Augustine in His Own Words
beings—and not irresponsible cattle—who are voluntarily associated in the pursuit of common interests, we can reasonably call them a "people," and they will be a people, for better or worse, according to the interests, whether better or worse, which have brought them together.
This definition certainly makes the Roman people a "people" and their wealth and welfare a "commonwealth" or "republic." We know, however, from history what kind of interest this people had, both in primitive times and more recently, and also what kind of morals brought on the rupture and corruption of their voluntary association (which is the health, so to speak, of any community), first, by bloody seditions, and later, by social and civil war. On this subject, I had a good deal to say earlier in this work. I would, however, still call the Romans a "people" and their affairs a "commonwealth," so long as they remain a multitude of reasonable beings voluntarily associated in the pursuit of common interests. Of course, what I have said of the Romans and their Republic applies not less to the Athenians and other Greek communities, to the Egyptians, to the early Assyrians of Babylonia, and, in general, to any other pagan people whose government exercised real political control, however much or little. The fact is that any civil community made up of pagans who are disobedient to God's command that He alone receive sacrifices, and who, therefore, are devoid of the rational and religious control of soul over body and of reason over sinful appetites, must be lacking in true justice.68
The Peace of Babylon
In Book 19, Augustine meditates on peace and sketches what peace looks like here in the earthly city to those whose citizenship belongs to the City of God. Augustine neither sacralized nor demonized the Roman Empire. He saw it—and all earthly kingdoms—as venues where, at best, the citizens of the two cities worked toward their distinct ends and yet shared a common concern for peace. This passage is one of the climaxes of the entire work, setting out how Christians fit into the saeculum, the world. From On the City of God, Book 19:
(17) While the households of people who live without faith are intent upon acquiring temporal peace for the possessions and comforts of this temporal life, the families who live according to faith look ahead to the good things of heaven promised as imperishable and use material and temporal goods in the
68. Civ. Dei 19.21–24 (CCL 48:687–96); trans. Walsh and Honan, FOTC 24:232–44 (modified). On this passage, see Oliver O'Donovan, "Augustine's City of God XIX and Western Political Thought," Dionysius 11 (1987): 89–110; also Mikka Ruokanen, Theology of Social Life in Augustine's De Civitate Dei, Forschungen zur Kirchenund Dogmengeschichte 53 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993), 96–131.
On the City of God 361 spirit of pilgrims, not as snares or obstructions to block their way to God, but simply as helps to ease and never to increase the burdens of this corruptible body which weighs down the soul. Both types of homes and their homeowners have this in common: that they must use things essential to this mortal life. But the respective purposes to which they put them are very different and unique to their character. So, too, the earthly city which does not live by faith seeks only an earthly peace, of its harmony of authority and obedience among its citizens, for the sake of the voluntary and collective attainment of objectives necessary to mortal existence. The heavenly City, meanwhile—or, rather, that part that is on pilgrimage in mortal life and lives by faith—must use this earthly peace until such time as our mortality, which needs such peace, has passed away. As a consequence, so long as her life in the earthly city is that of a captive and an alien (although she has the promise of ultimate delivery and the gift of the Spirit as a pledge), she has no hesitation about keeping in step with the civil law, which governs matters pertaining to our existence here below. For as mortal life is the same for all, there ought to be common cause between the two cities in what concerns our purely human living. . . .
So long, then, as the heavenly City is wayfaring on earth, she invites citizens from all nations and all tongues, and unites them into a single pilgrim band. She takes no issue with that diversity of customs, laws, and traditions whereby human peace is sought and maintained. Instead of nullifying or tearing down, she preserves and appropriates whatever in the diversities of diverse races is aimed at one and the same objective of human peace, provided only that it does not stand in the way of the faith and worship of the one supreme and true God. Thus, the heavenly City, so long as it is wayfaring on earth, not only makes use of earthly peace but fosters and actively pursues, along with other human beings, a common platform in regard to all that concerns our purely human life and does not interfere with faith and worship. Of course, though, the City of God subordinates this earthly peace to that of heaven. For this is not merely true peace, but, strictly speaking, for any rational creature, the only real peace, since it is, as I said, the perfectly ordered and harmonious communion of those who find their joy in God and in one another in God. When this peace is reached, we will be no longer haunted by death, but plainly and perpetually endowed with life; nor will the body, which now wastes away and weighs down the soul, be any longer animal, but spiritual, in need of nothing, and completely under the control of our will. This peace the pilgrim City already possesses by faith, and it lives justly and according to this faith so long as, to attain its heavenly completion, it refers every good act done for God or—since community life must emphasize social relationships—for one's neighbor. . . .