The City of God by Augustine - 2 - Roman Gods Are Corrupt and Immoral
Book Two
Quote
📝 When the plaudits and acclamation of the people, who sit as infallible judges, are won by the poets, what darkness benights the mind, what fears invade, what passions inflame it!
Notes
🔥 If people were more reasonable and actually yielded when shown clear evidence, then, Augustine says, the argument could end here (with the last book). But people aren't reasonable, so he has to continue and go deeper.
🔥 The signs of moral decay started long before Jesus came onto the scene, and it can be traced to the Roman gods. Rome's gods didn't have any moral teachings and more often encouraged base and immoral behaviour.
🔥 Romans may point to the philosophers who do have moral teachings, but those philosophers are Greek, not Roman. And they don't have temples dedicated to them or their teachings the way the gods do. And those temples feature "raving fanatics cutting themselves."
🔥 Roman theatre also celebrates the gods and puts them on stage to be imitated. The fact that the gods want to be worshipped through these "licentious entertainments" shows they are not true gods. There's a reason why Plato said that the poets should be banished as enemies of the state. They propagate stories of immorality and corrupt behaviour. Cicero, the Roman senator, argued similarly (see quote at the top).
🔥 The Roman historians and writers — namely Cicero, but others as well — were talking about this corruption long before Jesus was even born.
🔥 How come the Roman gods didn't help prevent the decay and fall of Rome? They in fact enabled the decay.
🔥 Augustine also, in a way, attributes the fall of Rome to the Christian God, who has ultimate authority and power over life and history. Speaking of Marius, the Roman commander who became a monster massacring many Roman citizens in the civil war, Augustine says: "I do not attribute the bloody bliss of Marius to, I know not what [Roman god or goddess], but rather to the secret providence of God, that the mouths of our adversaries might be shut, and that they who are not led by passion, but by prudent consideration of events, might be delivered from error." The fall of Rome can be used to bring reasonable people to the one, true God.
🔥 Rome's gods hastened Rome's destruction by instigating civil wars and rule by passion rather than restraint by reason and virtue. The Christian church, by contrast, encourages virtue and sets forth a positive example of morality to live by.
Key Takeaways
💬 We become what we worship. I think that's the core of what Augustine is saying here. Though I am curious to know what kinds of "lewd and licentious" things the Roman gods were doing. Augustine doesn't give a lot of detail except to say that they're bad.