57 pages • 1 hour read
Saint AugustineThe City of God
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 426A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The City
Augustine uses the idea of the city as a symbol representing each of the contrasting communities that he sees in the arc of human history. On one side, there is the “city of God,” made up of all those people who are being redeemed by God’s salvation and whose destiny lies in an eternity of joy in God’s presence. On the other side, there is the “earthly city,” made up of those people throughout history who choose their own way rather than God’s, for which Augustine uses Rome as his leading historical example. Since the earthly city rejects the goodness, truth, and beauty of God, its highest fulfillment lies not in the eternal state but in the temporal realities of earthly existence.
Both of these cities exist together in this world, and while the earthly city sometimes manifests itself in nations and empires, the city of God does not. Its members live alongside those of the earthly city, but their true citizenship belongs elsewhere, even as they respect and follow the laws of their local societies. Augustine hopes to encourage his readers that even if their temporal political state might be failing, their ultimate hope (if they are Christians) lies in their citizenship in the city of God. The distinction Augustine makes between these two cities introduces the root of an idea into the Western tradition that would later flower into concepts about the separation of church and state—ideas that played a large role in the Reformation and Enlightenment periods.
The Latin word that Augustine uses, civitate, differs from the English word “city” in some important respects. While the term can be used to speak of a specific city, it refers more to the communal and social factors of human society than it does to a physical location or a set of buildings. The Latin word urbs is a closer match to the conventional English use of “city,” while civitate includes the social/political idea of citizenship. Civitate is a parallel term to the Greek word polis, which, while also designating “city,” refers to the human community as the base expression of social and political identity. As such, English readers can get closer to Augustine’s meaning by remembering that his use of “city” is probably best understood as “society” in contemporary terminology.
Pilgrimage
One of Augustine’s most frequent motifs is the idea of pilgrimage, specifically associated with the nature of the city of God as it now exists in the world. Rather than constituting its own political society here on earth, the city of God is journeying through this temporal life to reach its ultimate destination: a heavenly existence in the presence of God. As such, the citizens of God’s city are always on pilgrimage, aiming not at the limited goals of territorial acquisition or material gain, but at making progress toward the kind of good and holy life that will characterize their full participation in the city of God as it exists in its heavenly state.
As such, members of the city of God do not tie their personal identity to political or ethnic affiliations, since they believe their identity lies in their citizenship in God’s city. They may love and serve earthly institutions and societies, like the Roman state, but they understand that their destiny does not ultimately lie with those institutions or societies. They are simply on pilgrimage, passing through this earthly life toward their final goal.
The motif of pilgrimage does not, however, suggest that the earthly life of the city of God is worthless, a mere transit to another place. Pilgrimage is a spiritual practice within the Christian tradition that finds value in the journey as well as in the destination. When Augustine describes the current life of the city of God as being on pilgrimage, he suggests that the journey toward one’s eternal destination is worthwhile because it grants one the opportunity to grow in virtue. In this way, the pilgrimage through earthly life prepares one to better experience the fullness of the eternal life to come, which will be characterized by a joyful holiness of life, the fruit of the virtues one has acquired here on earth.
Virtue
Virtue is another frequent motif in Augustine’s City of God, which he uses in at least two different ways. First, he borrows a common idea from Greco-Roman philosophy that sees virtue—that is, the habits and characteristics of a good person’s life—as evidence of truth. Truth and goodness were corollary qualities, so if a person’s life exhibited goodness in the form of various virtues, it was supposed that that person’s habits were informed and motivated by true perceptions and beliefs. Augustine uses this notion to point out the failings of pagan religion and the strengths of Christianity.
In paganism, the gods themselves were seldom portrayed as possessing moral virtues, and in some stories were believed to exhibit the opposite: vices of lust, greed, bad tempers, and petty personal ambitions. If that were so, argues Augustine, then why would one expect to find truth in a religious system that did not even expect moral virtues of its gods? Christianity, by contrast, not only exhibited many of the high moral qualities praised by philosophers (like the four cardinal virtues of justice, prudence, temperance, and fortitude), but added others that the Greco-Roman moralists had considered to be unattainable: love of one’s enemy, humility, and self-sacrificial charity, to name just a few.
Second, Augustine uses the motif of virtue to help explain the purpose behind evil and suffering in the world. One of the difficulties of Augustine’s position is that he posits a God who is both all-powerful and all-good, which raises a natural question: Why would evil and suffering exist if God is both powerful enough to prevent it and good enough to desire its absence? More pointedly, why would God allow the suffering of Rome’s fall in 410 CE to strike the many Christians of that city?
Augustine proposes that part of the reason why God permits evil and suffering is to help shape Christians into ever greater virtue. By permitting the loss of temporal goods like possessions, health, or even the lives of loved ones, Christians are taught to set their hope not on the passing values of this world but on the unshakable reward of the life to come, and in so doing they acquire virtues like temperance, patience, fortitude, and perseverance. The sufferings of this world thus act as a crucible that purifies human beings and leads to the acquisition of virtues that they would otherwise never have the chance to develop.
