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.
It is this true religion alone that has exposed the gods of the nations as impure demons. These spirits desire to be worshipped as gods, stealing the names of dead persons or assuming the forms of creatures, and they rejoice in base and infamous honors while envying the conversion of human souls to the true God. Humanity is liberated from their cruel and impious dominion through faith in Christ, who provided an example of humility by which we may rise from the fall of pride. Thus, not only the many gods of other nations but even these select gods, chosen for a senate of deities on account of their notorious crimes rather than their virtues, are revealed as frauds. Varro attempted to refer their sacred rites to natural reasons to make base things seem honorable, but he failed because the rites themselves were not caused by nature but by the deceit of demons. Had they been natural, they might have mitigated the offense of the rites, but as they are, they only reveal the demons’ mockery. The true religion unmasks and vanquishes them, offering instead the worship of the Creator, who grants eternal life not through the mutilation of the body or the madness of the theater, but through the sanctification of the soul by the truth.
Augustine now turns from the fabulous and civil theologies already examined to what philosophers call natural theology, undertaking a far more demanding inquiry. The question is whether the worship of the gods acknowledged by this natural theology can secure blessedness in the life to come. This discussion requires engaging not with ordinary citizens but with those who profess the love of wisdom. Yet the name of philosopher does not guarantee the reality, and Augustine must select from among the schools those with whom he may worthily dispute. He narrows the field to those thinkers who affirm that a divine nature exists and concerns itself with human affairs, yet who deny that worship of the one unchangeable God suffices for obtaining blessedness. These philosophers hold that many created gods, appointed by the supreme God to their various spheres, must receive sacred rites. In this respect they come closer to truth than Varro, for they acknowledge God as existing above all spiritual natures, as the Creator both of the visible world and of every soul, and as the one who grants blessedness to rational souls through participation in His own unchangeable and incorporeal light.
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