City of God, Books 1-5

Some scattered notes on Books 1-5 of City of God , dependent to a large degree on Gerard O’Daly’s Augustine’s City of God: A Reader’s Guide .

1) Book 1 is the book most focused on the particular circumstances of the fall of Rome and the sufferings of Christians in that event. By the following books, Augustine has moved on to a more wide-ranging critique of Roman civilization, an expansion that already made its appearance in Book 1.

2) In his preface, Augustine quotes from the Aeneid, setting up the polemical uses he will make of Virgil in the following books. One of the main points is to indicate that Virgil’s poem already shows the vulnerability of the gods of Rome. If the gods came fromTroy, as Virgil says they did, then they are not very good protectors for the city of Rome.

3) Augustine points to the fact that the Goths provided sanctuary during the siege. Augustine is not a fan of the Goths, who are barbarians. He makes this point instead to show the difference that Christianity makes – turning barbaric Goths clement.

4) As he reviews the suffering caused by the siege and capture of Rome, he acknowledges that the righteous and wicked both suffer. But he insists that they suffer in different ways, and the suffering has different results. He also uses this point later to describe the difference between Christianity, which promises eternal rewards, and Roman religion, which offers temporal/political rewards. An adherent to Roman religion sees his religion falsified when those political rewards don’t come; but a Christian knows that there is a better reward waiting for him. This helps him escape the charges that come against Christianity: If the Romans say that Christianity didn’t save Rome, Augustine can say that wasn’t what it promised in the first place.

5) He makes a similar move in discussing the question of the rape of Christian women in the siege. They should not think of themselves as defiled because purity is not a matter of the body but of the soul. His various exempla on the issue of suicide require him to steer around condoning suicide (which he doesn’t want to do). He uses Lucretia for polemical purposes: If the Romans admired her, they should admire Christian women who commit suicide after rape. But he also needs to find a flaw in Lucretia’s actions, which he does by charging that she is too full of love of praise, as are the rest of the Romans. The issue in rape is whether there is consent of the mind: will is what determines whether something is defiling or not. He poses a dilemma with Lucretia’s example: Either she consented, and so is guilty; or she is innocent, in which case suicide is wrong. Augustine sees her as something of a victim of the Roman lust for glory and reputation.

6) Regulus is another key example. He died because he was faithful to his word, and this is an example to Christians. There is virtue here, and it is among the virtues that gave Rome its extensive power. But there is still a flaw in Regulus’ virtue: If he thought that faithfulness to the gods brought benefits for this life, he was clearly wrong. If, on the other hand, he thought the gods promised eternal rewards, he is closer to Christians, and the Romans have no basis for condemning Christians for putting hope for reward in another world.

7) At the end of Book 1, Augustine initiates a theme that will occupy him in Books 2, 3, 5:Rome’s moral decline that began when Rome developed into an empire. Among the signs of moral decline are the games and the theater.

8) Books 2-3 develop two main themes: first, the moral bankruptcy ofRome, and second the fact that the successes ofRomewere not dependent upon the gods. He’s trying to detachRome’s power from its religion. The central point of the latter argument is that the successes ofRomewere not dependent upon performance of the rites of Roman religion. They had successes when they were not regular in those rites, and they failed when they were faithful in those rites.

9) Augustine shows that Rome suffered calamities of various sorts before Christianity was introduced. More seriously, he charges that the gods provided no moral guidance to the Romans but instead indulged in immoral acts themselves. The theater depicted the gods as immoral beings. It’s no response to say that the theater presented mythical views of the gods, since the theater was begun at divine command and the gods didn’t intervene to correct or avenge the misrepresentation of the gods.

10) He finds pagan critics, like Sallust, who criticize Rome, and on the other hand he shows that the pagan critics never attributeRome’s calamities to the gods. It’s unfair, then, for the Romans to lay recent evils and calamities at the feet of the Christian God.

11) From chapter 20 of book 2 on Augustine raises an issue that is developed at length in Book 19, namely, the nature of social justice. The Roman state, he says, has no understanding of justice, and the state is merely a vehicle for greed, lust, and pleasure. O’Daly suggests that Augustine presents the Roman state as a “pleasure machine.” The Romans worship gods in order to maintain the status quo. True justice, though, exists only in the city of God.

12) By looking at the mythical origins of Rome, Augustine makes the point that the foundation ofRomewas corrupted. It did not become corrupt later, but was corrupt at the outset. And despite these evils, the gods did nothing.

13) O’Daly says that Augustine provides a “demonic” reading of Roman history. The infighting among the demons symbolizes the demonic destructiveness ofRome.

14) Minerva’s statue preserved through a sack ofRomeshows that the presence rather than the absence of the gods had something to do with the evils thatRomesuffered.

15) From chapter 13 of Book 3 on, Augustine begins a recital of the battles and civil wars and family conflict that have made up Roman history.

16) Book 4 opens with an address to the educated ofRome. He is not merely dealing with pagans, but with pagans who are educated, and he distinguishes here between educated pagans who take a philosophical view of their traditional religion, and superstitious pagans who are attached to myths and ceremonies.

17) Book 4 is about the progress of theRoman empire. He wants to “demythologize” the imperial ideology, and he does this by insisting that a good ruler must be a good man and that a good state must secure justice. Without justice, societies are no better than bands of robbers. A gang becomes a society when they gather more people, take territory, and gain impunity without giving up their commitment to aggression against neighboring peoples.

18) He wants to relativize the greatness ofRome by pointing out that other great empires have fallen.

19) A plurality of minor gods cannot secure an empire. He deals with the role of Jupiter, pointing out that Jupiter’s character is ambiguous. Is he the most powerful among a collection of gods? Or is he somehow all the gods put together? Augustine says it is more economical and rational to accept that there is only one God.

20) He says that the Romans, and other pagans, confuse the gifts of God with the gods themselves. Varro claimed that worshipers needed to know the particular gifts of each god in the same way that we need to know the differen

t functions of professionals. This is important for religious practice. Augustine counters that a) there are overlaps of various functions, so things are not clear as Varro claims; and b) some moral realities are deified but others are not.

21) He notes Scaevola’s scheme of dividing the gods into poetic, philosophical, and political, a division that he will examine more fully later in DCD.

22) Book 5 deals with free will and providence, both of which Augustine wants to preserve, and also with questions related to free will, such as horoscopes and astrology. He resolves the apparent contradiction between free will and providence by saying that God gives the power of free will. Human minds and wills are both caused by God and also cause. This sets up a discussion of theRoman empireunder the oversight of God’s providence.

23) Glory, honor, power are the key themes of Roman imperial expansion, a classification that Augustine borrows from Sallust. Augustine says that love of praise is a vice and not a virtue. Membership in the city ofGod, by contrast, depends on true piety, vera pietas, very likely another Virgillian reference. Augustine doesn’t find glory a very high goal: If it’s dependent on victory, it’s going to be temporary, since victories are not permanent. He also comments that Rome should have expanded to universal citizenship earlier. Yet, Romans who acted well for the sake of temporary glory should be examples to Christians; how much more should Christians act with courage and determination for the sake of an eternal reward.