Understand in about 7 minutes
Writing after the sack of Rome, Augustine answers pagans who blamed Christianity for the disaster, and sets against the proud earthly city a second city formed by love of God that endures beyond every empire.
Mind Map
Core Message
Augustine opens by answering pagans who blamed the sack of Rome on the abandonment of the old gods. He points out that the churches gave sanctuary even to unbelievers during the sack, and that calamity has always struck good and bad alike, long before any Christian times.
The whole work turns on one contrast. One city is shaped by love of self carried to contempt of God; the other by love of God carried to contempt of self. They are mixed together in history but headed for different ends.
Augustine attacks Roman religion on its own ground. The gods issued no moral law, sent no prophets, and were honored with obscene spectacles. They could not give virtue in this life, still less eternal life in the next.
Empire is not a reward handed out by idols. The same providence gave power to good rulers and cruel ones, to Rome and to Persia, and orders the whole course of history toward an end the eternal city waits for in patience.
Summary
The City of God was begun soon after Goths sacked Rome in 410, and Augustine wrote it over more than a decade. Pagans were saying the city had been ruined because Rome had deserted its ancient gods for Christianity. The opening books answer that charge directly. Augustine notes that the barbarians spared those who fled to the churches of the martyrs, a mercy unheard of in ordinary war, and he reminds his readers that disaster has always fallen on the righteous and the wicked together, in every age before Christ as much as after.
Having cleared away the accusation, Augustine goes on the attack. He examines the old Roman religion closely and finds it empty. The gods gave their worshippers no precepts for a good life, sent no warning prophets, and were celebrated with shameful games that no honest person would stage at home. He argues that these powers were not gods at all but demons who looked after their own interest, and that they could not bestow either earthly virtue or the eternal happiness men most need.
From there the book builds its central image: two cities, formed by two loves. The earthly city is fashioned by love of self pressed to the point of despising God, and it glories in itself and in the love of ruling. The heavenly city is fashioned by love of God pressed to the point of despising self, and it gives the glory to God. Pride founds the one and humility the other. In this life the two are tangled together, sharing the same streets and the same goods, separated finally only by what they love.
On that frame Augustine hangs a long reading of history. He traces the two cities from the angels and from Cain and Abel, through Israel and the nations, and through the whole record of Rome. His point about empire is steady throughout: kingdoms are not parceled out by idols but governed by the one true God, who gave dominion to Persia and to Rome alike, to benign emperors and to cruel ones, for reasons often hidden but never unjust. Strip justice away, he says, and a kingdom is only a large robbery.
The closing books look past history to its end. The earthly city, for all its glory, is bound for the second death; the city of God is bound for an eternal sabbath of rest and praise. Augustine ends not with conquest but with peace, the tranquillity of order, and with a vision of the saints who shall rest and see, see and love, love and praise, in an end that has no end.
Key Concepts
Humanity is divided into two communities defined not by nation or class but by what they ultimately love: the earthly city built on love of self, and the city of God built on love of God.
It gives Augustine a single lens for reading all of history and every society, since the real dividing line runs through people's loyalties rather than their borders.
Augustine argues that the old gods gave no moral guidance, were worshipped with degrading spectacles, and could grant neither virtue in this life nor blessedness in the next.
It dismantles the pagan claim that Rome's greatness and safety depended on the gods, and clears the ground for his account of where real happiness is found.
The rise and fall of empires is not luck or the gift of idols but the ordering of one God, who gave power to good and bad rulers alike for ends that are sometimes hidden but never unjust.
It reframes political history as something governed rather than random, and detaches the fortunes of the city of God from the survival of any particular state.
Mental Models
Every life is organized around a love. Love of self carried to contempt of God builds one city; love of God carried to contempt of self builds the other.
It offers a test for any choice or institution: ask which love it serves, rather than judging by outward success or splendor.
Augustine puts a kingdom and a robber band side by side. Take justice away and the difference shrinks to scale: a band is a little kingdom, a kingdom a large band.
It supplies a sharp measure of power, judging a state by its justice rather than its size, fleets, or fame.
The city of God lives in the present age as a stranger passing through, mixed with the earthly city and using its peace, while it waits for a stable and eternal home.
It lets a person hold earthly belonging loosely, taking part in common life without mistaking any present order for the final one.
Selected Quotes
Accordingly, two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self.
Justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but great robberies? For what are robberies themselves, but little kingdoms?
There we shall rest and see, see and love, love and praise. This is what shall be in the end without end.
Source
Source text: Project Gutenberg edition of The City of God, Volumes I and II, edited and translated by Marcus Dods.
HTML text: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45304/pg45304.txt
Project Gutenberg states that this ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever.
Written between roughly 413 and 426 AD; this English text is the Marcus Dods translation edited for the Works of Aurelius Augustine.