Christ's Church and Eternity; Augustine, City of God (2B) A quickish guide

Why you might read the City of God?

The City of God is one of the oldest well known Christian theological works outside the Bible. Augustine is considered one of the church fathers. His work helps to expand on the Bible. In doing so he sets the foundation for theologians to come after him.

As history, it gives a snapshot of the Roman empire. It does this by reacting to what is going on in the empire. It also gives us a snapshot of early Christian Theology. Thus, we can compare to modern-day examples.

The Story of the City of God

Book XVII:

This book covers, from the establishment of the kingship to the minor and major prophets. Augustine is focused on the prophecies of Christ and his bride, the Church. He starts with David and his reign and what the prophets said to and about David and his son Solomon. 

He then sidesteps and spends some time in David's own prophetic works, the Psalms. He attributes all 150 psalms to David. He then picks a few out for specific treatment.  In an aside, he apologises to those of his readers who know more about the psalms. This aside explains why he is not more thorough in his dealings with the psalms, that this explanation does not fit into his purview of this work.

He finishes up with the works of Solomon, both of the canon and deuterocanonical. From these works, he pulls the prophecies of Christ and his church.

Augustine does not spend much time on the prophets themselves. He sees the prophets as more straight forward. Simpler in the understanding of their allegory and simpler to discern where there is an allegory. Where there is historical fact and where there is both. It brings us to the New Testament but does seem to leave quite a bit lacking. 

Book XVIII:

The first half of this book is dedicated to going through biblical times and placing the Kings of Israel. Then, matching those Kings with their Assyrian and Roman counterparts. The translation notes say that only some of these are correct but they were correct at the time Augustine wrote them. Augustine then moves onto the prophets. His main point is, to show how the prophets prophesied Christ. He continues to give a list of kings of Isreal and Judah, as well as every prophet in the scriptures.

Augustine spends the tail end of this book discussing and refuting some pagan heresy. These are around the length of Christianity's survival. He also deals again with heresy inside the church. He discusses the accepted, even today, idea that some in the church are not true disciples.

Book XIX:

This book starts with a secular look at the Supreme Good and the Supreme Evil. Augustine defines the Supreme Good as what is to be desired and the Supreme Evil as what is to be avoided. He first discusses the philosopher's definitions of good and evil. Though they do differ, they can be distilled down to the two ideas of virtue and pleasure. 

He continues in the following chapters to contrast this with the Christian view. This is the view that the Supreme Good is to praise and worship God. As well as that, all other things (like virtue) flow out of this, rather than being things to pursue in their own right. 

The rest of the book flutters through a range of topics from friendship to allegiances. From war, to slavery, to sin. Finally, from hope to oracles about Christ, from those worshipping other "gods".

Augustine finishes off this book with a discussion of eternal life. For believers the felicity with God. And for non-believers in eternal separation and the "second death". 

Book XX:

This book deals with the final judgement and the resurrection of the body, as part of the final judgement. Augustine starts with the book of Revelations, then progresses on to support his view with the Old Testament books of Daniel, Isaiah and Malachi. His view is centred around the idea that Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead. He spends some time discussing whether those living will die and then be resurrected. He concludes that this is most likely as the prophecy's all talk about the resurrection of all humans. He explains that being caught up in the air is the death phase for those still alive at the time of the resurrection.

He also spends some time on the 1000 years that the devil is bound. He questions whether that is the same as the 1000 years that the church and Christ reign before the final judgement. Finally, he weakly concludes that they must be the same: that the three and a half years the devil is loosed must be either included or directly after the 1000 years but that the 1000 years cannot be precise. This is because scripture says that no one knows the day or time of the second coming but God himself. We see 1000 years used approximately in other parts of scripture as well.

Book XXI:

This book is focused on the eternal damnation of those who are not Christians. As well as the various heresies that had come up against the eternal nature of the fire. Also, whether God in his mercy could ever leave someone in the fire.

First, Augustine combats the non-believers' objections to the eternal fires of hell. In doing this, he goes off on a seeming tangent into the wonders found in the world. The eventual point of this tangent is that the pagans are quick to believe those wonders. Even though they seem to be contrary to nature and logic. How can they then refuse to believe in hell and its conditions? When their objection is that its existence is illogical and unnatural.

Then he gets into the meat of his argument. He is against the idea that eternal damnation would be escapable for unbelievers. But that through a raft of possible avenues they would only serve some time in the fires. If this is true of unbelievers, would God's grace not extend to the demons and to Satan himself? He counters this with scripture which describes hell as both eternal and going on forever and ever. He concludes that these other ideas are heretical, that is contrary to scripture. He also concludes that there is no basis for them.

Book XXII:

Augustine wanders a little bit in this book. But his main focus is the fate of Christians and what eternal life will look like. 

Miracles are dwelt on at some length. Augustine first spends a large amount of time recounting miracles. These were miracles he had either known about or heard about. His point was to show that miracles of God were still evident in his time and that their purpose is to point people towards Christ. He contrasts these miracles of God with the work of the demons. The demon's works are always of lesser impact and often not being a full blessing. He points to the Egyptian magicians in the Exodus account. How there "miracles" were of lesser scale. As well as the possible use of trickery in their ability to replicate the plagues.

He then returns to the question of bodily resurrection. He refutes the Platonists who argue that something physical can not be made eternal as well as those who deny we will have a any physical body after the Resurrection. He then spends some time talking through what exactly our bodies will look like. Will we all be made equal? Do we take the idea literally of being made like His son? Is there still male and female?

He concludes that we will have our own bodies, that there will be male and female and that we will be fully formed and adult in our prime.

He finishes with a short discussion of eternal life as the perpetual sabbath for man and God's good.

What others have to say about the City of God

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says "The monumental apologetic treatise De civitate dei (City of God) argues that happiness can be found neither in the Roman nor the philosophical tradition but only through membership in the city of God whose founder is Christ."

And from Columbia College, "To do this, Augustine puts forth two main arguments in City of God. The first speaks directly to those who had criticized the Christian God for failing to protect Rome and its citizens."

Reflections on the City of God

Book XVII:

It struck me that Augustine believed all the Psalms to be written by David though he remarked carefully that others disagreed with him. The rebuttal he offered for known challenges was uncharacteristically weak.  He uses the prophetic nature of some to try and pass off the uses of names from later periods. In modern times the first half of Psalms is generally attributed to David. While the second half to an author or authors unknown.

It seems at times in Augustine's writing that he is grasping a little. Grasping to call sections prophetic of Christ and the Church. He seems to be of the opinion that every piece of the Old Testament can be interpreted as prophetic. While some modern scholars agree, there is also a lot who would say that it is stretching. 

Book XVIII:

 Augustine argues that the Septuagint is divinely inspired in its translation. It was ascribed to 72 translators that translated separately.  Yet they came to the exact same version of the translation. This has been debunked in more modern times. Found to be unsupported by the historical evidence. He tries to explain the differences between the two translations of the day. These being the Septuagint and the Vulgate. The Vulgate was, in Augustine's time, recently translated from the Hebrew. The Septuagint by contrast was translated through two languages. He tries to show both being true even though they were different. He seems to not want to discredit the older translation. It is more commonly acknowledged now, that there were errors in the Septuagint. These errors mainly arose from double translation. It is also acknowledged that the Vulgate was more accurate to the original Hebrew texts.

Augustine also spends some time refuting the 10 persecutions theory. This theory was common in his day. He does so by pointing out that it makes little sense to start from the Roman persecutions. Because the martyrdom of the early church needs to be taken into account. This is an interesting heresy around when Christ will return. It is not one we would tend to be taken in by today. Not because we are any smarter or more Godly. But rather that we have the evidence of many, many persecutions all around the world to look to. 

Book XIX:

The hard thing about this book has been a plethora of topics. This time I'm struggling to see a central connecting thread. It's not the first time that Augustine has spanned a huge amount of topics. But, previously, I found it a little easier to see his central topic.

Augustine's comments on the Oracles about Christ from outside the Hebrew scriptures. This is quite interesting to me and I'll do a little more research into it at a later date. It would be interesting to know if they were actually written before the time of Christ. I wonder if, with a modern understanding, they are now seen to be retrospective of that time. The other possibility is that Augustine has overreached. The Oracles may not be about Christ but are just that normal level of vague that we see from ancient world Oracles.

There is also the chapter on an Oracle of Apollo. A man asks the Oracle what should he do about his wife being Christian. The Oracle advised that he should leave her because of the Christian faith. He is quoted as saying "let her go as she pleases, persisting in her vain delusions." This gives us an interesting view of how Christianity was seen by the Greeks in antiquity. It would also be very interesting to know Augustine's source. 

Book XX:

Augustine believed the 1000 years that the Devil was bound had started. This, in the bible, is directly before the last judgement.  We can see now, in modern times, that one of two things is true due to the final coming not having come yet. One that he was wrong and we will see this binding of the devil at a later date. Two that 1000 years is a very approximate time in this part of scripture. In saying that the bible does also say that a day is like a thousand years to the Lord. So who knows how long in absolute terms the 1000 years in the text is. But to take most of the bible literally you can't pick and choose too much on what is and isn't literal. I tend to think he was mistaken in thinking that the 1000 years had begun.

Book XXI:

Augustine's conclusions in this book are correct about these heresies. He does not deal with the grief and disbelief that goes with the formulations of those heresies. That those unbelievers are destined for suffering in the fires of hell for all eternity is hard to grasp. For the unbeliever, it can bring him to faith with fear of that eternity. But for the Christian, it holds fear for others. We want there to be a way for those who do enough good or those who are loved by us to still go to eternal bliss with God. And being fundamentally lovers of God we try to wrestle with not seeing them again in eternity. This can feel that God is being too harsh or unmerciful. We must remember that God's mercies are for this life and that we as believers have a duty to help others into belief. This is the time of opportunity not after they have fallen to the first death. If we hold instead to these heresies, we will miss the opportunities now. 

Book XXII:

The sheer amount of miracles recalled and written by Augustine is astounding. The great thing is that he does not lose sight of the purpose of those miracles, to bring people to faith. His discussion on whether we would have physical bodies was an eye-opener. I had not considered any reason that they wouldn't be. That is the simplest reading of the text. The views he disputed brought the discussion back to that simple reading of the text. 

While I do not think the Ages of Revelation and the Church is analogous to the 7 days of the week.  I especially do not think the Sabbath holds as much weight as Augustine thinks it does. It is still interesting to look at the Resurrection as a perpetual sabbath. That is as the perpetual Day of the Lord. A perpetual time of being with and praising God in all His goodness and majesty. I don't remember there being anything in the scriptures about the week being done away with. That would suggest that work 6 days and rest one as the Sabbath would continue. Work would be fulfilling and with our eyes fixed on God.

Comparisons with Other Texts

Again I will only be comparing this book to itself. This is due to my lack of peripheral knowledge due to starting this list before finishing my BC list. 

Augustine continues in dealing more with scripture as we have seen in the first half of this Part. Again he does occasionally reference Plato or other philosophers. He does spend more time focused on Heaven and Hell.  Which to my way of thinking is more of what he has said he is setting out to do. 

Unlike Dante's Divine Comedy, Augustine's versions of heaven and hell are more in line with the bible. He does not posit a Purgatory which is an idea that came to rise in the Church between Augustine's and Dante's times. Augustine is a Bishop of the Church in his own time. Dante is a layman with an over-inflated sense of his own place in the world and history. It is no wonder their views on heaven and hell differ. For more on the works of Dante have a look at some of my earlier posts. Have a look at the discussion on the first book of the divine comedy,  The Inferno.

Conclusion

We have finally finished the City of God, thanks for sticking with me. We have looked at the final six books of this text. This is where Augustine finally gets into describing Heaven and Hell. He spends time dealing with heresies. These heresies are ones he sees around him, and some we still see today. Augustine has been focused and unfocused at different points in the work. His main point through the whole book has been, join the city of God. That is, join with Christ.

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? Please leave me a comment and let me know why you want to read it.

Hopefully, this post inspires you to take the time to look into it on your own journey of Self Education.

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