The City of God by Augustine - 18 - The City of God and the City of Men in Parallel
Book Eighteen
Quote
📝 For what historian of the past should we credit more than him who has also predicted things to come which we now see fulfilled?
Notes
🔥 Having covered up to Jesus's time in the city of God, Augustine turns to cover the history of the city of men that was happening in parallel.
🔥 In the city of men,there are many kingdoms fighting for supremacy and power. Two main ones are Assyria and Rome. Augustine traces through the timelines of different kingdoms, who was king when, alongside the timeline of the Bible.
🔥 Many kings in the city of men were turned into gods and worshiped. He mentions other developments in trade and tools as well. He references other historians and their writings.
🔥 He recounts a mythical story of how Athens got its name and how women lost the right to vote. The decision about what to call the city was being put to a vote, and at that time, he says, women were able to vote, too. But the name they voted for was offensive to the god, Neptune, and so he punished everyone. And after that, the Athenians decided that women shouldn't have the right to vote anymore.
🔥 He also traces the stories of the pagan gods, which are exhibited in the theaters that Augustine hates so much. Plus, these stories aren't real like the Bible is, he says. "Let the one in books that speak the truth edify men, and the other in lying fables delight impure demons."
🔥 He adds, too: "Now, even though the play celebrates an unreal crime of the gods, yet to delight in the ascription of an unreal crime is a real one." He really does hate the theater a lot.
🔥 He keeps tracing through the timeline, tracking the pagan gods and the Biblical stories as they appear in parallel with each other.
🔥 He mentions stories about men being turned into beasts (like Circe in the Odyssey). Augustine says this is the work of demons and shows why we must flee the city of men for the city of God. God is sovereign over all, including demons.
🔥 He keeps going with the timeline, the different kings that ruled, and he mentions the sages, poets and philosophers and where they appear in parallel with the Bible.
🔥 Then he goes back to the Bible, looking at the prophets and the other prophecies that he interprets were about Jesus. Many of the prophets wrote during a time when Israel was in captivity under the Babylonians.
🔥 Augustine says the writings from the Bible are way older than the writings of other prophets. He also mentions some writings that are even older than the Bible, but weren't included and were actually held under suspicion as maybe being fake.
🔥 Augustine doesn't believe the claim that Egypt's knowledge of the stars and more is over a hundred thousand years old, as some people allege. Because, he believes, the Bible shows history is no more than 6000 years old... And he says that he has no doubt that whatever opposes our faith is false.
🔥 Philosophers disagree with each other a lot about what is true or how to live happily. The Bible writers are remarkable for how they agree. Because their words come from God.
🔥 Ptolemy of Egypt at one time wanted translations of the Bible for his library, and he got a few Hebrew scholars to do the translations. All their translations agreed with each other, showing the spirit of God was in them.
🔥 But there are contradictory things in the Biblical translations. Did Jonah say Ninevah would be destroyed in 3 days or in 40? What's actually written down in the story seems to confuse the two. But, Augustine says, a reader should "raise himself above history, search for those things which the history itself was written to set forth." In other words, the events signify something beyond that transcends earthly history. It's the city of God in parallel with the city of men.
🔥 Jesus is born of a virgin when Caesar Augustus was emperor of Rome. He is God with us, and performed miracles, including being raised from the dead. The Jews, many of whom did not believe, are scattered throughout the world.
🔥 The church begins with the disciples and the holy spirit after Jesus ascends into heaven. The disciples also suffer great persecution.
🔥 The church goes through joys and trials, persecution and consolation. God can use wickedness even for good. Though there are also false Christians out there that you have to watch out for.
🔥 The end times, final judgement, is coming. But it is not for us to know the time, as Jesus said.
🔥 The two cities travel through history alongside each other: "Yet both alike either enjoy temporal good things, or are afflicted with temporal evils, but with diverse faith, diverse hope, and diverse love, until they must be separated by the last judgment, and each must receive her own end, of which there is no end."
Reflection
💬 These two histories that Augustine is talking about exist in parallel with each other. Though maybe the city of men is more like a shadow of the city of God, according to Augustine. Even in the city of God, it seems as if the events there are more important as symbols that point to something beyond themselves. The whole history of mankind, whether it's the city of God or the city of men, revolves around the life of Jesus.
The way he emphasizes the symbolic interpretation of history reveals a lot, I think. The events of history have meaning and they point to something transcendent. But on the flip side, it also means he's force-fitting events to fit that particular interpretation, not to mention that it allows him to create convenient excuses for when the Bible — the ultimate authority on history, according to Augustine — isn't coherent or consistent within itself.