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.
Thus, Augustine reaffirms the literal creation of the material elements. The waters are part of the physical creation, ordered by God’s command. While the spiritual meaning of the separation of good and evil angels remains the deeper truth conveyed by the narrative of light and darkness, the waters themselves are to be understood as created matter. Having clarified this point and defended the goodness and origin of all created things, Augustine brings the book to a close, having established the foundation of the two cities in the angelic division and prepared the way for the history of the earthly and heavenly cities in human affairs.
Augustine begins this book by addressing the composition of the two cities—the City of God and the city of man—demonstrating that these societies are not divided by species, such as angels versus men, but by the disposition of the will. He asserts that it is entirely congruous to speak of a single society composed of both holy angels and holy men, just as there is a single society of the wicked composed of both fallen angels and sinful men. The distinction between the good and the bad angels arises not from a difference in their nature or origin, for God, the supreme Creator, fashioned the essence of both, but solely from a difference in will and desire. The good angels steadfastly adhered to the common good of all, which is God Himself, finding their joy in His eternity, truth, and love. Conversely, the wicked angels, enamored of their own power and desiring to be a good to themselves, lapsed from that supreme beatitude. They traded the dignity of eternity for the inflation of pride, the assurance of truth for the vanity of deception, and unifying love for factious division. Thus, the cause of the blessedness of the good angels is their adherence to God, while the cause of the misery of the wicked is their forsaking of Him.
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