The City of God stands as Augustine's masterwork of theological defense and construction, written over thirteen years in response to accusations that Christianity brought ruin upon Rome. This first volume contains the first ten books of sustained refutation—demolishing pagan claims that traditional worship secured either temporal prosperity or eternal happiness—followed by the beginning of his positive vision in Books Eleven through Thirteen, where he traces the origin of two societal orders to the primordial division among the angels. What emerges is not merely an apology for Christianity but a philosophy of history that subordinate the fate of empires to the hidden providence of the one true God, whose sovereignty extends from creation through the fall to the final judgment.
The Devil Sins from the Beginning
“The devil sinneth from the beginning” (1 John 3:8) does not mean he was created with a sinful nature, but that from the beginning of his sin he has persisted in sin. This refutes the Manichaean notion of an evil nature. The devil was created good; his wickedness is a defect of will, not a property of essence. Passages like Isaiah 14:12 and Ezekiel 28:13 confirm he was once perfect.
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