Augustine in His Own Words
On the City of God 317
So there's a certain godless city, described as likeminded in its human godlessness even though scattered among all the world's lands, and in the Scriptures it is known mystically as Babylon. On the other hand, there's a certain city, on this earth a pilgrim among all the world's peoples, likeminded in its godliness, and this one's called Jerusalem. Both cities are now mixed up together; at the end they will be separated.7
An early version of this idea appears in On True Religion, written around 390.8 Around 403, in On Catechizing, Augustine recommended it as an organizing motif to explain the Bible to pagans who were considering joining the Church (see below). It also shows up here and there in the routine of his preaching.9 In his Literal Interpretation of Genesis, Augustine notes that the two cities flowed from two loves, "one holy, the other unclean . . . one peaceable, the other seditious," manifested first among the angels and then played out over the course of human history as two cities; he then adds: "Concerning these two cities, I will perhaps discuss the issue much more broadly, if the Lord is willing, in some other venue."10 This passing comment has led scholars to suggest that Augustine would have written City of God even without Rome's fall.11 But Alaric's sack helped Augustine crystallize his views and provided a newsworthy occasion to "discuss the issue much more broadly."
While Augustine's explicit target is Christianity's pagan detractors, he positions his own stance in marked contrast to two earlier strains of Christian thinking about Rome and the wider political order.12 One is exemplified by Hippolytus (c. 170–c. 236), who read the Empire in dark apocalyptic terms, as demonic in inspiration, an irredeemable Babylon. The other is exemplified by Eusebius (c. 260–339), the church historian and scholarly bishop of Caesarea. Eusebius saw in the Emperor Constantine's conversion a watershed moment in the history of salvation. Rome, the one-time persecutor of Christians, was now Christianity's God-given ally and vindicator. Under Constantine's beneficence, the Gospel not only had imperial acknowledgment but also was given free rein to spread to the ends of the known world. Eusebius thus forged a pro-imperial theology. Echoes of this appear in others, notably in Augustine's mentor, Ambrose. But few voice it more vibrantly than another contemporary, the poet Prudentius, who celebrated the Emperor Theodosius's official banning of paganism in the 390s and the triumph of Christianity as the official religion of the Empire:
7. S. 299A.8 (= Dolbeau 4) (Dolbeau, VSS, 519); my trans. 8. De vera religione 27.50 (BA 8:90–94), cited in Chapter 2. 9. En. Ps. 64.2, 84.10 (CCL 39:823–24, 1170–71). 10. Gn. litt. 11.15.20 (BA 49:260–62); my trans. 11. Brown, Religion and Society in the Age of Saint Augustine, 35, n. 1. 12. On this, see R. A. Markus, Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St. Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 22–44.