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.
In the preceding book, Augustine established that the worship of demons must be utterly rejected, as they have manifested themselves in a thousand ways as wicked spirits. However, he now turns his attention to a more sophisticated objection raised by the Platonists and other philosophers. These thinkers, while maintaining that the gods themselves are entirely good and incapable of evil, posit a distinction among the invisible spirits known as demons. They argue that while some demons are undoubtedly evil, others are good and serve a necessary function as mediators between the exalted gods and mortal men. Because the gods are considered too high and pure for direct intercourse with humanity, these good demons are said to carry prayers upward and bring blessings downward. Augustine promises to demonstrate that this distinction is false and that no demon, whether deemed good or bad by the philosophers, can provide true blessedness to men. This office, he asserts, belongs solely to Jesus Christ, the true Mediator who unites divinity and mortality.
Augustine begins his examination by analyzing the testimony of Apuleius, a Platonist philosopher who wrote a treatise on the nature of Socrates and the gods. Apuleius, while ascribing aerial bodies to demons and acknowledging their rationality, fails to attribute to them any spiritual virtue that could constitute happiness. On the contrary, Apuleius admits that the minds of demons are agitated by violent and tempestuous emotions. He explicitly states that demons experience pity, indignation, grief, and joy with the same mental disturbance as human beings, banishing them far from the tranquility enjoyed by the celestial gods. Augustine argues that this description disqualifies demons from being good mediators. Even wise human beings, though subject to initial impressions, strive to resist these perturbations through reason and virtue. Demons, however, are described as having minds like a storm-tossed sea, entirely enslaved by passion. They resemble wicked and foolish men in character, and indeed are worse, having grown old in iniquity and become incorrigible by punishment.
The original text of this work is in the public domain. This page focuses on a guided summary article, reading notes, selected quotes, and visual learning materials for educational purposes.