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.
Augustine addresses Porphyry’s assertion that “principles”—by which the Platonist means the Father and the Son (the Intellect of the Father)—can purify the soul. While Porphyry correctly identified the need for divine agency in purification, he failed to recognize that the Principle has become incarnate in Jesus Christ. The Word, by whom all things were made, assumed a human soul and body in order to cleanse and renew human nature. Porphyry despised this incarnation because of its humility—the body taken from a woman, the shame of the cross. His lofty wisdom scorned such lowly things. Yet this very humility was the means by which God’s grace was most graciously manifested. The true Mediator showed that sin, not flesh, is the evil to be overcome. He assumed mortal nature without sin, submitted to death for our sake, and by resurrection transformed mortality into incorruptibility.
Augustine presses the Platonists on their own terms: they ascribe such excellence to the intellectual soul that they maintain it can become consubstantial with the divine intellect. Why, then, should they stumble at the notion that one human soul was assumed by the Word in a unique manner for the salvation of many? They believe that the world is a blessed and eternal animal, that the stars are blessed beings possessing eternal bodies. Why should they refuse to believe that Christ could carry a glorified body into heaven? Their own philosophy provides analogies for the incarnation and resurrection, yet they reject these truths. The reason, Augustine concludes, is not intellectual but moral: they are proud, and Christ is humble. They are ashamed to be corrected by a Master who was crucified, preferring their own wisdom to the foolishness of God, which is wiser than men.
Augustine notes that Porphyry himself modified Platonic doctrine in several respects, rejecting the transmigration of human souls into animal bodies and asserting that the purified soul returns to the Father never to be entangled again in material defilement. These improvements demonstrate that Porphyry was willing to correct Plato when he perceived the truth. Yet he refused to accept the far greater correction that Christianity offers. He acknowledged that grace is granted to few to reach God, that human virtue alone is insufficient for the soul’s ascent. He saw the country of blessedness from afar but did not know the way to enter it.
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