Like so many school books this year, I need to come back to this one. There is so much to be gleaned that I feel like we only touched the surface.

Po vyše roku čítania, bolo by vhodné prečítať si to ešte raz. Tentokrát v latinčine :)

Five years and a lot of sporadic reading episodes later, I've finished one of my major reading ambition projects. I am not sorry for the time spent reading this. A true treasure in so many ways, and a pleasure to read slowly.

Writing this review was hard! I wanted so badly to just fall in love with Augustine and be radically transformed by him like so many people did before me. However, it just didn’t have that impact on me. A lot of my disappointments with this work came from that single failed expectation. Before diving in, let me make a couple of things clear: I read this work faster than it deserved, though I don’t think I missed anything crucial. Additionally, this was a required read for me; had I chosen it on my own, my review might be quite different.

I didn’t enjoy “City of God.” Frankly, I didn’t see what all the fuss was about (in the text itself). While I acknowledge its historical significance and recognize its importance in Christendom during the medieval period and the Reformation, I just didn’t find it relevant for today.

The work is divided into two major movements, further split into books and chapters with helpful chapter headings. Although the design is undoubtedly from Augustine's pen, there's debate about whether the chapter headings were added by Augustine himself, a disciple, or a later scribe.

At its core, the work presents the idea that the Bible outlines two cities: one of man, headed for perdition, and one of God, destined for ultimate glory. Augustine continually contrasts these two cities, highlighting their tension. If modern readers take anything from the text, it will likely be this concept.

The first major section covers the first ten books. It focuses largely on Roman deities and their cults, Roman views on Christianity (particularly related to the sacking of Rome in 410), and the civil magistrate. It's clear why this was vital to medieval Christianity and the Reformation, as it laid the groundwork for Christendom and challenged Roman Catholic deviations. However, I found it incredibly dull. The arguments seemed repetitive and tedious. Additionally, the section required a pretty vast knowledge of Roman history and society to even begin to make sense of it. We must recognize though, that historically the Church did triumph over the pagan worship Augustine describes. Christ trampled his feet over the Roman Empire and the false worship of Rome’s pagan gods. The argumentation against Rome and her idols false flat on modern ears that are inherently molded by Christianity and Christendom’s reign over the last 1500 years.

However, we may argue that while we no longer worship Apollo, Vulcan, or Bacchus, modern society has its own idols: summer vacations, commerce, strong drink, and revelry just to name a few. Applying Augustine's arguments to today's idols might be an interesting exercise, as would examining modern society's view of Christianity and its civil magistrates' sins. However, these thought experiments aren't drawn directly from this text. Modern readers would benefit more from contemporary writings on these topics.

The second part is somewhat more engaging. It delves deeper into the themes of the two cities, offering a systematic approach to Christian theology and comparing it to pagan beliefs. This section is more relevant to modern readers, though Augustine's views can still feel foreign. Different theological camps (Catholics, Reformed, neo-evangelicals) all lay claim to Augustine, but the reality is he really doesn’t fit neatly into any. He talks about God’s sovereignty and God’s providence in a way that modern Catholics (post-Trent, and even post-Scholastics) are going to disagree with. He talks about free will in a way that most modern Reformed people would be appalled to learn about. He ties almost every thing back to spiritual warfare in a way that will make the neo-evangelicals balk. And he talks about political theology in a way that will make a lot modern readers feel out of place. Again I posit, while this theology was interesting and certainly has something to teach us, modern readers will still be better served by things that make more coherent arguments and speak directly to their cultures.

So, who is this book for? It’s for 5th century Christians grappling with Rome’s decline and Christendom's rise, for late Roman officials figuring out how to rule while keeping faith, and for pagans witnessing a massive cultural shift. Outside of academic circles, its impact today is questionable. It’s not an accessible devotional for laypeople nor a source of profound theological insight for modern pastors. It may find more use on the shelves of historians and political theorists than those of lay people and pastors.

This particular Penguin Classics edition is well done. I doubt I would have made it through without their critical notes, helpful introduction, and reading list. The work is lengthy, but Penguin's thin paperweight and attractive, readable typeface make it manageable.

Over a thousand pages of almost nonsense, and I remember maybe 3 pages of it. So good.

I give this book a four star rating in recognition of its enormous importance in world history. There is a strong argument for not reading it given the wildly different results that are obtained depending whether the edition that you happen upon is a Calvinistic or a Roman Catholic project.

St. Augustine's first achievement is to demonstrate the strengths of Christianity versus Pagan religion and Pagan Philosophy. His second achievement is that he provides a comforting explanation of why the Visigoths were able to sack Rome the centre of Christianity. He explains that Christians are citizens of the City of God and this is where our prime loyalty lies. Earthly cities are just places of temporary residence until we rise to Heaven. Disasters that befall earthly cities are of no consequence.

The problem arises with the third major achievement. St. Augustine proposes a doctrine of predestination that is later picked up and more fully developed by Jean Calvin who in the process creates a compelling theological base to the Protestant Reformation. Catholic editors and translators tend to produce versions of the City of God that provide relatively less support to Calvin while Protestant scholars tend to highlight the sections that support Calvin. Because the complete City of God is very long, abridgements are common which aggravates the pro-Catholic or pro-Reformation biais of the edition even more.

I chose to read a Catholic edition and found very little that supported Calvin. Take great care with your choice of edition. Not reading it all is a legitimate option unless your are a theology student.

I don't really know how to review something like this in a format that I've used primarily for rating fiction, but I'll give it a shot.

The three stars are not meant as some kind of snobbish modern judgment on The City of God but my attempt to balance its theological and historical significance with the difficulty and not infrequent irrelevancy of the material. Augustine was adept at philosophy and rhetoric, keen in his exegetical analysis, and thorough in his argumentation, but many of the topics discussed and many of the frequent digressions, excurses, and flights of fancy are tedious to the modern reader, even a sympathetic one.

A suggestion: If you're interested in the theology of the work, skip the first ten chapters. Seriously. I hate skipping stuff, especially when I'm trying to get through classic works. I plowed through every word of this thing and I assure you -- you don't need to. You won't miss anything. Augustine's arguments against the Roman gods and the ancient Roman worldview(s) are really tough to get into. He spends a great deal of time explaining and then arguing against theories about the world that we would never dream of countenancing, with disproportionate amounts of time devoted to refuting very minor sub-points of philosophical systems.

Things pick up a bit at ch. 11, where some of Augustine's famous emphases emerge, such as the nature of evil as privation of good and the doctrine of original sin. We also get his take on biblical history with a hearty dose of typological interpretation that treads on and across the border with the allegorical not infrequently.

The book is full of intriguing observations and theological insights. The last three chapters deal with final judgment and the eternal state in ways that continue to be influential in contemporary theology. Augustine's eschatology is, I think, a major piece in the development of amillennialism. Perhaps sometime I'll come back here and put in a few of my notes.

Let me conclude for now with a quote that had me laughing out loud. It comes from the section describing the surprising operations of the human body in special cases that hint at how we shall live once our resurrected bodies submit entirely to our redeemed wills.

Some have such command of their bowels, that they can break wind continuously at pleasure, so as to produce the effect of singing (XIV.24).

If you are a strong Christian, most of this book will be a tedious grind of reiterating what you already know, but it is a great corrective device for many theological errors.

I will note here that I wasn't able to read the entire book. It is an exhaustive work and is the endeavor of St. Augustine to basically prove to all of humanity without any risk of refutation that Christianity is the one true way. He delivers a compelling argument, but I missed large portions of it due to how academically dry some of it was.

FIRST READING: OMG, I FINISHED!

SECOND READING: Worth absorbing every seven years. He addresses a lot of issues we don't struggle with, but perhaps some of that is BECAUSE of the foundational grace God expressed through patriarchs like Augustine. I certainly found applicable insights even if the presenting issues of the 21st century are somewhat different. His passion comes through, as does his erudition. Extra star. Maybe in 2028 I will give City of God the fifth star I'm sure it deserves. This was just based on my reading experience, asking whether he held my attention for as long as he asked for it. Goodness, he asked for it for a long time.

Amazing to read and wrestle with biblical commentary written ~1600 years ago!

not hard to read but does take bit to read the book

This is a monumental work of theology. Written just after the sacking of Rome, it starts by answering how God could allow a Christian city to fall. This proceeds with a detailed attack on paganism, and a defense of Christianity. He belabors these points, but then goes on to a treatise on Christian theology which sets a decided uncompromising tone. He endorses the predestination arguments later made by Calvin, and shows a narrow moral view. What you get is an excellent view of the early Christian Church, a church and time very different from today.