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.
Alternative Interpretations of Waters
Augustine concludes the chapter by addressing a specific, erroneous interpretation of the creation narrative that has arisen among some thinkers. Some have supposed that the angelic hosts are referred to under the name of “waters,” and that this is what is meant by the command, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters.” In this view, the waters above the firmament are understood to be the holy angels, while the waters below are interpreted as either the visible physical waters, the multitude of bad angels, or the nations of men. Augustine critiques this suggestion, noting that if this were the case, the text would not indicate when the angels were created, but only when they were separated.
More gravely, Augustine refutes the foolish and wicked opinion of certain heretics, specifically the Audians and Sampsæans, who have dared to deny that the waters were created by God. Their argument rests on the observation that nowhere in the Genesis narrative is it written, “God said, Let there be waters.” With equal folly, they might argue that the earth was not created by God, for nowhere do we read, “God said, Let the earth be.” However, Augustine counters, the opening declaration of Scripture—“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth”—necessarily encompasses the waters. The sea is included in the work of God, as the Psalmist testifies: “The sea is His, and He made it; and His hands formed the dry land.”
Furthermore, Augustine addresses the physical objections raised by those who would spiritualize the waters. Those who understand the angels by the waters above the skies often struggle with the specific gravity of the elements, fearing that waters, due to their fluidity and weight, could not naturally reside in the upper regions of the cosmos. Augustine exposes the inconsistency of this “world-weighing” logic by pointing to the human body. If these critics were to construct a man according to their own principles of physics, they would not place any moist humors—what the Greeks call “phlegm”—in the head, as water is heavy and belongs low. Yet, in God’s actual handiwork, the head is the seat of the phlegm, and most fittingly so. If these critics were unaware of this anatomical fact and were informed by Scripture that God placed a moist, cold, and therefore heavy element in the uppermost part of the human body, they would refuse to believe it. If confronted with anatomical reality, they would insist the text must mean something else. Augustine uses this analogy to affirm that God, as the Creator of all nature, has the authority to order the elements—whether in the cosmos or in the human body—according to His wisdom, not according to human presumptions about weight and place.
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