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 Knowledge of the Holy Angels
Angels know creatures not primarily in themselves but in the Word of God, in the eternal art by which they were made. This is a “noonday” knowledge, clear and certain. They also have a “twilight” knowledge when they behold creatures in their own being, which is dimmer. Their primary joy is in beholding God.
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