34. Civ. Dei 15.1 (CCL 48:453-54); trans. Walsh and Monahan, FOTC 14:413–15.
On the City of God 331 vessel for honorable use, another for ignoble use" (Rom 9:21). The first vessel to be made was for ignoble use. Only later was there made a vessel for honorable use. And as with the whole, so, as I have said, with the individual. First comes the clay that is only fit to be thrown away, with which we must begin but in which we need not remain. This does not mean that everyone who is wicked is to become good, but that no one becomes good who was not once wicked. What is true is that the sooner a person makes a change in himself for the better, the sooner he has a right to be called what he has become. The second name hides the first.
Now it is recorded of Cain that he built a city (Gn 4:17), while Abel, as though he were merely a pilgrim on earth, built none. For the true City of the saints is in heaven, though here on earth it produces citizens in whom it wanders as on a pilgrimage through time, looking for the Kingdom of eternity. When that day comes it will gather together all those who, rising in their bodies, shall have that Kingdom given to them in which, along with their Leader, the King of Eternity, they shall reign for ever and ever.34
Two Cities as Two Kinds of Love
For Augustine, our loves define the city to which we have, as it were, pledged our allegiance. Augustine had no illusions about politics: The earthly city, even at its best, sprang from a libido dominandi, a lust for domination. Mention of this sometimes subtle, sometimes brutal lust for domination appears in the preface (as we saw) and runs as a central thread through the whole work. From On the City of God, Book 14:
(28) What we see, then, is that two societies have issued from two kinds of love. Earthly society has flowered from a selfish love which dared to despise even God, whereas the heavenly is rooted in a love of God that is ready to trample on self. In a word, this latter relies on the Lord, whereas the other boasts that it can get along by itself. The one seeks human glory, whereas the height of glory for the other is to hear God in the witness of conscience. The one lifts up its head in its own boasting; the other says to God: "You are my glory, you lift up my head" (Ps 3:4). In the earthly city both the rulers themselves and the people they dominate are dominated by the lust for domination, whereas in the City of God all citizens serve one another in charity, whether they serve by the responsibilities of office or by the duties of obedience. The one city loves its leaders as symbols of its own strength; the other says to its God: "I love you, O Lord, my strength" (Ps 17:2). Hence, even wise
34. Civ. Dei 15.1 (CCL 48:453-54); trans. Walsh and Monahan, FOTC 14:413–15.