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.
All power comes from the one true God, who gives happiness in the kingdom of heaven to the pious alone but distributes earthly rule to both pious and impious according to His own just purposes. He gave empire to the Assyrians, the Persians, and the Hebrews. He gave power to Marius and to Caesar, to Augustus and to Nero, to the benevolent Vespasians and to the cruel Domitian. He gave it to the Christian Constantine and to the apostate Julian. The durations of wars likewise fall under divine governance: some conflicts end quickly, others drag on for decades. The recent defeat of Radagaisus, the Gothic king who threatened Rome with a vast army, demonstrates God’s mercy. This pagan warlord, who trusted in his daily sacrifices to demons, was overthrown in a single day without the loss of a single Roman soldier. God thus showed that sacrifices to false gods are unnecessary even for temporal success.
Augustine concludes by defining the true happiness of Christian emperors. A ruler is not happy merely because he reigns long, dies peacefully, founds a dynasty, conquers enemies, or suppresses rebellions. These temporal blessings God grants even to worshippers of demons. The Christian emperor is happy if he rules justly, if he remains humble amid flattery, if he uses his power to extend true worship, if he fears and loves God, if he prefers the heavenly kingdom where he need not fear rivals, if he is slow to punish and ready to forgive, if he tempers severity with mercy, if he governs his own passions more strictly than he governs nations, and if he does all this not for empty glory but for love of eternal felicity, offering to God the sacrifices of humility, contrition, and prayer.
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