​The timeless wisdom of St. Augustine’s City of God

Earlier this year, a group of thirty parishioners at St. Luke’s Church, Calgary, embarked on a great adventure: reading St. Augustine of Hippo’s masterpiece The City of God. 

​The book study was organized by the Legion of Mary, a lay association whose members seek union with Jesus through Mary and strive to practice the spiritual works of mercy. One of the spiritual works of mercy is to instruct the ignorant, and one way of instructing the ignorant is to provide people with an opportunity to read and discuss good books.

The Legion of Mary organizes two book studies at St. Luke’s each year. The decision to read The City of God was made after someone heard an unnamed priest talk about the book in a homily. Those who participated in the book study began reading The City of God in January and finished in June; each week, they met to discuss what they had read. Though some found the read challenging at first, everyone ultimately found it very rewarding, and readers obtained many insights into the beauty of the Catholic faith and how to live as a Catholic in today’s world.  

St. Augustine
 
St. Augustine of Hippo was born in 354 A.D. in the north African city of Tagaste (modern-day Souk Ahras, Algeria). His parents were St. Monica, a devout Christian, and Patricius, a violent-tempered pagan. At an early age, he abandoned himself to a life of worldly pleasures and later fell under the influence of the heretical sect of the Manichees. Through the prayers of his mother, however, he underwent a profound conversion to Christ at the age of thirty-three and was baptized by St. Ambrose of Milan. After leading a monastic life for a few years with some friends, he was ordained a priest and eventually a bishop. Endowed with one of the greatest minds in Christian history, he wrote numerous books and sermons and is honoured as a Father and Doctor of the Church. 

The City of God
           
The late Catholic thinker Fr. James V. Schall, S.J. said that we should read The City of God at least once in our lives, though he also said once is not enough. He described reading The City of God as “one of life’s soul-moving experiences, like reading Aristotle’s Metaphysics, or The Brothers Karamazov, or the Epistle to the Romans.”[1] 

St. Augustine completed The City of God a few years before his death and began writing it nearly fifteen years earlier, shortly after the sack of Rome by barbarians from northern Europe in 410 A.D. He wrote the book in part as a response to those who blamed the decline of the Roman Empire on the Christian religion. Instead, he argued, the empire’s demise was due instead to its own moral decadence, and the futile gods of paganism were never capable of giving the Romans happiness in the first place. Augustine did say, however, that Christians were at fault insofar as they failed to admonish their pagan neighbours for fear of losing social status or economic advantage (a timely lesson, certainly, for today). 
           
All of this Augustine treats of in the first half of the book. In the second half, however, he treats of something much broader: the origin, development, and destinations of the City of God and the City of Man. The City of God is the society of all who love God as their supreme good, and the City of Man is the society of all who love themselves as their supreme good. At its deepest level, history is the story of the struggle between these two cities, a struggle in which the City of God is ultimately victorious. 
           
The Importance of The City of God Today
 
The City of God is both timeless and timely, relevant in every age, including our own.  In writing about the two Cities, Augustine examines a whole host of theological topics, such as the creation of the universe, the good and the bad angels, original sin, grace and free will, the relationship between the Old and New Testaments, the Incarnation, and the resurrection of the body.  Participants in the book study said that reading The City of God gave them a better understanding of what we as Catholics believe and that it helped them appreciate our faith’s richness and depth.

Studying The City of God also gave readers a sharper sense of the reality of our faith. In one part of the book, Augustine recounts what was happening among nations outside of Israel, especially Assyria and Rome, at the same time as the events narrated in Scripture from the time of Abraham to the coming of Jesus Christ. By tracing the course of salvation history alongside the course of secular history, Augustine brings home that the Christian faith is not about myths or fairy-tales but rather real historical events and that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ are the central events of human history.        

Readers noted parallels between pagan ideas that Augustine had to respond to and ideas prevalent today.  In the words of one reader, “We are seeing a lot of pagan philosophies reappearing in our society, so it was interesting to read Augustine's response to these...because today they appear as relatively new concepts and yet they are sitting there in history.” Augustine provides a model of how to respond to the ideas of the culture in which one lives with the light of the Gospel. 

The City of God provides helpful guidance for Christians living in today’s world. We have already noted Augustine’s emphasis on fraternal correction. Concerns about social standing or the opinion of others should never hold us back from speaking the truth, which is ultimately, as Scripture teaches, an act of charity (cf. Ezekiel 33:7-11). Moreover, although many sectors of earthly life may be dominated by the City of Man, Augustine says that the citizens of the City of God should not simply run away from earthly affairs (such as business or politics) but rather seek to direct them toward eternal realities. Catholics should engage with their contemporaries and show by word and example how the splendour of the truth revealed in Jesus Christ has the power to transform our lives and direct us toward perfect and lasting happiness.  Augustine has much wisdom for those who seek to be missionary disciples. 

This week, the St. Luke’s book study will begin a new adventure: reading St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. In January, they will take up St. Francis de Sales’ Introduction to the Devout Life. 

Note:  At the same time that he was reading The City of God along with his parishioners, I was also reading The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien’s posthumously published prequel to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The connections to be made between St. Augustine’s theology of history in The City of God and Tolkien’s mythological sub-creation are many. That, however, is a subject for another article.

[1] James V. Schall, S.J., “The City of God,” The Catholic Thing, March 12, 2009, accessed September 19, 2024, https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2009/03/12/the-city-of-god/.

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Written by Fr. Derek Remus, Associate Pastor of St. Luke's Church, Calgary.