The City of God, Volume I

To demonstrate how unprecedented this clemency was, Augustine surveys the history of war, beginning with the fall of Troy. He cites Virgil’s account, familiar to every educated Roman, in which Priam is slaughtered at the altar and the Greeks desecrate the temples, dragging the image of Pallas from her shrine. The gods of Troy could not protect their own defenders; rather, the defenders protected the gods, and when the defenders fell, the gods were carried away as spoil. What use is a deity that cannot guard its guardians? The Romans, who prided themselves on clemency toward the vanquished, never extended that clemency to those who fled to temples. Caesar himself described the universal custom of war: virgins violated, children torn from parents, temples plundered, slaughter and burning everywhere. Marcellus, though he wept over Syracuse and issued an edict protecting chastity, still allowed the city to be sacked according to the custom of war, with no exemption for sacred places. Fabius, celebrated for leaving the “angry gods” to the Tarentines, yet did not spare the vanquished for the sake of those gods. The historians who recorded every detail of Roman virtue would surely have noted such an unprecedented act of mercy had it occurred. Therefore, the sparing of those who fled to Christian churches was something new under the sun—a restraint upon barbarian fury that must be attributed to the name of Christ.

Having established that the mercy shown in the churches was divine in origin, Augustine turns to address the deeper question of why God permits calamity to befall both the righteous and the wicked. He argues that the goods and ills of this present life are common to both, just as the sun rises and the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike. This arrangement serves a providential purpose: the good are not led to covet worldly happiness as their ultimate reward, nor are they driven to despair when adversity strikes. The same affliction proves and purifies the righteous while it damns and ruins the wicked. As fire makes gold bright but causes chaff to smoke, as the flail separates grain from straw, so the violence of suffering reveals the true character of the sufferer. The wicked blaspheme under affliction, while the righteous pray and give thanks. The difference lies not in what is suffered but in the soul of the one who suffers.

Augustine then explores why the good are often chastised alongside the wicked. He offers several reasons. First, even the righteous have their sins, though they be slight compared to the enormities of the wicked, and these temporal corrections serve to purify them. Second, the good often fail in their duty to admonish and reprove sinners, shrinking from the labor or fearing to give offense, and thus they justly share in the temporal punishment of the community whose morals they might have helped to correct. Third, affliction serves to wean the soul from excessive love of this present life. Fourth, suffering proves the sincerity of faith, as in the case of Job, whose trials demonstrated that he loved God for God’s own sake and not for the gifts God had bestowed. The good man, therefore, ought not to murmur against God when he suffers with the wicked, but should examine his own conscience and accept the discipline as a means of purification.

Regarding the loss of temporal goods, Augustine argues that Christians have lost nothing of true value. Their faith, their godliness, the hidden man of the heart—these remain secure. The apostle Paul taught that godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into this world and can carry nothing out. Those who used their wealth for good works, distributing freely and laying up treasure in heaven, have lost nothing that truly belonged to them; their treasure is safe where no thief can steal it. Those who hoarded their wealth have learned through the pain of loss to place their trust in the living God rather than in uncertain riches. Even those who were tortured to reveal hidden wealth learned that the desire for money, rather than its possession, was the true source of their torment. Augustine recounts the example of Paulinus of Nola, who, having voluntarily embraced holy poverty, prayed when the barbarians took him captive that he might not be troubled for gold and silver, for his treasure was laid up in heaven. The famine, too, served a providential purpose: those who died were delivered from the evils of this life, while those who survived were taught to live sparingly and endure hardship.

Augustine next addresses the horrors of death and the denial of burial. He argues that death is not an evil for the righteous, for it ushers them into a better life. The length of life is ultimately indifferent, for once life has ended, the longest and the shortest are brought to the same condition. What matters is not how one dies but into what state death ushers the soul. The denial of burial, though it appears a great indignity to human eyes, does not harm the dead, for they have no sensation. Christ declared that we should not fear those who kill the body but cannot harm the soul, and after death the body feels nothing. The psalmist’s lament over the unburied dead was meant to display the cruelty of the perpetrators, not the misery of the victims. The funeral rites and the care of the tomb are for the comfort of the living, not the benefit of the dead. Yet Christians ought not to despise the bodies of the departed, for they were the instruments of good works and will be raised again at the resurrection. The patriarchs gave commandment regarding their burial, Tobit was commended for burying the dead, and Christ himself approved the woman who anointed him for his burial. These acts of piety are pleasing to God because they express faith in the resurrection.

Regarding captivity, Augustine offers the consolation that God is present with his people even in bondage. Daniel and the three youths were captives, yet God did not abandon them. The prophet Jonah, in the belly of the sea-monster, was not forsaken. How much less will God abandon his people in the hands of human enemies, even barbarians? Augustine contrasts the Christian captive with the pagan hero Regulus. This Roman general, captured by the Carthaginians, was sent to Rome under oath to negotiate a prisoner exchange. He advised the senate against the exchange and then, bound by his oath to the gods, returned to Carthage to be tortured to death in a manner of fiendish ingenuity. The pagans celebrate his virtue, yet his fate demonstrates that the gods do not secure temporal happiness for their worshippers. If the gods could not protect their most faithful devotee, what ground have the pagans to blame Christianity for the calamities of Rome? The Christian captive, who looks for a heavenly country, is in a far better state than Regulus, who was bound by an oath to false deities.