that God never causes evil directly, since it is only His creatures that choose evil. For Augustine, as for many others, evil doesn’t really exist; evil is a lack of existence, the same way darkness is a lack of light and cold a lack of heat. Thus, God never created anything evil; all existence, as existence, is good; His creatures, through their own perversity, have sometimes chosen evil. So even Satan himself, insofar as he exists, is good; though his nature has been corrupted by his wicked ways (this corruption presumably being some sort of deficiency in his existence). Augustine even plays with Aristotelian terminology, saying that evil never has an efficient cause (the direct, or proximate, cause of something), but only a deficient cause.
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I know that my opinion is not worth nearly as much as Augustine’s in this matter, but I do want to include my thoughts. I don’t find Augustine’s answer to the problem of evil satisfactory. And this is because, even if God is not indeed the proximate cause of evil, He would still be the ultimate cause, since He created the universe with full knowledge that evil would result from His action. It’s like this: If I am a leader of a country, and choose to go to war with another country, I am not the direct cause of people dying—that was presumably the guns and other weapons. And arguably the soldiers on both sides do have some share in the responsibility, since each of them chose to participate, to fight, to kill, to risk their lives, and so on. Yet ultimately it was my decision to send all these people into battle, and I think I would share a large portion of the responsibility and (if the action were unjust) the guilt. If the war was indeed justified and necessary, and the result was good for the world, that would make the action excusable, but it would not negate all of the pain and suffering inflicted on the soldiers, nor would it make me any less responsible for their fate.
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Besides, I find this whole business of balancing good and evil, as if weighing a scale, quite absurd. If an innocent person suffers, if a single child is abused or crippled by sickness, how can any amount of goodness elsewhere make that okay? Here’s an example. Imagine there are ten people on an island with very limited food. There is only enough food for each person to stay alive, but not enough to make them energetic and happy. So when all ten people are living there, eating the food available, the total satisfaction-level is around 40%. Now, if nine of them ganged up on the last one, and killed and ate him, it’s possible that, even though there would be a lot of pain inflicted on that one man, the joy experienced by the remaining nine of having real meat, and the extra resources freed up on the island by having one less person, might in the long run make the general satisfaction-level higher—perhaps 60%. Does that justify killing the man? I think not. My point is that the happiness of the many cannot be balanced against the misery of the few, like an accountant balancing an earnings report.
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Now, I know this review is already extremely long, but I haven’t even gotten to Augustine’s main thesis—the City of God. Augustine divides up humankind into two metaphorical cities: the City of Man and the City of God. Members of the City of Man are swollen with pride; they think that they can achieve happiness in this life, through satisfying their bodily desires or by practicing human virtue; by creating peaceful cities and just laws; by trade, wealth, power, fame, and wisdom. Yet, noble as some of them may be, this goal is pure vanity. In this life, we are too beset with troubles and uncertainties to have real happiness. States try to create justice, but their laws are frail human creations, constantly failing to attain their goal of absolute justice—since so many sinners go unpunished and so many innocents are unduly condemned—with the result that the laws are always being changed, updated, reformed, and differ from country to country, from place to place, all without getting any closer to their goal. The Stoics attempt to achieve happiness through virtue alone, without any hope of heaven; and yet how often do painful disease, the loss of a loved one, the failure of a scheme, the unquenchable passions in our breast overwhelm our reason and cast us into abject misery? Members of the City of God are not exempt from any of these miseries. However, they know that they are mere pilgrims on this earth. They place their hopes, not in this life, but in the life to come. Thus they are not misled by the vanities of earthly happiness, but act in harmony with God’s will to achieve salvation.
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This doctrine, though simple enough, proved to be immensely influential. Augustine not only separates church and state, but subordinates the state to the church. Temporal authority is just the product of consensus, while the authority of the church comes from God. The resultant history of the Middle Ages, with the rising political power of the Catholic Church, owes much to Augustine for its intellectual justification and formulation. Again, the importance and influence of this book could hardly be overestimated.
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After spending so much energy reading, summarizing, and responding to this book, I am almost at a loss for how to make a final evaluation. Augustine is obviously a genius of the highest order, and even now it is difficult for me to avoid be sucked into the endless labyrinths of his mind. This is especially impressive to me when I consider that I am not a Catholic, not even a Christian, and disagree with almost everything he says. More than that, although I have immense admiration for his originality and his brilliance, I often find his perspective unhealthy, intolerant, dogmatic, and generally unappealing. Perhaps what I like least about Augustine is his incredible, I would even say his morbid, sense of sin.
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In his Confessions, there is a famous section where he berates his child-self for stealing a peach from a peach tree. From his rhetoric, you would think that he committed a genocide; even after all these years, he seems wracked with guilt and filled with shame. To me, as I suspect to many others nowadays, this is absurd, even a bit childish. I admit a part of me wants to admire him for feeling so bad for his misdeeds; but when I really think it over, I do not even find this admirable. The sense of sin is, in my opinion, an unrealistic and unhealthy way of thinking. I think the whole idea of sin is wrong-headed. Sins are not mere bad deeds or mistakes, but, in Augustine’s view, the byproduct of our ‘fallen’ and ‘sinful’ nature, with the power to actively corrupt and taint our immortal souls. In other words, sin is a reflection of our ‘true self’, or at least a part of it, and acting out these evil impulses makes us unworthy human beings, fit for eternal torture.
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This makes no sense to me. Sometimes people commit bad actions; but, to me, it is more sensible to focus on why the action was bad, rather than how the person is evil for committing this action. For example, if I get angry and say something hurtful to my friend, I can respond to it by isolating what I said, figuring out why I said it, determining why my friend thought it was hurtful—which requires empathy—and then apologizing to my friend and trying to learn from this experience. Or I might, as Augustine would, start thinking about how I have done an evil thing, pray incessantly, beg God for forgiveness, and for years afterward torment myself with the thought of this wrong action. The first is adult and responsible, the second is self-obsessed and self-absorbed. To me, this endless chastisement for bad actions is immature on many levels.

First, the sin is attributed to your ‘sinful nature’, rather than to a habit of yours or to a mistaken assumption, which I think is plain hogwash, and which also doesn’t help you focus on what really caused the problem; nobody is inherently evil or good: we have bad or good habits, and can change them if we want. Second, since the sense of sin makes people obsess about whether they will be damned or saved, it makes people think about their actions through an intensely selfish lens—their own fate—rather than promoting good behavior through empathizing with those around you. So in summary I find the idea of sin to be counterproductive to living a happy and ethical life.
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This is what I find most intensely unattractive about Augustine’s personality. Yet, if I am to practice what I preach, I must not condemn Augustine the man for this behavior, but only a bad habit of thinking he developed. And if I am to weigh everything lovable and unlovable in the scales of my affection, I must admit that I find Augustine to be one of the most compelling personalities and extraordinary thinkers in all of history. This is not a book for just Catholics, or even just for Christians. This is a book for everyone, for all of time. So to repeat the words that lead to Augustine’s conversion to the faith, Pick up and read, pick up and read, pick up and read.