It is a common trope for Christians to look back to the early centuries of the Christian church, and make comparisons between those early centuries and our current situation as Christians in the twenty-first century. But just because this is a common move does not mean it is illegitimate or unhelpful. It is wise and good to look to the past for help in living faithful lives in the present. Indeed, remembering the past simply is one key component of living biblically faithful lives. Thus, at the end of book of Malachi, when the Old Testament era is coming to an end, when the need of a new covenant has become virtually depressingly clear, one of the Lord’s final prophetic words to the people of God is “remember the law of my servant Moses” (Mal. 4:4). In short, living biblically faithful lives includes the importance of looking to the past, and remembering what God has done and said. That is why I consider in this article the circumstances surrounding Augustine’s famous reflection on the city of God and how it relates to the kingdom of God.
The Fall of the City of Rome
Augustine (A.D. 354–430) had at one time lived in Rome, one of the most important cities–perhaps the most important city–of his era. But when Alaric and the Visigoths invaded Rome in A.D. 410, Augustine was residing in Hippo, in north Africa, where he would live out his days. Augustine was at that point (in Hippo) a busy bishop, engaging in the typical challenges of pastoring people, and engaging in multiple administrative tasks. Alaric and the Visigoths had successfully invaded Rome, entered the city, and inflicted significant damage. The city was not decimated, but it was now evident that Rome was not impenetrable. But to grasp the significance of this event for Augustine and his era, it is helpful to take a couple of steps back.
Some 100 years prior to Alaric’s sack of Rome, it had been a quite different political and cultural era. Emperor Diocletian reigned from A.D. 284–305 (he will reign in the eastern empire starting in 286 having appointed Maximian as co-emperor to rule the western half of the empire). Diocletian had engaged in some of the most severe Christian persecutions of any emperor (starting in 303). In a startling development, Constantine will become emperor in 306, and will reign until 337. Constantine’s Edict of Milan in 313 gave Christianity full legal status. However, it was Theodosius I in 380 who issued the edict, Cunctos populos, which reads: “It is our will that all peoples ruled by our government shall practice that religion.” In short, while Constantine granted Christianity full legal status, it is Theodosius I who establishes Christianity as the official religion of the empire—thirty years before Rome fell.
The New “Christian Times”?
Augustine himself seems to have been moved and excited by what seemed to be happening in history. The empire had gone on from a policy from bloody and intense Christian persecution to one where the Christian faith was prospering, and had even been given preferred legal status. In a sermon in 404 Augustine could write:
Kings, lately, are coming to Rome. It’s terrific, brothers and sisters, how it was all fulfilled. When it was being uttered, when it was being written, none of these things were happening. It’s marvelous. Take note of it and see, rejoice.[1]
1. Augustine, Sermons (Dolbeau 25; 360b) 25.
Augustine was thrilled at what he took to be the fulfillment of Scripture. He goes on to write:
Let them occasionally at least be curious about the divine scriptures, let them find there so many things foretold which they can now see happening.[2]
2. Augustine, Sermons (Dolbeau 25; 360b) 25.
He proceeds:
They’re astonished, you see, at the way the human race is converging on the name of the crucified and streaming together, from kings to ragamuffins. No age passed over, no manner of life, no school of thought. It’s not the case, you see, that the unlearned have believed and the learned haven’t, or that the low-born have believed and the high-born haven’t, or that women have believed and men haven’t, or that children have believed and old people haven’t, or that slaves have believed and free persons haven’t.
Indeed:
Every age has been called to salvation, every age has already come, every degree, every human level of wealth and property. It’s high time for all and sundry to be inside. Now just a few have remained outside, and they still go on arguing; if only they would wake up some time or other, at least at the din the world is making! The whole world is shouting at them.
In short, it seemed that at the very beginning of the fifth century Augustine and the Christians were witnessing a significant fulfillment of prophecy, and the victory of Christianity in the world. These were exciting times, perhaps even the “Christian times” (Christiana tempora), where prophecy was being fulfilled in recognizable and tangible ways. Robert Markus writes:
Most Christians [around this time—c. A.D. 404] shared the euphoria expressed in Augustine’s sermon. Bishops like Ambrose of Milan thought they could discern the signs of the times in the flow of events; they saw the new order of Christianity superseding the ancient Roman traditions, the mos maiorum [literally or woodenly: “the way of the greater ones”=”the way of the ancestors”].[3]
3. Robert Markus, “Saint Augustine’s Secularization of Rome,” Church Life Journal: A Journal of the McGrath Institute for Church Life (August 28, 2020). Accessed on November 16, 2024.
So, things had changed significantly in the course of 100 years or so—from the persecutions of Diocletian starting in 303, to a kind of enthusiasm100 years later, when Scripture seemed to be being fulfilled, and kings were bowing to the Lord Jesus.
But then Rome was successfully invaded in A.D. 410. The pagans had already been mocking Christians for the Christian’s notion of the Christiania tempora—the “Christian times.” Were such invasions something Romans should expect in such ostensibly wonderful “Christian times”?
Enter The City of God
The pagans indeed blamed the Christians for fall of Rome. These pagan criticisms might be summarized a couple of ways. First, the pagans argued, the Christian faith emphasized the importance of a “higher and nobler country” to which Christians had allegiance. Surely, if that were the case, Christians could not be reliable and faithful citizens in this realm. Secondly, certain other Christian teachings—man being made in the image of God, Christians of different nations being my brothers and sisters, love for one’s enemies, the virtues of meekness and patience—would also make it hard for Christians to be good citizens of the empire.
These are not small criticisms, and thoughtful Christians should take them seriously, which is what Augustine did. Augustine’s general lines of arguments in The City of God could be summarized as follows.
(1) Rather than discourage or inhibit meaningful citizenship, Christianity—based on texts like Romans 13—makes citizenship a Christian duty.
(2) Christianity does not require the rejection of force or arms, but requires that all such use be carried out justly, and that wars are only entered into if such an act can be justified.
(3) Christianity cannot be blamed for the various injustices in Rome, and for the fall of Rome, for Rome had plenty of travails, injustice, and suffering well before Christianity emerged.
(4) While Rome prides itself on being a just republic, it never really was a just republic, for true justice can only be realized when Christ is lord of a republic.
It is worth lingering on this last point, for here we see Augustine giving voice to a line of argument which would have been somewhat foreign to the Greek and Roman philosophical and political tradition he inherited. In a traditional understanding of justice, one thing is absolutely central in defining justice: justice is giving someone his or her due. There may be other angles or aspects of justice, but justice can certainly not be less than giving someone his or her due.
Some Christians with left-ward leanings have tried to skirt this traditional understanding by saying that justice is the restoration of a right relationship. Then, such persons will at times advocate this or that schema for redistributing wealth on a major scale, etc. But something gets lost in this discussion. It is fine to say that justice is the restoration of a right relationship. But how is that realized: by giving someone his or her due. There may also be the need of forgiveness, etc., but when we are simply speaking of justice, it is impossible to escape or circumvent the notion that justice must entail giving someone his or her due.
But as a Christian, Augustine forces his readers to think in fundamentally Christian terms about justice, especially justice at the level of society in general. Augustine’s argument is simple and straightforward. Justice requires giving each person his or her due. But this means that Christ ought to be given his due. And what Christ is owed is absolute worship, adoration, and allegiance. Thus, a republic can never really be a just republic unless Christ is being honored as Lord. Augustine could write:
But the fact is, true justice has no existence save in that republic whose founder and ruler is Christ, if at least any choose to call this a republic; and indeed we cannot deny that it is the people’s weal [well being].[4]
4. Augustine, City of God, II.21.
In one sense, the last 1600 years of “political theology” has been one long attempt to work through (or evade) Augustine’s thinking on this point. It is unlikely that Christians will quit wrestling with all of the various entailments (including political entailments) of the first century confession, “Jesus is Lord” (Rom. 10:9).
Augustine will argue that all of world history can be understood as the story of “two cities”—the city of God and the city of man. These two cities are—at one level—simply (1) believers (the city of God) and (2) unbelievers (the city of man), although Augustine can equivocate a bit here. Sometimes the two cities are more less (1) spiritual concerns/realities (the city of God) and (2) earthly/everyday concerns (the city of man).
One’s “citizenship” in one or the other of these two cities is determined by one’s loves: “two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self.”[5] This radical nature of Augustine’s insight here may not startle as it should. Augustine is contending that at the very center of created reality is the nature of one’s loves. At the core of one’s destiny is the human heart. This is an insight that should be reflected on at length.
5. Augustine, City of God, XIV.28.
These two cities start with Adam (who at first is simply the first person in the city of God). With sin we see the city of man emerge. These two cities grow, and in the present they are “intermixed” and “intermingled.” At the final judgment, the city of man (in the sense of those who persist in unbelief) is judged, and the city of God blossoms fully, and its citizens will enjoy being in the presence of God forever.
The Kingdom of God
It is perhaps legitimate to see the city of God as close to the New Testament conception of the kingdom of God. Augustine is working in an architectonic kind of way when he speaks of “two cities.” The city of God can perhaps be seen as roughly equivalent to broader category of “kingdom,” and at times can be seen as roughly equivalent to the somewhat narrower category of “church.” He is at times speaking in rather sweeping terms. Empires like Assyria, Babylon, and Rome are clearly exemplars of the city of man, while covenantal epochs or realms like Seth, Abraham, Noah, Moses, and David are exemplars of the city of God.
Augustine was probably what we often called today an “amillennialist.” He seems to affirm that these two cities will essentially plod along in the course of history. The city of man will eventually be destroyed, and the city of God will eventually reach its blessed and final destiny—the company of God’s people in the presence of God. Yes, the city of God grows, but Augustine does not seem to have a category for the city of God growing and becoming the main player in history. That is, the notion of God’s kingdom or “city” transforming the current world does not seem to work its way into Augustine’s framework. The notion of Revelation of 11:15—”The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ,” and the possibility that this might happen in history, does not play a major role in Augustine’s understanding of the growth of the city of God. The somewhat excited tenor of his sermon in 404 (see the first footnote, above), with apparently awe-inspiring fulfillment of Scripture, as evidenced in the “Christian times” hope of that sermon, seems muted or absent in City of God. Augustine has not ceased believing that God keeps his word, but perhaps the successful invasion of Rome had chastened him a bit.
Enduring Significance
Augustine’s City of God is important for Christians today for a multitude of reasons, but I will mention three in particular.
First, Augustine provides a model for how Christians ought to think of all of world history in explicitly Christian and biblical categories. As Christians raise children and attempt to think about the world we live in on God’s terms—and not ours—Augustine offers a model for making sense of the world in explicitly biblical categories. That is, for Augustine, world history simply is the history of the two cities. Instead of Christians taking for granted the way the secular academy (or the secular worldview more generally) makes sense of the world, Christians would be wise to follow Augustine by attempting to make sense of all of reality in explicitly biblical categories.
Second, Augustine works out of a kind of proper “subjectivity”—in the sense that the human person has a central role in the world. I do not mean here to advocate for a kind of relativism. Rather, Augustine could affirm both the radical sinfulness of the human person and the centrality of the person—and his or her loves—to all of reality. If aspects of the classical world which preceded Augustine made too little of the importance of the individual person, and if the modern world has at times made too much of the individual person (with the narcissism which has pervaded much of the modern age), Augustine rightly balanced the importance of the individual person and his or her loves.
Third, Augustine’s understanding of justice, and his linking of justice to the reality of honoring Christ is fruitful and worthy of reflection. Many of us in the modern world have been conditioned to look everywhere but Christ and his word when trying to think through the various challenges and perplexities which face us. When Augustine argues that true justice means giving Christ his due, we should listen to him. Christians are justice people, and we should follow Augustine and think about justice in explicitly biblical categories.
Conclusion
Like Augustine, we should be confident that God’s city shall prevail. Indeed, God’s kingdom is a kingdom which shall indeed prevail. God’s “righteous branch” shall “execute justice and righteousness in the land” (Jer. 33:15). There may appear to be throughout church history moments which seem more like “Christian times” or less like “Christian times,” but we know that a day is coming when all time will be truly Christian. Jesus is Lord.
