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.
To establish the proper context for engaging the Platonists, Augustine surveys the philosophical traditions that preceded them. Greek intellectual history records two principal schools: the Italic, originating in that part of Italy once called Magna Graecia, and the Ionic, arising in the regions still known as Greece. Pythagoras of Samos founded the Italic school and is credited with coining the term “philosophy,” for he deemed it the height of arrogance to call oneself a sage and preferred the humbler title of wisdom-lover. Thales of Miletus, one of the renowned Seven Sages, founded the Ionic school and earned distinction for investigating the principles of nature. He held that water constituted the first principle of all things, yet he set no divine mind over the admirable work of creation. His successors developed various materialist cosmologies: Anaximander taught that each thing springs from its own proper principle, while Anaximenes attributed all causes to infinite air. Anaxagoras then perceived that a divine mind must be the productive cause of all things, and Diogenes added that the primordial air possessed a divine reason. Archelaus extended this by teaching that homogeneous particles pervaded by divine mind constitute reality. Socrates himself studied under Archelaus, and thus the line leads forward to Plato.
Socrates redirected philosophy from the investigation of physical phenomena to the correction of human conduct. He recognized that the ultimate causes of things depend upon the will of the one true and supreme God, and that such causes could be grasped only by a mind purified from earthly passions. His method involved exposing the ignorance of those who claimed knowledge, sometimes confessing his own ignorance, sometimes concealing what he knew. This practice earned him powerful enemies who brought false charges against him, leading to his condemnation and execution. Yet the city that killed him afterward repented, turning its wrath upon his accusers. Socrates left numerous disciples who disputed among themselves concerning the chief good, and because his dialectical method raised questions only to demolish them, his followers formed diverse and opposing sects. Some placed the final good in pleasure, others in virtue, and still others in different ends entirely.
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