First Post Back! And it's great to be here. It's currently Sunday night and I'm just reactivating all the accounts associated with this blog, mainly Email and Twitter. Just trying to get back into the swing of things. Its Fathers Day here today but that doesn't make it that much different from most Sundays, (I know the USA has a different date for Fathers Day, but at least New Zealand and Australia is today. I'm unsure if other countries have different days).
This is the second post in a series of four on Augustine's City of God, feel free to go back and read the first City of God 1A; Why the Pagans are wrong. In hindsight it possibly should have been a 22 part series but that would have taken nearly 2 years to post at one a month! And I didn't feel like getting that bogged down in one book... I will learn from the experience.
The Story
Book VI
In this book Augustine take the Roman idea (as it is published by Varro) that the religious is broken into three parts, the 'fabulous', the 'natural' and the 'civil', and piece by piece shows the folly of it. First the 'fabulous' or that pertaining to the theater, he show that for the gods to be accepting of the offering of the theater that they must be no gods at all for the plays portray them in scathing light and without dignity for all the people to laugh at and be entertained by. He then moves on to put together a proof that the 'civil' division in fact is no different to the 'fabulous'. He shows that the offerings and rituals make as little sense as the plays as they also do not honour the gods, and that for some they require a man to be out of his mind to partake in them in the first place. He rounds this all off by pointing out that for the multitude of gods none is said to give eternal life and that it is still just the Christian or True God that gives this.
Book VII
Augustine continues with his dissection of the Roman religion by further looking into the section civil (which he has already offered proof is the same as the fabulous). He shows by various examples that Verro's explanation of the "select" gods (as he call them) is inconsistent at best and unintelligible at worst. He does so by giving various examples of how the king of the gods Janus should not be considered as king as he is not most powerful or relevant but rather that because the position of "selectness" is one of luck and fortune that fortune herself should be head of the gods.
He continues for there to explain how many gods have been ascribed supposed dominion of a given area and how Verro never finds a satisfactory argument to explain this. Augustine then concludes that the select gods can not be that great as they have their very dominions usurped by "trivial" gods.
Augustine finishes the book by turning back to what he calls true religion, that is faith in Jesus Christ, explaining the need to worship the creator not the created.
Book VIII
This book moves on from Verro to instead delve into the world of philosophy. While over the course of the book Augustine deals with a variety of schools of philosophy he pays special attention to the Platonist as he regards them as the closest to Christianity. They profess that logic dictates a singular creator god but do not go any further than this to arrive at "true" religion.
This then dovetails onto a discussion about demons, first that they can not be by there very nature the messengers of the gods as some philosophers would have it. That is to say if the gods are aloof from humanity they could not intermingle with the demons either. He then posits that even if the gods are in the gods are in the ether and, demons in the air and man in the realm of the ground, it does not follow that demons are above humans because they have no hope of doing or being good which has been established to be the basis of happiness.
Augustine ten surges on into a proof of the gods that the pagans worship especially those they make idols to, are really just demons. He even goes to quote Hermes of Egypt with his view that the man made gods are just an expression of disobedience and incorrect belief from the true God.
Book VIII
This book moves on from Verro to instead delve into the world of philosophy. While over the course of the book Augustine deals with a variety of schools of philosophy he pays special attention to the Platonist as he regards them as the closest to Christianity. They profess that logic dictates a singular creator god but do not go any further than this to arrive at "true" religion.
This then dovetails onto a discussion about demons, first that they can not be by there very nature the messengers of the gods as some philosophers would have it. That is to say if the gods are aloof from humanity they could not intermingle with the demons either. He then posits that even if the gods are in the gods are in the ether and, demons in the air and man in the realm of the ground, it does not follow that demons are above humans because they have no hope of doing or being good which has been established to be the basis of happiness.
Augustine ten surges on into a proof of the gods that the pagans worship especially those they make idols to, are really just demons. He even goes to quote Hermes of Egypt with his view that the man made gods are just an expression of disobedience and incorrect belief from the true God.
Book IX
Augustine continues with his discussion of the demons as mediator between man and God and again refutes it. This time he uses the example of Jesus Christ as the true mediator in that he was divine in character and mortal in body, but that even with the death of his mortal body he was bought back to life. He finds Christ a much better mediator in that his divine nature makes interrelating with God possible and fruitful but also that he understands our struggles. He also goes on to expound on how the demons react to the Christ and how it shows their depravity and incapacity for the mediation that the Platonist claim.
Book X
This book moves onto the writings of Porphyry, one of the later Platonist. Here he focuses on the soul, and its providence. This mainly consists of arguing against the ideas that the soul after death returns as a beast, as Plato himself supposed and of the idea that it returns from paradise to another human. He takes the view that for blessedness to be obtained one must know that it will be eternal so the idea of forgetting the misery of the mortal body and then desiring to return to mortal form seems both ludicrous and ill conceived.
Augustine also continues to discuss the truth of eternal life with God, and of Christ as the mediator and only way to achieve this blessedness. As well as using the final book of Part 1 to summarize the nub of his arguments.
Reflections
Book VI
It is interesting that the Romans conceptually broke down their religious practices. The 'civil' or the practices of the city are the most intriguing, it seems to acknowledge that the practice of the people differ from how the gods are worshiped in their own temples. While Augustine does not compare this directly to Christianity there is this underlying sense that Christian worship is more consistent.
The other thing of note is that even some Romans, and Augustine quotes them at length, disputed the civil and fabulous parts of the religion as unprofitable and over sensationalized.
Book VII
Augustine does a thorough job of pointing out the inconsistencies in the Roman religious pantheon. It is interesting that he chooses to use so many examples to poke not just one hole but many into the rationality of the Roman gods as a whole. He even goes so far as to go back to what Verro took as first principles and in doing so undermines his whole theory of how the pantheon both works and is constructed. From Augustine's focus on Verro I must conclude that Verro's work is both well known, widely know and well accepted in the roman public and academic sphere.
Book VIII
It is interesting to see Augustine argue from the very principles of the pagan philosophers and religious writers, that there is one true creator God and that all other gods are man made and therefor nothing more that carved images possessed by Demons. I wonder if this is the origin of the understanding that the gods of the pagans were just deceiving Demons or if this was already an established idea. It is also interesting to see, at least by reference, a pagan that understands that the pagan gods are man made and as such are a poor replacement for the true God.
Book IX
At first it seems like Augustine is going to repeat parts of the previous arguments, as he repeats some of the disputation of the idea that demons go as a mediator between the gods and man. But as he continues we see that he was just setting up a foil with which to contrast the true mediation of the Christ. In many ways he does not add a lot to his arguments other than this exposition of the mediation of Christ. Everything else of this book he has already proven in greater detail in the previous book.
Book X
Augustine in the act of summarizing the work so far spends a lot more time on the gospel of Christ than we see in previous books. His short introduction of what follows in part 2 shows that there will be a great shifting in focus from arguing against the beliefs of the world to more of a focus on Christianity, though I do not really expect to see an end to his arguments I just expect them to move to false doctrine rather than external beliefs.
It is interesting, and Augustine makes this point, that the later Platonist Porphyry, while seeming to hold Plato in high esteem, still dares to disagree entirely with his teacher on the point of what happens to human spirits after death. He seems to regard the idea that they would become the spirits of beasts to degrading and yet he posits that we come back again as humans from paradise.
This idea of reincarnation I am used to associating with more eastern thought and religion, it makes me wonder if it was influenced by the thought coming out of the sub continent or if it was arrived at by its own means. And after a little research it seems that the answer to that very question is much debated with one side listing the similarities of the philosophers to the yogis of India and the other stating that we know where Plato traveled and it was further west not east. So I guess this one is a mystery.
Comparisons
It is interesting to see Augustine argue from the very principles of the pagan philosophers and religious writers, that there is one true creator God and that all other gods are man made and therefor nothing more that carved images possessed by Demons. I wonder if this is the origin of the understanding that the gods of the pagans were just deceiving Demons or if this was already an established idea. It is also interesting to see, at least by reference, a pagan that understands that the pagan gods are man made and as such are a poor replacement for the true God.
Book IX
At first it seems like Augustine is going to repeat parts of the previous arguments, as he repeats some of the disputation of the idea that demons go as a mediator between the gods and man. But as he continues we see that he was just setting up a foil with which to contrast the true mediation of the Christ. In many ways he does not add a lot to his arguments other than this exposition of the mediation of Christ. Everything else of this book he has already proven in greater detail in the previous book.
Book X
Augustine in the act of summarizing the work so far spends a lot more time on the gospel of Christ than we see in previous books. His short introduction of what follows in part 2 shows that there will be a great shifting in focus from arguing against the beliefs of the world to more of a focus on Christianity, though I do not really expect to see an end to his arguments I just expect them to move to false doctrine rather than external beliefs.
It is interesting, and Augustine makes this point, that the later Platonist Porphyry, while seeming to hold Plato in high esteem, still dares to disagree entirely with his teacher on the point of what happens to human spirits after death. He seems to regard the idea that they would become the spirits of beasts to degrading and yet he posits that we come back again as humans from paradise.
This idea of reincarnation I am used to associating with more eastern thought and religion, it makes me wonder if it was influenced by the thought coming out of the sub continent or if it was arrived at by its own means. And after a little research it seems that the answer to that very question is much debated with one side listing the similarities of the philosophers to the yogis of India and the other stating that we know where Plato traveled and it was further west not east. So I guess this one is a mystery.
Comparisons
At this point the only real comparisons to be made are with different parts of the City of God with itself. As I mentioned in the previous post on this book I have not got far enough through my BC list to have read the Philosophers being referenced by Augustine in this work. As such I look forward to reading Plato and Socrates and getting my own read on their philosophy and how it is flawed or well thought out in places.
The second half of this part seems far removed from the content of the first half which focused more on Christian thought and around what was happening in the empire at the time of its writing, while this half has been entirely focused on the religions, and I count Philosophy as one of them, of the secular Romans of the empire.
Have you read The City of God? If so what did you think of it?
Want to read The City of God but haven't? Hopefully this inspires you to take the time to do so.
Get a copy of The City of God.
Get a copy of The City of God.
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