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.
Augustine observes that Varro wrote of human things before divine things because the state existed before its religious institutions. Augustine argues that this arrangement proves these “gods” are human inventions, akin to a painting or a building created by men, rather than divine beings who precede nature. Varro himself admitted that if he were founding a new city, he would write according to the order of nature, but since he was describing an old one, he followed its customs, thereby implicitly acknowledging the falsity of the civil theology. Augustine contends that Varro’s subtle arrangement reveals his preference for truth over custom, as he placed the false institutions of men after the true history of human affairs, effectively confessing that he was not writing about the divine nature, but about human error. By placing human history before divine institutions, Varro inadvertently testified that the gods were fabricated by the city, not that the city was founded by the gods.
Augustine then analyzes Varro’s tripartite division of theology into mythical, natural, and civil kinds. Varro condemns the mythical theology—the stories of the poets—as base and unworthy of the gods, filled with tales of theft, adultery, and servitude. However, Augustine argues that the civil theology, which consists of the rites performed by citizens and priests, as well as the natural theology of the philosophers, are inextricably linked to it. He asserts that the gods of the theatre are the same as the gods of the temple; the state instituted the theatre to honor these gods, proving that their rites are fundamentally theatrical and obscene. Augustine provides extensive evidence to demonstrate that the civil theology incorporates the very abominations found in the myths. He cites the presence of Priapus in both the stage and the shrine, noting that the Priapus of the priests is no less obscene than the Priapus of the players. He further points to the absurdity of those who placed Jupiter’s wet nurse in the Capitol, asking what they thought of Jupiter himself by such an act, and noting that it bears witness to the historian Euhemerus, who wrote that all such gods had been men and mortals. Additionally, Augustine highlights those who appointed the Epulones as parasites at the table of Jupiter, arguing that they wished for nothing but mimic sacred rites; if a mimic had said this on stage, he would be seeking laughter, yet Varro records it as a serious account of Capitoline laws. The distinction between the stage and the altar is non-existent; the demons who delight in the fables are the same spirits who receive the sacrifices.
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