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.
This historical account provides definitive proof that the physical interpretations are mere fictions. If Numa’s books had contained noble natural reasons, the senate would never have burned them. The fact that the Roman fathers, committed to their religious institutions, deemed it necessary to destroy these books rather than allow their contents to be known demonstrates that the true causes of the rites were not the operations of nature but the abominable instructions of demons. Numa himself, lacking any prophet of God or holy angel to guide him, had recourse to hydromancy, a form of divination introduced from the Persians, to see the images of the gods—or rather, the appearances whereby demons made sport of him—in the water. Through this necromantic art, he learned the sacred rites which he instituted while concealing their causes. He buried the books in his tomb, fearing to teach their infamous contents to others, yet also afraid to destroy them and enrage the demons. The senate’s decision to burn them reveals that even the pagan state recognized the peril of these demonic secrets, judging that the error of ignorance was more tolerable than the disturbance of knowing the truth about their gods. Thus the entire civil theology is unmasked not as a philosophy of nature, but as a system of superstition derived from commerce with unclean spirits.
In conclusion, Augustine contrasts this fragmented, immoral, demon-inspired worship with the true religion. All the functions attributed to the many gods—beginnings, causes, seeds, speech, war, fire, water, the luminaries, life, sensation—belong to the one true God, the Creator of heaven and earth, who is not a part of the world but its Maker. This God grants eternal life not through obscene rites but through His Son, Jesus Christ. The mystery of eternal life was foretold from the beginning, announced through angels, proclaimed by the Hebrew prophets, and fulfilled in Christ, who liberates humanity from the dominion of demons. The true God, who made heaven and earth, created every soul and every body, and governs all things while allowing them to exercise their own proper movements. Though they can be nothing without Him, they are not what He is. He accomplishes many things through angels, but only from Himself does He beatify angels. So also, though He sends angels to serve human needs, He does not beatify humanity through any good inherent in angels, but through Himself, as He does the angels themselves.
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