The Essential Augustine
THE BEATIFIC VISION*
And their inheritance shall be forever. This we take 8. on faith. Does the Lord also take it on faith? The Lord knows these things with a clarity so distinct that it is beyond our reach to describe, even when we are made equal to the angels. For the things to be revealed will not show forth as plainly to us as they show forth to Him who is incapable of change. Yet what are we told even of ourselves? Dearly beloved, we are now the sons of God, and it hath not yet appeared what we shall be. We know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like to Him, because we shall see Him as He is. {I John 3:2] There is obviously, then, some kind of blissful vision reserved for us; and if at present only a partial glimpse may be caught through a glass in a dark manner, {1 Cor. 13:12] yet the radiant beauty of that beatitude which God stores up for them that fear Him, which He perfects for them that hope in Him, utterly transcends the power of speech. It is for this that our hearts are being trained in all the hardships and trials of this life. Do not feel surprise at being schooled amid toil: you are being schooled for a wondrous destiny.
This explains the cry of the just man who has been strengthened: The sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come, that shall be revealed in us. [Rom. 8:18] What is that glory of ours to come, unless it be equality with the angels, and the vision of God? What a gift is bestowed on a blind man by one who restores his eyesight so that he can see the light of day! When cured, the man can find nothing sufficiently worthy to repay his healer; however much he gives, indeed, what gift can equal that which the other has bestowed? Desiring to give as much as he can, he will give him gold, yes, even masses of it; but the other has given him light! If the one would realize that he is repaying absolutely nothing, he should look at his gift in pitch darkness. And as to ourselves? What shall we give to that Physician who heals our inward sight and enables us to behold that very light eternal which is Himself?
* On Psalm 36, Serm. 2, 8; trans. ACW 30, 274-275. 196
IX. THE TWO CITIES
From Charlemagne onward, the Holy Roman Empire was inspired by a misreading of Augustine's City of God. Many people felt that he had planned the establishment of a Kingdom of God on this earth, in the form of a Christian renewal of the Empire of ancient Rome. This was not really his intent; Augustine's was an other-worldly ideal, a distinction of two kinds of men, and two societies which would never be formally institutionalized in the course of time. After the Last Judgment, they were to be separated in Heaven and Hell.
At the time that Augustine began to write the City of God, Rome was crumbling before the advances of the hordes from the north. Many of these invaders were Christians, partisans of the Arian heresy. To the old-line, pagan families of patrician Rome, Christianity now loomed as an insidious threat from within, and an open danger from outside the Empire. Various people, including the important Roman official Marcellinus, brought this charge to the attention of the Bishop of Hippo. It was widely rumored that Christianity had become a corroding influence to the Pax Romana. Supporters of the old paganism welcomed the opportunity to attack the spread of Christianity.
In the year 413 Augustine set to work to write a reply to this charge. He took more than thirteen years to complete the twenty-two books of the City of God. In a recently discovered Letter to Firmus (see the first selection, below), he has himself indicated the structure of this huge work. The first ten books answer the claim that Christianity is a corrosive social and political influence. In effect, Augustine denies the charge and argues that pagan polytheism has brought no good to Rome. In comparing his religion with the neopaganism then witnessing a brief revival in the last days of the Empire, Augustine utilized all the vast resources of his literary and historical scholarship. It is like an encyclopedia of late Roman culture. In the last twelve books, the theme becomes a description of the rise, progress and terminations of the two Cities.
Several of the first selections show how the citizens of these two societies are set apart by the contrast of their loves. In the Heavenly City, the members love God; in the Earthly City, the citizens have chosen another ruler. Sometimes Augustine suggests that the terrestrial chief is the Devil. The distinction of these societies then is a moral and religious one. The two cities are not differentiated by virtue of political organization but by the inner characters of their respective memberships.
Augustine was not entirely original in his theme of the two Cities. A Donatist scholar, Tychonius, had written earlier about these societies and Augustine recognizes his claim to priority. However, the real source of the theme is to be found in the Book of Psalms. Several of our middle selections indicate this biblical origin of the two Cities: the dualism is prefigured in Jerusalem and Babylon.
There has always been a certain understandable confusion concetning the relation of the City of God to the Christian Church. Actually, the selection included from the exposition of Psalm 98 suggests the identity of Church and Heavenly City. The problem is more involved than that. The citizens of God include all men and all angels of good will; the membership of the Church is somewhat different. It is not usual to speak of even the good angels as Christians; and again, there are both good and bad members in the yisible Church, while there can be no really bad persons in the City of God. The memberships overlap but are not identical in the Church and the City of God.
Many of the most quoted and influential passages from Augustine are represented, at least in part, in the passages chosen for this present chapter. His definition of a "people"
("an assemblage of reasonable beings bound together by a common agreement as to the objects of their love") has clearly figured in later social and political philosophies. The description of peace as the "tranquillity of order," with the associated essay on various types of order, has been repeated in other times by many other writers.
Secondary literature on the City of God and its leading themes is very extensive. Our list of items in the Bibliography is very selective. Many histories of political and social theories in the middle ages devote at least a chapter to it. Gilson's lengthy introduction to the translation of the City of God
THE TWO CITIES
discusses the major problems of interpretation and cites the Standard interpretative works.
AUGUSTINE'S ANALYSIS OF THE CITY OF GOD*
The books on the City of God which you most eagerly requested I have sent you as I promised, having also reread them myself. That this, with God's help, should be done has been urged by my son and your brother, Cyprian, who has furnished just that insistence I hoped would be forthcoming.
There are twenty-two sections. To put all these into one whole would be cumbersome. If you wish that two volumes be made of them, they should be so apportioned that one volume contain ten books, the other twelve. For in those ten the empty teachings of the pagans have been refuted, and in the remainder our own religion has been demonstrated and defended—though, to be sure, in the former books the latter subject has been dealt with when it was more suitable to do so, and in the latter, the former.
If, however, you should prefer that there be more than two volumes, you should make as many as five. The first of these would contain the first five books, where argument has been advanced against those who contend that the worship, not indeed of gods, but of demons, is of profit for happiness in this present life. The second volume would contain the next five books, where [a stand has been taken against those] who think that, for the sake of the life which is to come after death, worship should be paid, through rites and sacrifices, whether to these divinities or to any plurality of gods whatever. The next three volumes ought to embrace four books each; for this part.of our work has been so divided that four books set forth the origin of that City, a second four its progress—or, aS we might choose to say, its development—the final four its appointed ends.
If the diligence you have shown for procuring these books will be matched by diligence in reading them, it is rather from your testing than from my promises that you will learn how far they will help you. As for those books belonging to this work on the City of God which our brothers there in Carthage do not yet have, I ask that you graciously and willingly accede to their requests to have copies made. You will
Letter to Firmus, ed. C. Lambot in Revue Bénédictine, 51 (1939) 109-121; trans. FOC 6 (1950) 399-401.
not grant this favor to many, but to one or two at most, and hey 'Usemnacives will grant it to others. Among your friends, some, within the body of Christian folk, may desire instruction; in the case of others, bound by some superstition, it may appear that this labor of ours can through God's grace be used to liberate them. How you are to share it with them you must yourself decide. Ree: For my part I shall take care to make frequent inquiry, God willing, what progress you are making in my writings as you read them. Surely, you cannot fail to know how much a man of education is helped toward understanding the written word by repeated reading. No difficulty in understanding occurs (or, if any, very little) where there is facility in reading, and this gains in scope with successive repetitions. Constant application [brings to fruition] what [through inattention] would have remained immature.
In earlier letters, my distinguished and deservedly honored lord and my son Firmus, you have shown acquaintance with the books on the Academics that I composed when my conversion was yet fresh. Please write in reply how you came to this knowledge.
The range of subject matter comprised in the twenty-two books of my composition is shown in the epitome that I send you.
HOW THE TWO CITIES DIFFER*
We have already stated in the preceding books that I. God, desiring not only that the human race might be able by their similarity of nature to associate with one another, but also that they might be bound together in harmony and peace by the ties of relationship, was pleased to derive all men from one individual, and created man with such a nature that the members of the race should not have died, had not the two first (of whom the one was created out of nothing, and the other out of him) merited this by their disobedience; for by them so great a sin was committed that by it human nature was altered for the worse, and was transmitted also to their posterity, liable to sin and subject to death. And the kingdom of death so reigned over men, that the deserved penalty of sin would have
* City of God, XIV, 1; trans. Dods.
hurled all headlong even into the second death, of which there is no end, had not the undeserved grace of God saved some therefrom. And thus it has come to pass that, though there are very many and great nations all over the earth, whose rites and customs, speech, arms, and dress, are distinguished by marked differences, yet there are no more than two kinds of human society, which we may justly call two cities, according to the language of our Scriptures, The one consists of those who wish to live after the flesh, the other of those who wish to live after the spirit; and when they severally achieve what they wish, they live in peace, each after its kind.
TWO LOVES MAKE TWO CITIES*
These are the two loves: the first is holy, the second 15.20. foul; the first is social, the second selfish; the first consults the common welfare for the sake of a celestial society, the second grasps at a sélfish control of social affairs for the sake of arrogant domination; the first is submissive to God, the second tries to rival God; the first is quiet, the second restless; the first is peaceful, the second trouble-making; the first prefers truth to the praises of those who are in error, the second is greedy for praise, however it may be obtained; the first is friendly, the second envious; the first desires for its neighbor what it wishes for itself, the second desires to subjugate its neighbor; the first rules its neighbor for the good of its neighbor, the second for its own advantage; and these two loves produce a distinction among the angels: the first love belongs to the good angels, the second to the bad angels; and they also separate the two cities founded among the race of men, under the wonderful and ineffable Providence of God, administering and ordering all things that have been created: the first city is that of the just, the second is that of the wicked. Although they are now, during the course of time, intermingled, they shall be divided at the last judgment; the first, being joined by the good angels under its King, shall attain eternal life; the second, in union with the bad angels under its king, shall be sent into eternal fire. Perhaps, we shall treat, God willing, of these two cities more fully in another place.
* Literal Commentary on Genesis, XI, 15.20; trans. V.J.B.