The City of God, Volume I

Augustine reminds his readers that the scenic games, those exhibitions of shameless folly, were established at Rome not by human vice but by the appointment of the gods. The gods had commanded these games to appease a physical pestilence; their pontiff had prohibited the theater to prevent a moral pestilence. If the Romans had any wisdom, they would judge which was more important: the health of the body or the health of the soul. The physical pestilence would have ceased in time regardless, but the moral pestilence introduced by the games has corrupted Roman souls for generations. Even now, after the sack of Rome, the refugees who fled to Carthage crowd the theaters, competing with one another in their mad pursuit of actors. While distant nations mourn the fall of Rome, the Romans themselves rush to the very spectacles that Scipio warned against. They have been made wretched by calamity but have not been reformed; they have missed the profit of their suffering. What they desire in the restoration of peace is not the tranquility of the commonwealth but the impunity of their own vice.

Augustine marvels at the clemency of God, who has spared these ungrateful people that they might have opportunity to repent. They escaped the sword by calling themselves Christians or by fleeing to the churches of the martyrs, yet they continue to murmur against God. Augustine reminds them that Romulus and Remus opened an asylum for criminals to increase the population of their new city; the barbarians have shown similar mercy, not to increase the number of their enemies but to spare them for Christ’s sake.

The book concludes with a profound meditation on the mystery of the two cities. The City of God and the earthly city are intermingled in this present world, and will remain so until the final judgment separates them. Among the enemies of the church are hidden those who are destined to become fellow-citizens of the heavenly city; the church must bear with them in hope, knowing that today’s enemy may be tomorrow’s convert. Within the visible church, bound by the sacraments, are some who will not inherit eternal life, some who are not yet recognized as false, and others who openly join the enemies of God in murmuring against him. These may be seen thronging the churches one day and crowding the theaters the next. Yet the church does not despair of their salvation, for God is able to bring even his enemies into the fold.

Augustine announces his intention to continue the work by recounting the disasters that befell Rome before the Christian era, demonstrating that the pagan gods did not preserve the city from calamity. He will show how the true God granted empire to Rome for his own purposes, and how the false gods deceived and injured their worshippers. Finally, he will address those who claim to worship the gods for the sake of eternal life, engaging the philosophers in debate on the nature of the soul and the true worship of the one God. Thus the first book ends with a preview of the vast argument to come, an argument that will set forth the rise, progress, and end of the two cities, to the glory of the City of God.

Augustine commences this second book of his monumental work by addressing the necessity of establishing firm boundaries for theological disputation, a methodological precaution born of hard experience with the intractable obstinacy of his adversaries. He observes that if the human mind were not so prone to willful blindness and stubborn resistance, readily yielding to the truth as a sick man yields to a health-giving medicine, then concise arguments would suffice to refute error. However, because adversaries often refuse to acknowledge clear evidence—either through sheer inability to comprehend or through a hardened habit of contradiction that makes them “always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth”—it becomes necessary to speak at greater length, presenting the truth not merely to the eye but to the touch, as it were, so that it might be felt even by those who close their eyes against it. Augustine warns against the futility of endless debate with those who reply merely for the sake of contention, noting that to engage in a perpetual exchange of objections would be an endless, fruitless, and painful labor. He therefore sets limits to his discourse, refusing to be drawn into a bottomless pit of replying to every exception raised by those who, in their empty conjecture, hold fast to unreasonable fancies. This is not a retreat from intellectual engagement but a wise stewardship of effort, directing the argument toward those who might be persuaded and conserving energy against those who, like the “silly women” of whom the apostle speaks, are incorrigibly vain in their learning.

Having established these methodological limits, Augustine provides a thorough recapitulation of the preceding book to secure the continuity of his argument and to remind his reader of the ground already covered. He recalls that in the first book he undertook to refute those who attribute the devastation of the world, and specifically the recent sack of Rome by the barbarians, to the Christian religion. He demonstrated that the barbarians, contrary to all custom of war, threw open the churches as sanctuaries, showing reverence to Christ that exempted even those who feigned faith from the hardships of war. He addressed the perplexing question of why the godly and ungodly alike suffer in the common calamities of war, offering a robust theodicy that distinguished between the temporal blessings and curses that fall on all, and the eternal destiny that awaits each according to their response to God’s grace. He offered consolation to those who suffered outrage but maintained their purity, arguing that no force can violate the soul’s integrity without its consent, and that the shame rightly belongs to the perpetrator, not the victim. He further rebuked the pagans who insulted these victims, noting that such profligates were degenerate descendants of the ancient Romans, whose true glory lay in virtue rather than in the licentiousness of their progeny. Augustine argues that Rome was ruined more by the moral collapse of its citizens while its walls stood than by the physical razing of those walls by the barbarians; the former is a calamity of the soul, which is infinitely more severe.