Augustine in His Own Words (continued)
nity! Even if the city that gave birth to us in the flesh stood no more, then the City that gave birth to us in the spirit still does: "The Lord builds up Jerusalem" (Ps 146:2). Do you think that He fell asleep on the job, losing what He built? Or that He, by failing to keep watch over things, let enemies in? "Unless the Lord guard the city, in vain does the guard keep watch" (Ps 126:1). . . . The holy City, the faithful City, that City—while on earth a pilgrim sojourner— has its foundation in heaven. O faithful ones, don't corrupt your hope, don't dismiss your love. Gird your loins, get up, hold out your oil lamps, "wait for the Lord when he comes to the wedding" (Lk 12:35–36). What are you scared about, just because earthly kingdoms perish? That's the reason that a heavenly one's been promised you, that you won't perish with the earthly. Now this collapse was foretold—and foretold quite expressly. We cannot deny, after all, what's been foretold. Your Lord, the One you're waiting for, has said to you: "Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom" (Mk 13:8). Earthly kingdoms go through changes, but there will be One coming of whom it is said: "And of His kingdom there will be no end" (Lk 1:33).
(10) Those who have promised this sort of thing to earthly kingdoms have not been guided by truth, but have told flattering lies. [Vergil], a poet of theirs, once ushered in Jupiter and got him to say this concerning the Romans:
For them I set neither boundaries nor term of years, Empire without end have I given.19
That clearly is not the truth speaking. This endless empire that you [Jupiter] have supposedly given, you, who have given nothing: Is this empire on earth or in heaven? On earth, of course. And if it were in heaven, still "heaven and earth shall pass away" (Lk 21:33). [Heaven and earth] are things God Himself made, and they shall pass away. How much more quickly will something Romulus founded! . . .
(11) Therefore, brothers and sisters, don't get discouraged. An end shall come to all the kingdoms of the earth. If now be the end, God sees it. Maybe, by chance, it's not here yet. Whether it's our weakness or pity or misery—let's hope that it's not here yet. Even so, won't it come sometime? Fix your hope in God, yearn for eternal things, be on the lookout for eternal things. You are Christians, brothers and sisters—we are Christians. Christ didn't come down in the flesh for fineries. Let us put up with, rather than love, present realities. Adversity is openly pernicious; prosperity is charmingly deceitful. Fear the sea, even when it's dead calm. Let us never ever listen in vain to the words:
19. Vergil, Aeneid 1.278–79.
On the City of God 323
"Lift up your heart."20 Why do we place our heart on earth when we can see earth is getting turned upside down? I can do no more than exhort you that you have your heart where you say you do and you answer on behalf of your hope those who taunt and blaspheme the Christian name. Let no one's murmuring turn you away from waiting expectantly for the things to come. All who, because of these disasters, blaspheme our Christ are the scorpion's tail. Let us place our egg under the Gospel's Hen who calls out to that false and lost city: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often have I wished to gather your children together as a hen does her chicks, but you would not!" (Lk 13:34) Let it not be said to us: "How often would I, but you would not!" That Hen, you see, is divine Wisdom, but She took flesh to be on a par with Her chicks. See the Hen, feathers ruffled, wings drooping, Her voice cracking and quivering and rasping and fainting to be on a par with Her little ones. As for our egg— that is, our hope—let us place it beneath this Hen's wings.
(12) You may have noticed how a hen can rip a scorpion to pieces. If only the Gospel Hen would cut to pieces these blasphemers, scurrying on the ground, poking up out of their dens, stinging in nasty ways! If only She would gobble them up, ingest them into Her body, and turn them into egg! Let them not get angry. I may look excited, but I am not returning curses for curses. We are cursed and we bless; defamed, we plead with God. But people say of me: "Don't let him talk about Rome. O, if only he would just shut up about Rome!" As if I were some scoffer and not, instead, one pleading with the Lord and one encouraging you whatever way I can. Far be it from me to taunt Rome! May God turn such thoughts as these from my heart and from my saddened conscience. Didn't we have many brethren there? Don't we have them there still? Isn't a large segment of the pilgrim city of Jerusalem spending its days there? Has it not endured temporal losses there? But it has not lost eternal things. So what do I talk about when I don't keep quiet about these things? That it's false what they say about our Christ, false that He's the one who lost Rome, false that it had wooden and stone gods watching over it. . . .
See what sort of guardians those learned men have entrusted Rome to— to gods "who have eyes and cannot see" (Ps 113:5). Or if the gods could have preserved Rome, why did they themselves perish first? But those [learned men] say: "Rome perished at the same time." Whatever! The gods perished. "No," they say, "the gods didn't perish; their statues, their look-alikes, did." Well, how could gods that couldn't even take care of their look-alikes take care of your homes? Alexandria once lost such gods. Constantinople, once it
20. "The words: 'Lift up your heart' (sursum cor)": From the opening dialogue of the eucharistic prayer. See Augustine's interpretation of them in s. 227 (cited in Chapter 4).