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.
Whatever philosophers have thought concerning the supreme God—that He is the maker of all things, the light by which truth is known, and the good toward which all action should be directed—Augustine prefers these to all others and acknowledges their nearness to Christian faith. A Christian, even if unacquainted with philosophical writings, knows that the apostle Paul taught how certain philosophers had the invisible things of God manifested to them through creation, yet failed to worship Him rightly, giving divine honors to created things instead. Christians agree with the Platonists concerning the one God, the author of the universe, who is above every body as incorporeal and above every soul as incorruptible—our principle, our light, our good.
Some Christians have wondered at the agreement between Plato’s conceptions of God and the truths of faith. Some have conjectured that Plato heard the prophet Jeremiah during his travels in Egypt or read the Hebrew scriptures. Yet chronological calculation shows that Plato was born about a century after Jeremiah prophesied, and the Septuagint translation was completed after Plato’s death. It remains possible that he learned something of those writings through an interpreter, just as he studied Egyptian thought. What most suggests such influence is the divine name revealed to Moses: “I am who I am.” This identification of God with pure being, unchangeable and eternal, Plato held with special vehemence. Whether he derived this from Hebrew sources or from natural reason, Augustine has chosen the Platonists as the proper partners for disputing the question of natural theology.
Yet here lies the critical difficulty. The most renowned Platonists—Plotinus, Iamblichus, Porphyry, Apuleius—and Plato himself, all held that sacred rites should be performed in honor of many gods. This is the point Augustine now takes up. He asks: To what sort of gods do they think rites should be performed—to the good or to the bad, or to both? Plato himself affirmed that all the gods are good and that none is evil. It follows that rites are performed to the good, for if they are not good, they are not gods. This demolishes the common notion that evil gods must be propitiated to avert harm while good gods are invoked for assistance. If there are no evil gods, then all rites are directed to the good.
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