The year is 410 A.D. the Goths, like
an unrelenting tide had risen up against the great Roman Empire and had crashed upon the very gates of the eternal city itself, Rome. The gates crumbled and the Goths had destroyed and sacked the great city. To many the world had ended. Rome had carved a name for itself through its
expansion and conquering of the known world.
As one historian had put it, “whether you were from Spain, Egypt, or the
eternal city itself, you were a Roman. Regardless of what language you spoke
you were a Roman citizen”. This was a result of the Roman idea of a one world
nation. However, regardless of how great
Rome had become, like all great empires Rome would eventually fall, and fall it
did.
Like all great catastrophes which
have plagued man throughout the centuries those who were involved searched for
a reason behind all of the calamities which had befallen them and with
fingers waiting to be pointed they turned their gaze to the newest and youngest
of its inhabitants, the Christians. The
Pagans needed a scapegoat, someone to blame for all the terrible things which
had come to pass. So, the prosecutors of the pagan courts of Rome began to
build a case against the still forming Christian Church. The charges they
brought against the Christians:
“The calamities of the world and
especially the recent sack of Rome by the Goths, ought to be attributed to
Christianity and its prohibitions of the worship of the gods”.
It seems that the Pagans were ready to
throw Christianity to the wolves but as it is with every age of the Church, she
had a great defender, Aurelius Augustine or as he is more commonly known St.
Augustine of Hippo. To answer the charges levied against Christianity Augustine
wrote twenty-two books in the defense of Christianity. The culmination of these
books is what is known as Civitate Dei
or The City of God.
Without
wasting any time St. Augustine begins his book by writing his defense against
the accusations the Pagans had made against Christianity. This defense takes up the first half of this
book. The City of God is by no means
an “easy” read. Augustine is extremely
meticulous in the forming of his arguments making sure that he gives
enough proof (and in some cases more than enough) to validate his arguments. In
the first half of this book Augustine turns the Pagans eyes away from the
Christianity and back towards themselves.
His main argument is twofold; the first is that Rome had suffered
calamities long before the advent of Christ and the forming of Christianity and
second; that Rome best prospered when its citizens had lived virtuous
lives. It is astounding to see
Augustine’s command of rhetoric and his knowledge of history as well as his
fearlessness when it comes to showing the acts the pagans themselves.
For example, one of the arguments he makes against the pagans and their refusal
to become Christian is, “that those who complain against Christianity really
desire to live without restraint in shameful luxury”[i], he goes on to write, “For
why do you complain about Christianity, unless because you desire to enjoy your
luxurious licence unrestrained, and to lead an abandoned an profligate life
without the interruption of any uneasiness or disaster?”[ii]. Augustine has no qualms calling it like he
sees it. Augustine also shows a great understanding of the history of Rome as
well as Roman law. When he is writing
about the sacking of Rome he makes a point to show the Romans that what had
occurred to them was no different
than what the Roman law had required of its soldiers when conquering other
lands. In the first half of City of God Augustine
takes time and gradually builds an impenetrable defense of Christianity and
exposes the hypocrisy of the Romans and the folly of the claims they had made
against the Christians.
The
second half of the book is dedicated to what Augustine calls the two cities.
The one is the “City of Man” and the other “The City of God “. This second half of the book moves away from
the legal and apologetic rhetoric which Augustine employed in the first half
and leans towards an exegetical tone as well as a pastoral tone. Beginning with Book XI Saint Augustine begins
to unfold what can only be referred to as his Theology of History. Starting with the separation of the good
angels and the bad angels Augustine starts to show the “blueprint” of the two
cities. He then moves from the heavenly
hosts to the creation of man and begins to show through Sacred Scripture the
development and the destinies of the two cities. It is with great care that Saint Augustine
undertakes this task. He begins with
Adam and Eve. Augustine starts his journey of the two cities from the very
beginning of humanity and painstakingly shows the many generations which came
from Adam and Eve, their divergences, as well as how and through whom the “City
of God” was preserved. Along with the
physical history of the cities, that is the generations through which they were
both begotten and preserved, he also points to the habits which are proper to
the inhabitants of each, namely of vice and virtue. It is important however, to note that to
Augustine both cities, the one of man and the one of God, both searched for
peace. However, in Book XIV Augustine
points out that “the things necessary for this mortal life are used by both
kinds of men and families alike, but each has its own peculiar and widely
different aim in using them…the earthly city seeks an earthly peace…in the well
ordered concord of civic obedience and
rule…the heavenly city, or rather the part that sojourns on earth and lives by
faith, makes use of this peace only because it must, until this moral condition
which necessitates it shall pass away”[iii]. Thus, the fundamental
difference between the heavenly city and the earthly city is that the heavenly
city only sees the earthly as a means to an end, whereas the earthly city tries
to find the end within itself.
The City of God
is the culmination of thirteen years of hard work and dedication by one of the
greatest and most influential writers of the Catholic Church. It is by no means and easy undertaking to
read however, to those who wish to deeper their understanding of the Church and
their faith, the author of this review could not recommend a better book. Not
only does The City of God show the eternal
destiny of the Church, it also reveals the roots of the Church which extend all
the way back to the beginning of creation and shows its continuity in Sacred
Scripture. It is a dense read and at
times requires one to go back and reread passages several times to understand
what is trying to be conveyed but like Thomas Merton wrote in his introduction
to The City of God, “Those who have
ears to hear, it has a great deal to say to many in America…The City of God, for those who can
understand it, contains the secret of death and life, war and peace, Hell and
Heaven”.
[i]
St. Augustine, City of God, trans.
Marcus Dods, New York: (The Modern Library 1993)
[ii] Ibid
[iii]
St. Augustine, 695
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