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 war against Alba Longa deepens the indictment. This mother-city, founded by Ascanius the son of Aeneas, represented Rome’s direct ancestral lineage. Yet Tullus Hostilius provoked a conflict driven solely by ambition and the desire for dominion. The decision to settle the war through combat between three brothers from each side—the Horatii and the Curiatii—resulted in devastating losses. Two of the Horatii fell before their surviving brother turned the tide, killing all three Curiatii. Augustine emphasizes that this “victory” left Rome with but one survivor returning home from the flower of her youth. The subsequent murder of Horatia by her victorious brother—she had wept for her betrothed, one of the fallen Curiatii—added a final atrocity. Augustine defends the sister’s grief as natural and humane, contrasting her genuine sorrow with Rome’s bloodthirsty celebration. The destruction of Alba itself, despite its status as the third refuge of the Trojan gods after Troy and Lavinium, proved that these deities cannot protect even the cities most sacred to their worship. They abandon their sanctuaries not because of human wickedness but because they possess no power to preserve them.
Augustine reinforces this demonstration of divine impotence by examining the destruction of historical Troy by the Roman general Fimbria during the civil wars. This second annihilation of Ilium proved more thorough and cruel than the legendary Greek conquest. Where the Greeks had allowed survivors and captives, Fimbria ordered complete extermination, burning the city and its inhabitants together. The gods, worshipped by both Romans and Trojans, did nothing. Their silence during this atrocity reveals that they possess no genuine power to defend their cities or their worshippers. The Romans, supposedly the chosen people of these deities, inflicted upon Troy a destruction more complete than any pagan enemy had achieved. The image of Minerva said to have remained standing amid the ruins proves nothing about divine power; it merely demonstrates that the demons associated with these idols were present to witness their own humiliation.
The Gallic sack of Rome provides further evidence of the gods’ inadequacy as guardians. When the barbarians overwhelmed the city, the gods managed to protect only the Capitol—and even that limited success was attributed to the cackling of geese rather than to divine intervention. Augustine mocks the notion that deities swift enough to respond to a bird’s alarm could not be bothered to save the rest of the city. Their tardiness and weakness as protectors stand exposed by Rome’s own historians.
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