Thursday, June 28, 2018

City of God by St. Augustine of Hippo


         
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    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:
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“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.
   
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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”.
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[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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