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.
This leads to the final clarification regarding the creation of the soul. Some have argued that when God breathed into Adam the breath of life, He was not creating the soul but imparting the Holy Spirit to an already-existing soul. They point to Christ breathing on His disciples and saying “Receive the Holy Spirit.” But Augustine demonstrates that the scriptural language distinguishes these events. The Greek word used for Adam’s breath is pnoē, a term frequently used of creatures; the word for the Holy Spirit is pneuma. The breath given to Adam created the rational soul, making the dust into a living being. This was not the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the Trinitarian sense but the initial creation of the human soul.
Scripture speaks of “living souls” and “the breath of life” even in reference to animals. What distinguishes the human soul is not the general term but its rational nature, created directly by God rather than produced from the waters and earth like the souls of beasts. The human soul, though immortal by creation, can die in the sense of being forsaken by God. The rebellious angels similarly died when they abandoned God, yet they continue to exist and feel, for they are immortal by nature. In the second death, both fallen angels and condemned humans will suffer eternally—alive to feel pain, dead to blessedness.
The book concludes by acknowledging a remaining question: how would Adam and Eve have procreated had they remained in their sinless state? The motion of disobedient desire in their members arose only after their transgression and God’s abandonment. How then would generation have occurred in a state of innocence? This question, too large for the present treatment, must be reserved for the following book.
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