La idea utópica de Agustín, cuyo punto de partida es la tradición social cristiana, cerca del comunitarianismo aunado a la reflexión teológica-filosófica de fondo. Un texto pesado pero que vale la pena leer para entender en esencia el origen de la doctrina sociológica del Cristianismo.

It took me over a year to read this. I think another reading is called for before I write a review. For large sections it was difficult to understand why he spent so much time on the points, but presumably they were significant issues in the day. At other time his brilliance carries through the centuries resonating to 21st century readers.

I get a similar feeling reading Augustine to when I read ancients like Homer and Thucydides: call it nostalgia if you must, but I think it’s something more akin to having a conversation with, say, a foreigner from an obscure country. What is it like over there? What are your buildings made of? What kind of animals lurk in your fields? What do you wear, eat, see? When I’ve had those conversations I’ve noticed that the most interesting aspect is not really the exotic differences (though those can be fascinating), but the recognition which eventually comes: that all our accidents of culture are underlaid by an ocean of similarities. In fact, the cultures most dramatically different from ours merely show forth human nature (that archaic term) in a way which ours isn’t equipped to do (including even the cannibalistic ones, though what they express is happily relegated, in our culture, to horror movies).

I know I’m not going to get top marks from anthropologists here, but I think that’s a much happier explanation than mere nostalgia for why I loved Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War so much. Despite their pockmarked cosmologies, their scientific ignorance, their pre-everythingness, these people were really just people like you and me, and it’s amazing to read the words of someone so foreign and yet so familiar. And don’t give me that bunk about “nostalgia for an imaginary West”... Murasaki Shikibu gives me the same feeling of meeting a friend across centuries as does Homer.

Anyway, on to Augustine. I can’t possibly rate this book, because it’s just too huge. Augustine was a ranter, and it shows. Inevitably, there were parts of City of God which I loved and parts I simply had to skim. Things I liked: discussions of various paganisms in Rome; an extremely interesting non-literal interpretation of Genesis; wacky and wonderful explanations for various pseudo-scientific occurrences, like the incombustibility of salamanders; general preponderance of myths and folklore; philosophical ruminations on existential stuff; Augustine’s vitriolic roasting of certain opponents, which froths into the hilarious. Things I didn’t like so much: endless refutations of extinct heresies; endless discussions of futile speculations like whether or not the flames of hell are metaphorical or physical; endless citing of OT prophets; endless… ness? It’s a long book, there’s gonna be dry stuff.

As far as theology, one has to remind oneself that this is a foundational text, not a definitive one. You will not find a rigorous theory of justification here. Usually when Augustine wants to defend something, he cites a Bible verse. This gives his logic a slightly circular feel, but you have to keep in mind that he was, for the most part, attacking weird pagan ideas which really could be refuted with a “because the Bible says.” If you want a logically robust elucidation of the Trinity or predestination, you’re gonna have to go to Aquinas or Calvin (depending on your persuasion).

There is, however, one really interesting idea which permeates the book, coming in again and again. Augustine himself seems to be working it out over the course of the book, and he gets more articulate in this respect as the pages tick on. As early as page 14, he writes:

When the good and the wicked suffer alike, the identity of their sufferings does not mean that there is no difference between them. Though the sufferings are the same, the sufferers remain different. Virtue and vice are not the same, even if they undergo the same torment. The fire which makes gold shine makes chaff smoke; the same flail breaks up the straw, and clears the grain; and oil is not mistaken for lees because both are forced out by the same press… Thus the wicked, under pressure of affliction, execrate God and blaspheme; the good, in the same affliction, offer up prayers and praises. This shows that what matters is the nature of the sufferer, not the nature of the sufferings. Stir a cesspit, and a foul stench arises; stir a perfume, and a delightful fragrance ascends.

Italics mine, because this is a key point that Augustine is pleased to develop and emphasize over and over again, more succinctly put on page 177:

The reason why God gives worldly dominions to both the good and the evil is this: to prevent any of his worshipers who are still infants in respect of moral progress from yearning for such gifts from him as if they were of any importance.

Italics mine once again, because wow, that is an unusual view. Right? We are used to talking about “common grace” and all that, and about how God provides temporal gifts, but Augustine doesn’t want you to get it twisted; he says that God’s temporal gifts are not of "any importance." I’ve heard this described as latent gnosticism carried over from his time with the Manicheans, and there’s probably truth to that, but I prefer to think of it as the Apocalyptic Mood (a la Ecclesiastes or Kierkegaard, maybe) of Christianity. It’s a mood from which many Christians, especially in opulent America, could potentially learn.

But ok, there’s a reason why Catholics have redlined large portions of Augustine. Does he just hate the physical world and place all emphasis on the world to come?

I don’t think so. I’m not a theologian, so I’m not going to declare anything definitive, but from a literary perspective it seems to me like a matter of emphasis. Augustine does not say that material goods are not good, only that they are not important, ie. they cannot bring you closer to God, and in many cases become idols contrary to that goal. Consider this excellent bit on Cain and Abel:

Now it is not easy to find out in which of these respects Cain displeased God. The apostle John, when speaking of those brothers, said, 'Do not be like Cain, who was on the side of the evil one and slew his brother. And for what reason? Because his deeds were of evil intention, and his brother's were righteous.' This gives us to understand that God did not approve his gift, because it was wrongly 'divided' in this point, that he gave to God something belonging to him, but gave himself to himself. This is what is done by all those who follow their own will, and not the will of God; that is, those who live with a perverted will instead of an upright heart, and yet offer a gift to God. They suppose that with this gift God is being bought over to help them, not in curing their depraved desires, but in fulfilling them. And this is the characteristic of the earthly city-- to worship a god or gods so that with their assistance it may reign in the enjoyment of victories and an earthly peace, not with a loving concern for others, but with lust for domination over them. For the good make use of this world in order to enjoy God, whereas the evil want to make use of God in order to enjoy the world. (p 604)

All font alterations mine, obviously. Augustine's point seems, essentially, to be one Luther probably liked: the penitent heart is both the only thing that saves, and also the highest good a person can attain.

Finally, on page 1003, Augustine explains that the saints, whom Catholics believe pray for us just as I might pray for you, should not be petitioned for earthly goods. This is because saints, in their perfectedness, would only pray for the highest good for us, that is, “that God may grant them penitence and that they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the Devil.” In other words, Augustine seems to be implying that the highest prayer only seeks reconciliation with God and reformation of the heart, not the alleviation of temporal suffering. In other other words, don't ask me to pray for you when you get sick, because I'm just going to pray that you gain a penitent heart.

See, on one level this seems cruel and heartless. Yet on another level it strikes me as very wise. But that's what it's like to read ancient books.

I did it!

dedicated with affection to Galiciius and Manny.

Ladies and gentlemen this review is written after a long time, though not as much as my most recent review"Most Picante Murder" https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... by Karina Lumbert Fabian https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... . I finished reading this book on March 25, and started it in February, instigated by my friend Galicius, as the group that presides over Manny with which I am joined by a great friendship, even though my presence is much greater in Catholic Book Club, than in Catholic Thought. However, as you know, Catholic groups do not compete between us and Manny and John are joined by a deep friendship and mutual admiration. But returning to the matter before Manny Catholic Thought's group, I had chosen the monumental work of the Bishop of Hippo, as a reading of the group, and Galicius strongly asked me to read it. I must admit that I had bought "The City of God" and that I had a magnificent edition made by bibliotheca Homolegens (which as you know came back to life) https://homolegens.com/ and it was a book to which I had great respect. Just like a colossal, mythical magical creature. It was a book, which I planned to read someday, being honest later than soon, but Galicius asked me to do so and I said yes not being aware of the great challenge it posed. As people can see it took me more than a month to finish it, and the work was so magnificent, and so great that I overwhelm. It will most likely be not only this year's most important reading, but one of the most crucial readings of my life. You know I try to write reviews of all the books I read, but two factors influenced this year, which prevented me from reviewing certain books. One was the CoVid, which made me un comment on certain books, and the other factor was that I was far behind in my challenge this year, most likely, that even by far I reached 200 books, and forget about last year's 231 books, however, yesterday I received a post from Galicius reminding me and encouraging me to write a review of this cyclopea work, and the truth is that I had posted in goodreads some comments saying that I was going to write a review of"The City of God" and that I was going to dedicate it to Galicius and Manny, and I am hostage to my words. It's true, I can't always keep my promises. For example, due to the up and down trend of twitter We will burn the Clergy (this topic I will discuss when writing the reviews of Baldur's Gates I and Baldur's Gates Shadows of Amn, being in the first especially revindicative due to the turn that Dungeons and Dragons has taken on certain issues of political character and which I do not wholely approve of https://www.goodreads.com/series/4190... , and I will have a great impact on this point. However, I would like to ask Twitter a question if it had been the homophobic, racist, or sexist tendency I would have allowed it? Twitter does not realize that attacking a religion and its faithful is as reprehensible and is as great an act of intolerance as those acts it reported earlier. If Twitter were to let go and protect any kind of freedom of expression, it would understand their conduct, but I would find it hard to censor accounts that differed from their political opinions and tweets they didn't like, so they haven't been neutral or without freedom of expression. So he accused Twitter of intolerance and of promoting catholicism and intolerance against a population sector and the disrespect of other identity lobbyists to this day, the most persecuted group is Christians, so action must be taken against those who promote acts of fanaticism and intolerance against our faith, because it violates those human rights in which I do not believe , but that these progress they claim to defend and take on them. Burning the Clergy was trending on twitter in Spain I swore I was getting out, because I was already planning to make an account of Parler, but in the end, although I tried I was unable to do it and I was also horrified by the influence of Ayn Rand https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... thinking (which for me because of the atheism of his doctrine, his philosophy is totally incompatible with Christianity, without the communism fighting being much better, in fact it is very much worse) on this social network, so for the time being I am still on twitter. I also told Galicius in Goodreads that his plea caught me at a bad time, because my father is working on the thesis of one of his doctorandos and because of my father's advanced age I have to help him, and at this moment I could not occupy a review of"The City of God",however, I was thinking at night about many questions, especially when I was going to write it? Because I'm sorry, but what's immovable is that my last reviews were going to be those of Baldur's Gates, and I couldn't say my word, but I was bound by this promise, so I've decided to take advantage of the downtime (something that shouldn't be despised, because you usually get a lot out of them) to write this review, which I dedicate with affection if they accept Galicius and Manny. Manny. The first thing about "The City of God" is that it is a very densed work, which, although its most important purpose is to be an apologetic work and evangelization. This work is written by St. Augustine to replicate and respond to the Gentiles, who accused Christianity of bringing it to its decline and extinction, and of being responsible for the taking of Rome by the Barbarians in this case the Visigoths of Alarico. This is a thesis taken up by Gibbon https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... (Jack Reacher would say he was angry with the Catholic Church, because he didn't buy her poney who always kept an ignited hatred against Catholicism, because he wanted to be Catholic and Dad did not leave him and out of spite he became a Freezer and is responsible for making the authoritative opinion that Christianity produced the fall of the Roman Empire, when it had been brewing for a long time, even when Rome was at its peak. My friend Professor Alfonseca in his novel The Seal of Eolo" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5... https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... in this novel my friend comes to a conclusion that after the plague suffered in the time of Marcus Aurelius in the second century Rome never lost its zenith again, and from there it was cost below gradually and staggered, being the key year 235 in my opinion, because the murder of Alexander Severus (that emperor that everyone asks for and proclaims , but as it implements its principles of tolerance, included with the hated Christians everyone ends up abhorring it, but in my opinion it is a key piece, to understand the Roman Empire and its final evolution). The death of this great emperor, who is about to wipe out the Parths produces a power vacuum that leads Rome to a time of civil wars, and which devalues the untouchable figure of the emperor, who had been reinforced by the Flavian and Antonine dynasties, and that his figure is discredited. Rome embarks on a series of internal, and external wars, purchasing power falls, and the middle classes are becoming scarcer, suffering from acculturation, and a distrust of administration, and due to the increasingly decaying of demographic collapse to those barbarians to which it fights, it also does not achieve a religion that brings together the empire definitively. . So when Christianity came to be the official religion it was already wounded. But not because of external attacks, but because like every living being it perishes as my teacher Santos Crespo Ortiz de Zarate said of exhaustion. I believe that the right thesis and that We Catholics accept is that of Will Durant https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...# This has generated a great debate, why there are even people, who say that the empire does not fall, or that it is continued, by those German tribes, which are more Roman, than the Romans themselves. This is defended by the great Hilaire Belloc https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... in his wonderful Essay, also of obligatory reading "Europe and faith" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7... why, in spite of all, a half of the empire is saved, and let us be aware no one learned of the deposition of the last emperor of the West Romulus Augústulo in 476, since nominally the Roman Emperor was that of the East. However, we have to go to dates after the year 409. At the beginning of the text it is more or less historical and St. Augustine wonderfully sums up the history of the entire Roman Republic, and shows the great disasters suffered by the Republic, which were not small, for this it resorts to the great Latin historians. This line will be brilliantly continued by his disciple Orosio https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... historically coded, but this work is much more. We do not see a folded Saint Augustine defending himself from the criticisms of the heathen, but we see St Augustine attack, who holds the gods of Rome accountable not only for not existing, but for being demons who subdue men and take them away from the true God and that when Rome suffers setbacks of not coming to his aid. It is very interesting that it alludes to the time of Numa Pompilius, and that it refutes Varro. Another of the great virtues of the book is that St. Augustine is the son of his time does not reject the knowledge of his time, but loves him and reveres him and uses him. At the same time, it purifies him from his mistakes. He has no qualms about correcting Plato with affection, and Cicero for example https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... https://www.goodreads.com/author/show.... . However, St. Augustine does not stop by doing an analysis of the Republic, but uses this book to explain to Christians, and non-Christians the doctrine by refuting many of the trends in vogue at that time I think of the stoics (with which it is very hard), the epicureans (being softer with these) and the neoplatonics I think of Porfirio, and Jamblico, also refutes Apuleyo https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... It makes it crystal clear St. Augustine and opposes the transmigration of souls, which Plato defended, and his followers, and also affectionately corrects his colleague Origins without animosity https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... This work is not only a compendium of History, nor of Philosophy, and although the purpose is apologetic, and evangelizer encompasses all the knowledge of his time. I believe that the book's most positive quality, in addition to its erudition and the diversity of subjects it deals with, is common sense. Of course, this book contains biological, scientific, errors. Many by the way are not the fault of St. Augustine, but of the Latin authors he employs. Among them Pliny https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... I actually passed extracts while I read this book to Alfonseca because he was hallucinated from St. Augustine's answers to time, creation. According to this work will be compatible a creation of the world of millions of years. It is true that according to St. Augustine the comienzxo of human life would be between 5000-6000 BC, but it is not very wrong, and you will tell me. How dare you, Fonch write that? Are you a denier of Darwin's theories? Well, yes, they're not very wrong, I believe in Darwin's Evolution theories, but I don't believe in Darwinism, which has brought us down many of the aberrations present perpetrated by himself, Galton, his son Leonard and Haeckel. https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... It is incontestable that the origin of humanity comes from millions of years ago, and that life began in Asia, and we will continue to find older remains than Homo Toumai, Lucy, and Homo Afarensis. But, even if it sounds nonsense, it is not very wrong St. Augustine it is true that there are civilizations before the year 6000 BC I think Chatal Huyuk, Obeid, and civilizations in Asia, but the first great Summer civilization already enters the stipulations of St. Augustine (in fact what it does is define the Bronze Age, which is when the great summer, Babylon, Akadia, Assyria civilizations begin, in fact he is very insistent with King Nino), and certainly corrects the Egyptian priest Manethon. Egypt is not more than 5000 years old. It is very curious, that he also defends the philosopher Evemero https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ev%C3%A... https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evemerismo indeed if Lightfoot and Ussher had read St. Augustine more closely, they would not have made the mistakes they made https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... and freed Anglicanism from public shame in the 19th century with Darwin. Not to mention the great knowledge, which St. Augustine has of philosophy and one thing, which has surprised me very pleasantly is that he does not reject Aristotle and praises him even https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... but clearly believes that Plato is closer to Christianity, and that is why he focuses more on Plato so according to this book he does not reject the Tomism or conversion made by St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Albert the Great of Aristotle many of translations and misinterpretations interested by the Arabs as the case of Averroes https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... In fact until the 5th century St. Augustine incorporates the philosophy of his time, and if he reads Jostein Gaardner's "The World of Sofia" https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... he can spend the 6th century reading St. Augustine. There are great moments in reading "The City of God," like his rebuttal of astrology, stoicism with the theme of twins. I was surprised by St. Augustine's mastery and his notions of hippocratic and Galénic medicine. Of course nonsense is dismantled, such as the Earth being flat, although it is agnostic, (continue)

Evolution was a religious Idea. Back in 410 Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in North Africa was the first to describe evolution by natural selection. "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."



This book is a tremendous work. At 1090 pages long it is a vast collection of religious musings and thoughts. Though it starts with a rather tedious microscopic analysis of the sins of the day it slowly transforms into a detailed bible study and finally a theological, philosophical and even scientific treasure troth.



Saying that though, there are a few bits in it that seem a bit fifth century and are a bit dated when viewed with today's eyes. At one point he comically rejects the idea that people live on the other side of the world. However considering its age those parts that we now know to be incorrect are few and far between.



In some ways he is my hero. He brought theology and observations about the world together. Being in one sense the first clergymen to realise that science and religion were complementary. Augustine says in the book that god is the author of all natures. There are no argument that Dawkins is presently using that Augustine didn't unpick by logic 1600 years ago.



Augustine does though lay the foundation for the catholic church's Galileo's heresy trials. Augustine suggests in this book that authority or at least agreement between learned men provides a strong fortress from which a particular point of view can be defended. Augustine failed to realise that the fortresses themselves could and would be built above fallacious points of view.



Augustine criticised the idolisation of the pontiff. He recounts stories of ancient meteorite falls in Italy. The unbelievable range and scope of this book will make it one of the most interesting books you will ever read.

A beautiful, beautiful work of art full of divine inspiration and the passion of God.

One of the things I love about reading is the opportunity it provides to grow in mind and.heart, simply by pushing against the thought, "Oh, that's not the kind of book I enjoy -- it's too [whatever]." There was a time when I never thought I would read a book as overtly religious -- not to mention as obviously part of a religious tradition different from mine (Judaism) -- as this one is.

Saint Augustine of Hippo is a seminal figure in Catholic Christian thought (of course in his time, there was no Protestant Christianity). Hard to overstate how influential he was, even in his own time (the fourth century CE), and almost 2,000 years later, he and his two major books -- this one, and the earlier Confessions of Saint Augustine (which I read several years ago) -- are classics of Christian history and thought.

So it was more than a bit of a stretch that I decided to pick up City of God. Confessions, although certainly religious, is more of a memoir -- Saint Augustine's personal account of his youth and conversion to Christianity. It's fascinating, but a considerably less challenging read.

I am so glad that I did decide to read City of God, and discovered what a brilliant, accomplished, complicated man Saint Augustine was, and how remarkable his literary masterpiece really is.

What I discovered was that, although he was certainly entirely committed to Christian orthodoxy (the divinity of Christ, the literal reality of Heaven and Hell, of punishment for sin, of the singular truth of Christianity), in many ways -- his views on war, on torture, on sexual violence for example -- he was ahead of his time. He was very skeptical about the uses not to mention the morality of war, deplored torture (something one would think all devout Christians would oppose, given that their Savior, Jesus Christ himself, was tortured to death, but, sadly, is not universally condemned), and had strikingly enlightened views about rape. He not only recognized the evil of rape, but explicitly stated, with impossible to mistake firmness, that a woman's chastity is not damaged or compromised when she is forced into sexual intercourse, and that she should not be shamed or feel ashamed.

There is so much more to say about this magnificent book, but so much of it has already been said, and I wanted to focus on the points I have not seen expressed.

This comment by Thomas Merton seems appropriate:

“Here is a book that was written over fifteen-hundred years ago by a mystic in North Africa. Yet to those who have ears to hear, it has a great deal to say to many of us who are not mystics, today, in America. ‘The City of God” is a monumental theology of history . . . the autobiography of the Church written by the most Catholic of her saints . . . “The City of God”, for those who can understand it, contains the secret of death and life, war and peace, hell and heaven.”

Book XVII
St. Augustine’s concern in this chapter, or the book as he calls it, is with tracing the prophecies which predicted the coming of Christ from the time of the prophet Samuel (11th Century BC) to king Solomon (c. 970-931, who succeeded king David (c. 1010–970 BC) ), not a great deal of time. After that period of the kings who followed little record survives what may have been said of that event until St. John the Baptist baptized and pointed our Jesus when He was still unknown.

St. Augustine quoted Psalm 45, lines 1-17, at length, Psalms 48 and 87. He told us in Chapter 15 that he already expounded on “what David may have prophesied in the Psalms concerning the Lord Jesus Christ or His Church . . .Let him then who will, or can, read these volumes, and he will find out how many and great things David, at once kind and prophet, has prophesied concerning Christ and His Church, to wit, concerning the King and the city which He has built.”

Book XVIII
St. Augustine tracks the major kingdoms of human history, Assyria, Babylon, Greece, Rome. along with that of Israel. As one kingdom vanishes another appears. Israel (”the promised land”) is in existence seven centuries already when Rome is founded. St. Augustine reads the coming of Jesus Christ in the prophecies of one of the ancient Greek Sibyls. He then references Jewish prophesies that mention Christ’s coming. Prophet Isaiah “prophesied much more than the others did concerning Christ and the Church.” The story of Jonah, the whale, foretold the story of Christ. Judaism was replaced by Christianity. St. Augustine believes citing St. Paul that they will some day be converted to Christianity. Yet we Christians must suffer more persecutions on our pilgrimage to the city of God and practice charity and forgiveness. The Antichrist will come at the end but Jesus will extinguish him.

Book XX Notes
St. Augustine writes about happiness in the time to come after life, judgment and bodily resurrection of both good and evil people. The good will be brought to eternal happiness of both the body and soul while the evil ones will be sent to eternal punishment. Jesus Christ Himself will come from heaven to judge: "The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear shall live"

St. Augustine points that God’s justice is mysterious when we see the suffering and hardships sometimes of good people while sinners live good lives but we should “bear without distress the evils that the good also suffer and not attach much importance to the goods that the evil also acquire.” The Scripture teaches us to live in humility and practice charity. All will all be clarified on judgment day.

St. Augustine advises not to look for signs of the time of the coming of the end and quotes the familiar line that the end will come “like a thief in the night.” In the meantime, so to say, St. Augustine interprets St. John’s vision in the Apocalypse of an angel chaining a dragon, the devil, for a thousand years to prohibit him from "deceiving those nations which belong to Christ." It seems to me that St. Augustine refers to the time from the coming of Christ to the end of the world as the “thousand years.” The devil was very effective in “deceiving” many nations since the time of St. Agustine to now, in the twentieth Century alone. This apparently was not the time yet for the devil to "exert his full power of temptation." I cannot imagine what he would have done during the past Century if he was still chained up in a pit. But that time is coming, says St. Augustine, when "he and his nations will rage with all their powers" (Chapter 8). As the Scripture tells us, we would not know if we were near the end of the world.

Book XXI

St. Augustine gives his vision of Hell after the end of the world reserved for the damned and the devils. He describes it as a state of pain and suffering from which there is no coming back. He considers the nature of the soul’s suffering in the hell fire, repentance that will bring no reprieve. It does not provide any means of curing humans or the fallen angels. There is no coming back.

He addresses objections of Origen (c. 185-254) who “believed that even the devil himself and his angels after suffering those more severe and prolonged pains which their sins deserved, should be delivered from their torments, and associated with the holy angels.” (p. 788). This would mean that God may change His mind about the eternal punishment of the bad angels. St. Agustine does not think that possible. The Church rejected this as contrary to Scripture.

He addresses other objections to why the punishment should be eternal for sins and not proportioned to the temporal commission of the offences. Objects also to the notion that the saints may be praying to get the damned out of hell. The Church prays for its enemies but only for those in this life hoping to reform them. Praying for souls that will be damned would not only be worthless but odd.

He justifies the punishment for Adam’s original sin. All human beings inherited the terrible punishment because the paradise that God gave to man was so great and good that it merited the enormous punishment by the free will turning away from God and His goodness to man. Adam and Eve’s transgression was very great. That is at the bottom of their disobedience and rebellion, their rejection of God’s gift.

Despite spending the time in contemplating Hell and giving examples from the limited knowledge of the natural world in his time that he relates to bodies living in fire and materials that burn but are not consumed St. Augustine is more interested in telling us how to avoid hell in the future. He does tell us though that our worldly experience is insufficient to know what is possible in God’s creation.

Book XXII

This final book is St. Augustine’s effort to give us some views about blessed City of God after the last judgment. The blessed will be attaining immortality--“what the angels never lost.” He tells us also early in the Book that God does not change His will and become angry with those “to whom he was previously gentle. . .God’s will, like his foreknowledge, is eternal and he has already accomplished everything he has willed, both in heaven and on earth.”

St. Augustine reminds us that foretold the resurrection of bodies to eternity not by theologians but rather by “fishermen out on the sea of this world with the nets of faith, men with no education in the liberal arts.”

He described a number of miracles he witnessed himself in his days in chapter 8 and 9.

St. Augustine estimates the constitution of the resurrected bodies, whether they died healthy or infirm, young or in old age, retaining of gender, reconstituted if destroyed or dissolved.

He takes time to praise God in Chapter 21. In Chapter 29 he makes more attempts at describing what we shall see and know “wherever we turn our eyes but he also acknowledges he does not know what heaven will be like quoting St. Paul’s familiar “peace of God which surpasses all understanding.”

Just a selection of questions I now have answers to:

1. Are we to believe that angels mated with women, and that the giants resulted from these unions?
2. How can twins be conceived at the same time and yet one be female and the other male?
3. Is an unjust government the same as a criminal gang?
4. Which philosopher got closer to Christianity? Plato or Aristotle?
5. Are all men saved? What about all Catholics?

1100 pages later, and I am now prepared to defend against heresies associated with each...

In reading St. Augustine's classic book, I was very aware that he lived "long ago and far away" from my world. That said, I was surprised by how pertinent his questions remain in the world today. His honest pondering the byways of the human heart and our exchanged meetings, heroic and villainous, drew forth his contemplative thoughts. On religious experiences and matters of faith, he had few equals, and his conclusions certainly gave me a reason to pause and consider life as far more meaningful than daily distractions would have me believe. When he strayed into the area of science, he slipped off his mark and followed uninformed knowledge into a rabbit hole of misconceptions. But his logic remains respectable nonetheless. A truly powerful reflection on the depth of the human experience in relationship with the God who made us.

Only an Englishman strives for happiness and as Varro will show as summarized by Augustine there are 288 possible specific philosophies which can possibly actualize our happiness and none of them are going to help us reach our earthly desire for happiness in this plane of existence, and Nietzsche was correct to say that about the English and mock them for their wrong headedness and Augustine gets it too.

Aeneid will flee Troy carrying his father’s body and will carry it with him to found Rome, we bring our past with us as we create our future through our present. Augustine tells his story by using Aeneid, Virgil, Cicero, Cato and a pantheon of other Roman characters and Gods, while bringing Livy’s history to life.

Reading parts of this book was as if I were rereading the fantastic stories of Livy. It doesn’t really matter if the rape of Lucretius never happened, or Brutus killed his two sons for the sake of the Roman republic or not, or if the Sabine women were really raped; what is important is that all Romans know the stories and believe them to be true, and that contributes to making the Romans who they are and it is through that lens and with those beliefs that Augustine formulates his vision.

Cato commits suicide. Augustine will say suicide is always wrong and therefore Cato committed a mortal sin. Dante is more forgiving. Dante is generous to Cato and puts the pagan Cato in purgatory. Augustine has at most hints for a kind of purgatory in his eschaton, but will just say suicide is wrong and unforgivable and is murder and will even state for Cato as well as Judas they will have what is coming to them.

Dante forgives Cato because Cato killed himself for what Dante thought were the right reasons of trying to return Rome to its glory from what Caesar would allow, while Augustine does not forgive Cato since Augustine will never compromise or excuse any breach in protocol towards heavenly perfection. The City of God’s first word is glorious but it does not refer to earthy glory but heavenly glory.

Mercury, messenger of the Gods, also means speech, since he facilitates communications between gods and humans. Those kinds of tidbits are everywhere within this book. Augustine does not want to alienate his pagan audience and he gives the pagan defender Varro (d. 27 BC) a fair summation, a summation of pagan religion that I have never seen better presented. Unfortunately, I’ll never get to read Varro’s pagan analysis in more detail anywhere else since his works on the pagan religion have been lost.

Augustine slips into a lot of magical thinking and has a weird fixation on number-ology and thinks there is magic with certain numbers and argues convincingly to that effect until you realize that is just silly, and he is always willing to accept the fantastic supernatural from the past and from his present. I ignored the voodoo stuff in this book. There’s a lot of that in this book.

I don’t really care whether Jonah was swallowed by a whale, but I do care how he allegorically (typologically) pre-configures Christ. When learning a foreign language as an adult, first you translate word for word, then you learn to think in that language without translating. Jonah was mad because the Ninevites did repent and God did not destroy the city, but the real meaning for all of this gets explained through Augustine’s decoder ring as if one had learned a foreign language and the reader through Augustine connects history with the present and the future kingdom to come, at least all according to Augustine.

Augustine will tell his reader that pathos comes from the Greek for perturbations and the passion that leads to pathos is a perturbation from reason and man is a rational animal and that means when we let our passions rule, we are acting contrary to human nature, and passionate thinking is a perturbation against human nature.

I’ll bet you that Augustine said at least 10 different times that all is vanity and nothing changes under the sun by quoting from Ecclesiastes, The Preacher (my favorite book of the Bible). We are trapped, and happiness is elusive (except for an Englishman), and as with Aeneid we carry the weight of the past with us as we await the future from a present that gets filtered by our own expectations that are shaped by how we felt about the past. Only as we step out of ourselves and see beyond our earthly nature can we begin to feel our real purpose, or when we enter the heavenly kingdom and get to experience our past, present and future as one, at least as according to Augustine.

Augustine has taken all of what was known at his time period and written a book that combines that knowledge such that a student in say about 425 CE could read this book and get the single best encyclopedia of what it meant to be Roman during that time period.

I started reading this book about five years ago and stopped it after page 300. I thought, how absurd, I don’t need an argument that astrology is bogus because twins behave differently, and what was all this stuff about Bible citations, and besides I didn’t believe his religious view point whatsoever. Now I realize I was wrong to have stop. His immanent critic of pagan religions is masterful. His defense of his own beliefs could never be immanently refuted. He also has this masterful presentation of the psychology of human beings. In some ways, he precedes Freud in that respect, and just as with Freud one can not overturn psychoanalysis by using the language of psychoanalysis, one can only refute it when one gets out of its tautologies. Augustine’s religious beliefs are irrefutable when looked at with his own assumptions and his masterfully deceptive tautologies, and this time as I was reading the book, I realized it was best just to sit back and enjoy the ride, because Augustine knows how to tell his story while astutely revealing human nature and our predicament, and for him he uses a typography of a heavenly city of God.

I once heard a historian say that Augustine reconciles the theology of Paul of Tarsus with the polity of Cicero and the philosophy of Plotinus. After having read this book, I don’t think it is as true as I once thought it was. Augustine does quote from Cicero a lot, and Plotinus (and even more from Porphyry a student of Plotinus), Augustine actually goes in his own direction differently from Cato and Plotinus and doesn’t really quote from Paul a lot while definitely never contradicting him but never quite seeming to appeal to him any more than he has to.

For those who enjoy re-reading Dante’s Divine Comedy, I would highly recommend reading this book. Augustine contextualizes a lot of the characters that will end up in the Comedy and even his concept of Hell where only those who are there want to be there while they are only vaguely aware of time passing and his concept of Heaven where the past, present and future all happens simultaneously and sin is not present though free will does exist but it is not ever contrary to the will of the divine since the ultimate state of being is reflecting in the divine creator’s presence eternally and experiencing his love reciprocally and sin will be allowed but never practiced because the alternative is never thought of since the person has exactly what they want forever and a day.

A remarkably complex book that is equally entertaining and enjoyable as long as I was willing to see it on its own terms and get past my own prejudices against all religions.