The City of God Against the Pagans, written by Augustine of Hippo, is the single most important work written by a Christian in the antique world. It is a sprawling work that is filled with a variety of different kinds of writing—history, philosophy, literary criticism, political philosophy, comparative religion, dogmatic theology, and extended biblical exegesis, among others—that make it very hard to categorize. Christians have increasingly turned to it as a major work of political theology. In the first instance it is not a work of politics—it is a thoroughly theological undertaking—but that does not mean it doesn’t speak to how Christians should think about politics. The lines between theology and politics for Augustine are very thin and often overlapping. He moves between them freely.
But it is the grand scope, capaciousness, and ambition of the work that make it so breathtakingly brilliant. No writer, except for Origen, had set out to accomplish such a grand undertaking. In fact, in the preface to his work, Augustine refers to City as a “great and arduous” work, showing he self-consciously set out to write a masterpiece. And, it may be concluded, that he succeeded. In approaching a book so large, unwieldy, and complex it helps to have some background context to its composition as well as literary, structural, and thematic elements to guide the reader and help them get their hands on what is going on. After we address some of the basic features of the work, we will conclude with some observations of how Augustine’s thinking shaped politics after him.
History
The context in which Augustine begins to write City of God is essential for understanding the nature of the work. In August, 410 AD, the city of Rome was sacked over a couple of days by the Gothic king Alaric, who led an army of Goths down the Italian peninsula to Rome. Relatively speaking, the sack was not severe, though Christians were raped and killed in the process of city being looted. Many people fled from Rome to Carthage, which was one of the major cities of the empire, and probably shared stories with Augustine, the bishop in nearby Hippo Regius. In his Retractions, written at the end of his life, Augustine states that in the aftermath of the sack, pagans (most likely aristocratic pagans), began to blame the sack and the recent troubles facing Rome on the Christian God. The basic argument, which Augustine takes up in the early chapters of Book 1 of City, directly addresses the question of how the Christian God could allow Rome to be sacked and attacks the assertion that the Roman gods were more trustworthy.
The book is dedicated to Flavius Marcellinus, an imperial tribune (a commander of a military regiment) and chancery (high ranking imperial official) who was a Christian and friend of Augustine. He exchanges letters with Marcellinus who says he needs a response to pagan aristocrats and politicians who are blaming Christianity for Rome’s sack. But the criticisms of Christianity and its relationship to the empire open into much more complex questions about suffering, the nature of virtue, divine providence, the relationship between religion and politics, the Christian view of history, and the nature of pagan religion, among many others. The readers for this work would have been well-educated Christian aristocrats, such as Marcellinus, church leaders, theologians, and learned Christians as well as another pagan aristocrat, Volusianus, who wrote a letter to Augustine in 411 posing critical questions about the relationship of Christianity to Roman politics.
The sack of Rome does not constitute the end of the Roman Empire nor the beginning of the end. Many read City with the impression that Augustine believed the empire was coming to an end. He did not. The Western part of the empire, which encompasses parts of the North African coastline and most of what we would consider Western Europe (Italy, Spain, France), was experiencing a time of instability and would continue to experience instability until the fall of the city of Rome in 476 and the slow collapse of the Western Empire after that, though the collapse was gradual and not sudden. However, none of the Romans believed the empire was nearing its end. Throughout its history, the empire would ebb and flow. It would go through periods of decline and decay (like it experienced in the third century), but also periods of renewal, like it experienced in the late third and early fourth century.
The sack of Rome did send shockwaves throughout the empire. Rome was no longer the seat of political power in the late empire; that title belonged to Constantinople. Still, Rome was the symbolic capital and its sacking was a major psychological blow to the Roman psyche. They presumed the Roman empire was a permanent fixture of the political world, but it was not.
The work Augustine started in 411 AD took the rest of his life to complete—he likely finished around 426–27. We know it was written and probably disseminated in portions. Books 1–3 are written as one unit between 411–13. Books 4–5 were written in 415. Books 6–10 were written in 417. This comprises the first ten books of City, which is the first half of the work. The second half of the work (Books 11–22) is more difficult to track, though we are able to pin some dates to references in the work.
Lastly, we should note that Augustine was constantly embroiled in theological controversies of the most intense kind. Doctrinal controversies in contemporary American evangelicalism pale in comparison to those in the antique world. Three heresies—Arianism, Donatism, and Pelagianism—would occupy vast sums of Augustine’s time and energy. The nature of Christ as second person of the Trinity is the most important question addressed in the Arian controversy. Donatism dealt with the nature of the church and, in particular, the sacraments. Pelagianism brought to the fore the role of grace and works in salvation. Not surprisingly then, Augustine addresses these heresies in different ways throughout City, because he is battling these heresies as he is writing this work.
Literary Genre
In order to grasp the meaning of Augustine’s work, we must understand the sort of literary genre he was using. Most of Augustine’s writings fall into a couple different categories. The most common is the sermon. Augustine was a preacher and one of the most skilled rhetoricians of his day. Though he was known for being a brilliant theologian, it was his rhetorical skills that earned him greater popularity during his lifetime.
Another form of literary genre that he was known for was the philosophical dialogue, which we see deployed in his earlier works. Reminiscent of Platonic dialogues, Augustine would use the form of dialectical enquiry as a means to explore particular questions.
Theological treatises, often written in a polemical fashion, were another common literary form that he would deploy, often against his opponents. Augustine also wrote biblical commentaries on different books of the Bible. City of God does not fit neatly into any of these, though it deploys aspects of these throughout.
Scholars have argued that the genre of literature City of God most closely reflects is the apology, a common literary form used to defend the Christian faith and criticize heresy and non-Christian beliefs. Our word for “apologetics” derives from this original meaning. Apology is one of the earliest and most common types of Christian literature, since the early church was constantly struggling against false beliefs and practices faced by Christians around the Roman Empire. In the preface, Augustine states that he has “undertaken to defend [the City of God] against those who favor their own gods,” making it clear that he is going to offer an apology for the City of God.
At the end of Book 1, after he has made an initial series of arguments refuting the critics of Christianity, Augustine offers a preview for his grand work. Augustine gestures to the idea of the two cities in the preface and repeats it in chapter 35 of Book 1, declaring the goal of his work will be to show “their rise and progress and appointed end.” Chapter 36 offers a preview for the first ten books, which is a sustained argument against Roman civic religion and various forms of Neoplatonic-influenced religions. The second half of City (Books 11–22) traces the biblical narrative of the two cities from their inception with the fall of the angels to the final judgment. The second half is less straightforwardly apologetic, though Augustine has made it clear that the key to responding to pagan arguments against Christianity is understanding the two cities.
Structure
Augustine lays out a clear structure to City of God and continually refers to this structure throughout. There are two halves. Books 1–10 comprising his polemic against Roman religion and Books 11–22 on his narrative explanation of the origin, rise, and ends of the two cities. At the same time, these halves are self-consciously broken up into smaller sections. Books 1–5 specifically focus on what we call Roman civic religion, which is the various civic deities and cultic rituals, celebrations, and practices that were a part of them. The civic religion was core to Roman social life and the arguments against Christians after the sack of Rome were, in part, rooted in beliefs about the role of the gods in defending the city. So, Augustine felt compelled to attack the Roman civic religion.
The second quarter of City (Books 6–10) deals with the influential Roman scholar, Varro, and Neoplatonic religions that were geared towards educated elites, those who sought out more refined philosophical explanations of religion. In contrast to the earthly focused civic religions that sought the blessings of the gods for material blessings alone, the philosophical religions offered both theory and practice so that the soul could achieve blessings after death. Augustine had more admiration for these scholars, and would even praise certain Neoplatonists, but he insists that they ultimately offer the false hope of mediation between God and man apart from the man Christ Jesus.
The second half of City is comprised of three distinct sections. Books 11–14 address the origins of the two cities. Augustine deals with creation, the fall of the angels, and, finally the fall of humanity. The two cities are groupings of humans and angels. The heavenly city is a city of angels and humans oriented towards the worship of the one true God as their highest good. Conversely, the earthly city is oriented by the worship of false gods which is rooted fundamentally in self-love. Books 15–18 offer biblical interpretation of the two cities as they progress their ways through history. Notably, Book 18 departs from the Bible and focuses on the history of ancient empires. Books 19–22 narrate the ends of the two cities, finishing up with the final biblical vision of the city of God and the eternal damnation of the earthly city. Book 19 is the most read book in City of God in part because it offers a comprehensive summary of the work and addresses the relationship of the two cities in ways that are very relevant for politics both then and today.
Major Themes
City of God addresses nearly all aspects of the Christian life. In this way, it functions like a theological compendium. There are major themes that Augustine will return to throughout the work that are important to highlight. However, Augustine does not address topics in a comprehensive manner. He returns to ideas in an iterative process throughout, circling back to them numerous times. This is in part because of how he thinks, but it is also a function of his rhetorical training, in which persuasion and style play an important role.
One of dominant themes of the work is how Christians (i.e., the City of God) relate to culture and world around them. For the Christian, the greatest good (summum bonum) is God, and eternal fellowship with God and all the saints in the eternal city is the aim of the entirety of the Christian life, including all of society. Here is where Augustine’s theological vision stands in stark opposition to our way of thinking about religion and politics: Augustine does not see a neutral or secular public square where Christian beliefs must be bracketed or restricted. The basic liberal paradigm that has governed the U.S. society says that we should not seek to impose conceptions of the good that are rooted in religious faith because many of our fellow citizens do not adhere to those beliefs. Instead, they say, we should seek to protect rights and leave broad space for different convictions about the ultimate good. But for Augustine, the truth of the Christian faith is a public truth that ought to guide rulers in their actions and their passage of laws.
Book 11 and the beginning of 12 deals with the primordial origins of both cities. At some point Satan rebelled against God and was banished from God’s presence. He and his rebellious angels were driven by pride, which is a belief that one can live independent from God. Pride takes a purer form in the fallen angels who seek to be worshipped as gods. The earthly city is driven by a love of self (amor sui), even unto contempt for God. Those who are motivated fundamentally by self-love seek to exalt themselves above the needs of others and, more fundamentally, God.
The City of God, conversely, is motivated by the love of God even unto contempt for self. Because the love of God has been poured into their hearts through the Holy Spirit, believers are able to break the spell of self-love. Whereas those in the earthly city seek to exalt themselves above God, those who have received the love of God exalt God above themselves because they know that he is the source of all goodness, life, and truth.
City of God presents a coherent narrative of the two cities as they progress through history. The theme of sojourning and pilgrimage is woven throughout. The heavenly city as represented by those who have faith in the true God are part of a trans-historical city that is sustained by God in history. The City of God in history exists as a pilgrim city because it is traveling towards the heavenly city where God and all the saints shall dwell together forever in tranquility and peace.
Augustine uses this pilgrimage metaphor not to encourage Christians to stay away from politics or to live as hermits. He is deeply involved in the theological and political controversies of his day, counseling and befriending persons at the very highest echelons of power in his day. What concerns Augustine greatly is the disposition that we engage in these God-ordained activities. He wants Christians to be involved in all aspects of life, including politics. Yet, he also wants Christian hearts to be firmly fixed upon God and the final destination to which they are traveling. This is what Augustine refers to as the “order of love” (ordo amoris). Our love must be properly ordered if we are to live righteously. That means the love of God must be preeminent in our hearts, but there is an ascending hierarchy of obligations that Christians must adhere to if they are to live well. If we chase after money or material possessions (things not bad in themselves) as more important than our family or God, then our loves are disordered.
Suffering and evil are also prominent themes throughout the work. What are the origins of evil? Famously, in Book 12, Augustine develops his most sophisticated response to this question that had bedeviled him since he became a Christian. His conclusion about the nature of evil is this: evil is not a thing, but the privation of goodness. In truth, evil is nothing. Goodness is real, it has substance. Evil has no being, it is the lack of being. Evil is the soul turning away from God and by turning away from God the soul is deprived of goodness and life. When the rebellious angels turned away from God, they unleashed evil into creation. Adam and Eve introduced evil into the human race through their turning away from God.
What then is the meaning of the suffering that so painfully punctuates our existence? In Book 1, Augustine responds to those who are asking why God had allowed Christians to suffer in the sacking of Rome. Augustine believes there are essentially two reasons that God allows suffering. The first is that suffering is the punishment for sin. God is just and when he punishes us for our sins, he is merely enacting his just judgment against us. The other reason God allows suffering is to purify our characters. Suffering is the means by which we are tested and refined. Those who love God will be refined in this process and their virtues will be built and purified. Those who do not love God will be crushed because they cling only to earthly goods and pleasure. When they are deprived of those things, they lose all hope and purpose in life. They will either rage in anger or shrink in despair. Augustine continually argues that faith in God allows Christians to weather the greatest of storms because their hope is not ultimately rooted in history, but beyond it.
One issue of particular importance in City of God is Augustine’s writing on warfare. There were precursors to Augustine’s discussion of war, namely Ambrose of Milan, a famous and influential churchman in his own right and major influence in Augustine’s life. Though the early church was not uniformly opposed to warfare, the pre-Constantinian church had many influential theologians and pastors who counseled Christians to avoid the Roman military for a number of reasons. Some of these critics were more thoroughgoing pacifists, others were concerned about certain aspects of military life that were sinful, including idolatry. Although Augustine does not offer anything like a full defense of war as a means of justice, he clearly defends the idea that Christian magistrates can and should use force as a means of defending the innocent and punishing unjust aggressors. City of God has a smattering of passages throughout where he makes these kinds of arguments. What will later become known as the Just War tradition finds its first clear adumbration in Augustine’s occasional musings in City of God.
Political Influence Beyond
What is the influence of City of God upon the history of political thought? It is one of the most influential works in history and especially for how Christians begin to think about politics. The idea of the two cities is the most powerful and enduring idea upon Christian political thought, though it is often poorly understood. Augustine does not have in mind the church and state or the church and non-church society. For Augustine, both the church and society are mixed bodies, filled with saved and damned, so it is not possible to completely isolate the two cities in history. The term “invisible church” is never used by Augustine, but that is what he is elaborating. Augustine is a staunch defender of the church, but he is also deeply aware of the realities of sin and fallen human nature. No single institution wholly encompasses either city because the manifestation of the two cities across history cuts across institutions and societies.
Augustine was quite indifferent to political forms (e.g., monarchy, democracy, oligarchy, etc.). Whether it is kings, senators, or assemblies, he is not terribly concerned. For Americans this will sound foreign, even off-putting. But this is because we are so deeply invested in the idea that our form of representative government is intrinsically correct and should be adopted by all. The ancients held no such beliefs. Democracy was not believed to be superior to monarchy or aristocracy. The mode of government mattered less than the content and effects.
The “doctrine of the two” arises out of Augustine’s two cities concept, which is the belief that there are two orders ruled by two different authorities. The political is ruled by the magistrate and the church ruled by bishop. The two orders are not completely isolated from one another into two distinct spheres. There is overlap because the life of the church cannot help but overlap with politics, and politics will necessarily influence the church. Augustine’s ideal arrangement was one of coordination between the king and church. The question of the exact nature of the relationship between the two became a burning question throughout medieval history and played a significant role in Reformation disputes. However, Augustine did not think it worth detailing at length.
Catholics disputed to what extent the church, and the pope in particular, possessed authority over kings and princes. The confident, medieval Catholic Church believed that the church had power over the political sphere. Protestants decisively rejected the idea that the church possessed authority over kings and princes, believing the papal claims to universal jurisdiction were overstepping the bounds of ecclesial authority. Protestants still embraced the conviction that church and state could work together, but sought to reform the relationship between the two through bolstering the role of the magistrate and limiting the jurisdiction of the church.
Another of Augustine’s major contributions to political thought was his view of human nature and politics. Augustine’s name became associated with a school of thinking that came to be called “realism.” Augustine’s realism was rooted in his belief about the need for politics to remedy human sin and create order in the world. Human beings are deeply fallen creatures who require political power as a means to punish evil doers and create order out of disorder. Because human society is so deeply penetrated and perverted by human sin, we ought not expect much by way of humans acting virtuously or peacefully. The work of the politician is to restrain human depravity through force. This view has cautioned humans from pursuing overly optimistic schemes that require too much of humans. The most damaging and dangerous political movements are those that are utopian and seek to bring heaven down to earth. Rather than creating utopias, they often create massive chaos and destruction in name of higher moral aspirations.
Augustine believed the role of the politician was a tragic one. They had to keep order which means they would be involved in the brutal business of warfare and violence, which have been a central feature of politics forever. In book 19 chapter 6, Augustine captures the tension that Christians in political life confront. A Christian judge is faced with a suspect who is accused of a crime. How will he do justice here? He must render judgment with incomplete knowledge of the truth. Judgment and punishment are required in society in order to produce order and justice, but with only partial knowledge, the judge will no doubt punish the innocent and let the guilty go free. All judges are plagued by ignorance. But the Christian cannot run from this tragic state of affairs. Human society requires judgment and justice, but it is always only ever imperfect, and the Christian will confess that their hands are not free of the stain of mistakes in the discharging of their duties.
Conclusion
We have only gestured at a few of the ways Augustine’s work has influenced Christian thinking. His political influence is hard to measure because it happened at such a fundamental level and created many of the categories that we take for granted in Western political thought. Sadly, City of God is a book that is more often invoked than read. The history of its reception is one of picking and choosing. Some writers are attracted to certain ideas and thus focus on those ideas where they appear. But this is a mistake. The book was not written to be broken into pieces, but to be read and viewed as a whole. If we are to appreciate the full vision that Augustine lays forth in this monumental work, then we should read it from beginning to end. His writing rewards the patient reader, and following him through the twists and turns of his prose will gain an education in how to think with integrity and intensity from one of the greatest Christian minds ever.
