The Church in Fourth Century: from Constantine to Augustine Class #18: Augustine – The City of God

The Works of Augustine Autobiographical Philosophical Against Pelagius and the Jews Religious-Theological – On Christian Doctrine, On the Trinity Polemical-Theological Exegetical 12 volumes on the 1st 3 chapters of Genesis 124 sermons on the book of John Numerous voluminous bible studies Ethical/Practical/Ascetic The Works of Augustine

De Civitate Dei contra Paganos Written as an apologetic in response to common accusations of the day that the decline and ensuing fall of the Roman empire in the West was due to the growth and influence of the Christian faith. Addresses the suffering of the righteous, the existence of evil, the conflict between free will and divine omniscience, and the doctrine of original sin.

Background & Context Sack of Rome by Aleric in 410 AD blamed on the Christian faith over against the old pagan gods. Augustine wrote encouraging Christians not to put their faith and trust in the cities of this world but in the prevailing will of God – the new and heavenly Jerusalem. All of human history is a conflict between the “city of man” and the “city of God”. Christians must forego earthly treasure and security and dedicate themselves to eternal truths and rewards.

The first five [chapters] refute those who fancy that the polytheistic worship is necessary in order to secure worldly prosperity, and that all these overwhelming calamities have befallen us in consequence of its prohibition. In the following five [chapters] I address myself to those who admit that such calamities have at all times attended, and will at all times attend, the human race, and that they constantly recur in forms more or less disastrous, varying only in the scenes, occasions, and persons on whom they light, but, while admitting this, maintain that the worship of the gods is advantageous for the life to come.

But that no one might have occasion to say, that though I had refuted the tenets of other men, I had omitted to establish my own, I devote to this object the second part of this work, which comprises twelve [chapters], although I have not scrupled, as occasion offered, either to advance my own opinions in the first ten [chapters], or to demolish the arguments of my opponents in the last twelve. Of these twelve [chapters], the first four contain an account of the origin of these two cities—the city of God, and the city of the world. The second four treat of their history or progress; the third and last four, of their deserved destinies.

Augustine Introduces Amillennialism to Orthodoxy in The City of God. Augustine conceived of the present age as a conflict between the City of God and the City of Satan, or the conflict between the church and the world. This was viewed as moving on to the ultimate triumph of the church to be climaxed by a tremendous struggle in which the church would be apparently defeated, only to consummate in a tremendous triumph in the second coming of Christ to the earth. Augustine held that the present age of conflict is the millennium. Walvoord

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