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.
Moving to refute the notion of the superiority of demons based on their physical attributes, Augustine argues that a truly religious mind should not suppose demons are better than men simply because they possess better bodies. If bodily excellence were the standard of worth, many beasts would be placed before men, as they surpass humans in the acuteness of senses, swiftness, strength, and longevity. Humans excel beasts through reason and understanding, and therefore ought to excel demons through the living of good and virtuous lives. Augustine suggests that divine providence gave demons better bodies so that humans might learn to despise bodily excellence in comparison with goodness of life, knowing that they too shall receive immortality of body—not a tortured immortality, but one consequent on purity of soul.
Similarly, Augustine dismisses the idea that the loftiness of place makes demons superior. It is ridiculous to think that inhabiting the air, rather than the earth, entitles demons to religious submission, for birds also inhabit the air and are yet subjected to man. Even if demons do not return to earth to rest or feed as birds do, this does not make them superior to men. Augustine invokes Plato’s own ordering of the elements to suggest that the gradation of elements does not correspond to the gradation of merit in animated creatures. Apuleius himself admits that man, though a terrestrial animal, is to be put far before aquatic animals, despite Plato placing water above earth. This indicates that a soul of a higher order may inhabit a body of a lower element, and thus the aerial habitation of demons does not signify their superiority over terrestrial men who possess piety of mind.
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