The City of God, Volume I

The culmination of God’s redemptive work is found in Christ, the true Mediator and the conqueror of demons. Unlike the deceitful mediators of theurgy, who demand worship and lead souls astray, Christ—though equal with the Father—in the form of a servant chose to be a sacrifice rather than to receive one. He is both the Priest who offers and the Offering that is presented. Through His death, He conquered the demons not by propitiating them but by triumphing over them. The saints who follow Him conquer the powers of the air not by appeasing evil spirits but by abiding in God and exercising true piety. They pray not to demons but to God against the demons, and they overcome through the name of Him who assumed humanity without sin, that He might bring about the remission of sins. For men are separated from God only by sins, from which we are in this life cleansed not by our own virtue, but by the divine compassion; through His indulgence, not through our own power.

Augustine addresses Porphyry’s assertion that “principles”—by which the Platonist means the Father and the Son (the Intellect of the Father)—can purify the soul. While Porphyry correctly identified the need for divine agency in purification, he failed to recognize that the Principle has become incarnate in Jesus Christ. The Word, by whom all things were made, assumed a human soul and body in order to cleanse and renew human nature. Porphyry despised this incarnation because of its humility—the body taken from a woman, the shame of the cross. His lofty wisdom scorned such lowly things. Yet this very humility was the means by which God’s grace was most graciously manifested. The true Mediator showed that sin, not flesh, is the evil to be overcome. He assumed mortal nature without sin, submitted to death for our sake, and by resurrection transformed mortality into incorruptibility.

Augustine presses the Platonists on their own terms: they ascribe such excellence to the intellectual soul that they maintain it can become consubstantial with the divine intellect. Why, then, should they stumble at the notion that one human soul was assumed by the Word in a unique manner for the salvation of many? They believe that the world is a blessed and eternal animal, that the stars are blessed beings possessing eternal bodies. Why should they refuse to believe that Christ could carry a glorified body into heaven? Their own philosophy provides analogies for the incarnation and resurrection, yet they reject these truths. The reason, Augustine concludes, is not intellectual but moral: they are proud, and Christ is humble. They are ashamed to be corrected by a Master who was crucified, preferring their own wisdom to the foolishness of God, which is wiser than men.

Augustine notes that Porphyry himself modified Platonic doctrine in several respects, rejecting the transmigration of human souls into animal bodies and asserting that the purified soul returns to the Father never to be entangled again in material defilement. These improvements demonstrate that Porphyry was willing to correct Plato when he perceived the truth. Yet he refused to accept the far greater correction that Christianity offers. He acknowledged that grace is granted to few to reach God, that human virtue alone is insufficient for the soul’s ascent. He saw the country of blessedness from afar but did not know the way to enter it.

This brings Augustine to the climax of his argument regarding the universal way of salvation. Porphyry confessed, near the end of his work on the soul’s return, that no system of doctrine offering a universal way of deliverance had yet been received—from the truest philosophy, from the wisdom of the Indians, from the reasoning of the Chaldaeans, or from any other source. He acknowledged that such a way must exist, for Divine Providence would not leave humanity destitute of the means of salvation, yet he lamented that it had not come to his knowledge. Augustine identifies this universal way: it is the grace of God in Jesus Christ, proclaimed to all nations, purifying the whole human person in preparation for immortality. This way was promised to Abraham when God declared that in his seed all nations would be blessed. It was foretold by the prophets, who announced that the mountain of the Lord’s house would be established and all nations would flow to it. Christ Himself declared that He is the way, the truth, and the life. This way does not belong to one nation exclusively but is offered universally to all peoples.

Porphyry’s blindness to the Incarnation is traced to his pride. He could not accept the incarnation because it seemed too humble, too lowly, too unworthy of divine dignity. Yet the very features he despised—the virgin birth, the suffering, the death, the resurrection of the body—are the means by which God has accomplished what philosophy could never achieve: the purification and redemption of the whole human person, body and soul together. The Mediator assumed the entirety of human nature in order to heal it entirely. No other way of deliverance has ever been available, none is available now, and none ever will be. The souls of the righteous from every age—those who lived before the law, those under the law, and those who have received the gospel—have been and are being saved through this one Mediator, this one sacrifice, this one universal way.

Augustine concludes the book by signaling the transition to the next major division of his work. Having refuted the objections of those who prefer false gods to the Founder of the holy city, he now prepares to discuss the origin, the development, and the appointed ends of the two cities—the City of God and the earthly city—which are intermingled in the present age but will be separated at the final judgment. The argument has established that true worship belongs to the one true God alone, that the holy angels direct us to Him rather than to themselves, that the miracles of Scripture authenticate this worship, and that Christ alone is the universal way of salvation. Upon this foundation the remainder of the work will build, tracing the history of the two cities from their origins to their ultimate destinies.

With the first ten books completed—books devoted to refuting the enemies of the City of God and defending true religion against the false claims of the Roman gods and their philosophical defenders—Augustine now turns to the second and more constructive portion of his work. This new division will treat of the origin, historical progress, and final destinies of the two cities: the earthly and the heavenly. These two societies are presently commingled in the world, a mixture that will only be dissolved at the final judgment. The purpose is theological and pastoral: to instruct the faithful regarding their true citizenship and direct their affections toward the eternal homeland.