This is a long, grueling ordeal and I have several major problems with it. First, Augustine is unabashedly predestinarian. That is a heresy, but it hadn’t been declared as such until after Augustine’s death. The church makes the polite assumption that Augustine would have recanted had he lived long enough for the debates on predestinarianism. Second, Augustine speaks of the Supreme Good, sometimes as law and order, sometimes as peace. If he places God above these, it is not explicit and the same must be said of love, which is God. Third, Augustine is aggressively misogynistic. For example in Book XV, Ch 22, Augustine interprets the opening lines of Gen 6, the lines about the sons of God marrying the daugters of men in terms of his two cities, the sons of the city of God marrying the daughters of the city of men and the women captivating and corrupting the men. He also likens it to the fall of man, also attributed to a woman. ( “…this calamity, as well as the first, was occasioned by woman.) Fourth, Augustine’s world view is thoroughly aristocratic, believing that the best shall rise above the worst, even in heaven and that the relative merits of people on earth will determine their relative status in heaven(Book XXII, Chapter 30). This, despite the parables of the prodigal son, the lost coin, the lost sheep and the laborers in the vineyard. Fifth, Augustine’s view of angels is derived from a confusion about ancient myths. Augustine’s view that the world wasless than 5,000 years old leads him to regard the Greek myths as the most venerable and the Greek philosophers as the greatest of the pre-Christian world. But his sense of Greek myth is colored heavily by Vergil and he has no idea of the basis of Greek myth in astronomy (or astrllogy in his time before astronomy had been separated from astrology). The Greeks studied the planetos (from which we derive our word planet); but planetos means wanderers and the Greeks divided the wanderers into gods, which never strayed from their heavenly realm (except in disguise) and the heroes who sometimes came to earth. We would call these groups planets on the one hand and comets, asteroids and meteors on the other. Augustine reckoned those wanderers who were thought to have done terrible things as evil angels and built a terrifying view of angels from these misconceptions. Angel means messenger of God and God can, of course, use anything or anyone as a messenger. Most of God’s messengers are people who have been willing to act as God wishes, providing signs and encouragement to us in our daily lives. However, the Bible also speaks of Angels in other ways. The most significant s Gabriel’s annunciation to Mary, an invitation to bear the incarnate Word. We have much to learn about angels but I don’t think Augustine is a useful or reliable guide.
In short, even though Augustine is one of only about three dozen doctors of the church, a title which actually means that all of his writings can be profitably read, I would not recommend The City of God to anyone except students of the history of these various follies. Martin Luthor relied heavily on Augustine. We would all do better to rely on scripture.

It's hard to believe, but I submit that Augustine is somehow underrated as a theologian.

"Two cities, then have been created by two loves: that is, the earthly by love of self extending even to contempt of God, and the heavenly by love of God extending even to contempt of self. The one, therefore, glories in itself, the other in the Lord; the one seeks glory from men, the other finds its highest glory in God, the Witness of our conscience. The one lifts up its head in its own glory; the other says to its God, 'Thou art my glory, and lifter up of mine head.' In the Earthly City, princes are as much mastered by the lust for mastery as the nations which they subdue are by them; in the Heavenly, all serve one another in charity, rulers by their counsel and subjects by obedience. The one city loves its own strength as displayed in its mighty men; the other says to God, 'I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength.'" - XIV.28

A Masterpiece of Christian Apologetics

St. Augustine started the book to address a pressing crisis and the practical problem of suffering, and then gradually rose to the height of Christian philosophy and theology that has rarely, if ever, been surpassed since. He gave a sweeping overview of ancient history, the history of the Jewish people intertwined with the history of the worldly empires (Roman and Assyrian), and revealed the main, though hidden, plot in the script of history, i.e., the birth, growth and maturation of the City of God, His Temple, the Body of Christ, His Image Incarnate. In the process, Augustine introduced and expounded the concepts of free will, original sin, God's foreknowledge and salvation, immortality of the soul, resurrection of the body, the parallel development of the City of God vs. the City of Man, the former destined for eternal life and the latter eternal punishment.

(Read full review at Nemo's Library)

One of the great classics in all of Christian--no, check that--human history, The City of God presents two contrasting groups of people, or to use the imagery of the book, two contrasting cities: the earthly and the heavenly. Everyone in the world falls into either one city or the other, and Augustine painstakingly lays out their origins, their history, and their destiny.

This fifth century book was the classic Christian book throughout the church's history until the individualism of the Enlightenment finally overpowered it in the twentieth century. But what Augustine does here is what the individualism of the modern world claims it wants so badly: to find an identity. He defines Christian identity by placing it within the Christian community (both historically and in the present day). Augustine's implication is clear: one who identifies himself with Christ knows that through being identified with His people, the church.

This is certainly a difficult book to read, primarily for its imposing length, but also because so much of the history is so far removed from our everyday experience. That said, the theological narrative is clear throughout, and the hope that drives the work toward its conclusion makes it one of the most important books ever written.

Any star rating is entirely meaningless. This is a ludicrous book, astonishing in scope, and in desperate need of an editor to make sense of it. I simply can't; it's overwhelming. Arid stretches of rhetoric suddenly cough up a fascinating philosophical argument, which then itself belches forth more arid rhetoric, and so on. Augustine takes the ancient pagan beliefs to pieces by showing that they simply can't be rationalized--then immediately forgets the obvious lesson and tries to rationalize Christianity in order to defend it. Who the hell am I to criticize, though?

That said, I'd much rather read about this book than read it again. Never before have I felt the ancient's wisdom so strongly: this is not a book, this is 22 books, and trying to read it as one is the definition of hubris.

...el paradigma holderliniano [...] fue articulado por primera vez por San Agustín en la Ciudad de Dios: "donde se halla el peligro crece también lo que pueda salvarnos".

Visión de Paralaje Pág.112

terrible

Stunning. Not just a theologically good book, but also an enjoyable one.

BOOK XII- page 244, Created Wills and the distinction of Good and Evil

“Preferring the pomp of pride to this sublimity of eternity, the craftiness of vanity to the certainty of truth, and the turmoil of dissension to the union of love, they became proud, deceitful, and envious.”

This and John Calvin’s Institutes of Christianity seem to be competing for most meaty theological quesadilla.
———
“And yet, will we ever come to an end of discussion and talk if we think we must always reply to replies? For replies come from those who either cannot understand what is said to them, or are so stubborn and contentious that they refuse to give in even if they do understand.”

“Pride is the beginning of sin. And what is pride but the craving for undue exaltation? And this is undue exaltation - when the soul abandons Him to whom it ought to cleave as its end, and becomes a kind of end to itself.”

“What grace is meant to do is to help good people, not to escape their sufferings, but to bear them with a stout heart, with a fortitude that finds its strength in faith.”

“For a prohibition always increases an illicit desire so long as the love of and joy in holiness is too weak to conquer the inclination to sin”

“He who lives according to God ought to cherish towards evil men a perfect hatred, so that he shall neither hate the man because of his vice nor love the vice because of the man.”

“So it falls out that in this world, in evil days like these, the Church walks onward like a wayfarer stricken by the world's hostility, but comforted by the mercy of God. Nor does this state of affairs date only from the days of Christ's and His Apostles' presence on earth. It was never any different from the days when the first just man, Abel, was slain by his ungodly brother. So shall it be until this world is no more.”

Probably the least interesting book in the canon. Much of it is theological history or Biblical exegesis.

I picked up City of God in the winter of 2014 after a year or so of preparation. My swash-buckle existence in Hell, New York, afforded me a room with a window, bed, a chair squeezed in against the wall so as to prop up my legs on the bed in order to read or write, the hardcover was a no-go - this was a let down, as Thomas Merton's introduction seemed as if a near divine green light in this bleak hour of my life, or Augustine had put it, 'This matter of days.' I ventured out and picked up a paperback copy - and then the proverbial storm of shit began.

Last Spring some friends came upon a mind-condition hardcover copy of City of God; as Fortuna would have it, I also came upon a room with a desk. This little digital, public catalog, is no place to divulge in the advanced, nearly incurable medical condition which held me in a vise-grip for many months afterward.

As I healed, as the manuscripts which generally went nowhere were polished and handed over, I knew it was time, at last, for City of God.

Some months later (This past weekend) I was talking to an acquaintance of mine, a nurse, who asked me, "So what music do you listen to these days? Reading anything good?"

"It's funny you ask," said I, Author, attempting to press my temples together, so as to implode my brain. "I've been listening to Schubert, if anything, and I am about halfway through City of God. Do you think this has anything to do with my malaise, which I until now blamed on some record-breaking winter?"

"It's up to you," said Friend, "But it sounds like a recipe for insanity. I am only half joking."

For whatever reason, this Thursday following Ash Wednesday has been a day of restoration, which includes cleaning up the rooms of my personal library and study. I suppose my writing desk is a bit out of joint, though nowhere near dust, but at present I am working strictly in transcription. What is it? What is the problem!

Yes, yes, yes. Augustine, I have halted you at your commentary on Plato. It shall be the perfect place to pick up again in the future. For now, I must end this. If I am going to carry on this Crusade of mine in 'Read now the books you've always wanted to read, but knew not enough about life and literature and history to fathom; like a good drunk, the first step is admitting it: I must now step forth to a secular Tome, in Edward Gibbon, unabridged.

Tell me Old Master,

Tell me Everything,

Knowing this, &

More importantly,

Understanding:

All Sane Men have

the (Scottish) Rite

to Admit:

"I am sick to Death of Doctrines."

Finally made my way all the way through this beauty cover to cover. Life changing.