The earthly city has made for herself, according to her heart’s desire, false gods out of any sources at all, even out of human beings, that she might adore them with sacrifices. The heavenly one, on the other hand, living like a wayfarer in this world, makes no false gods for herself. On the contrary, she herself is made by the true God that she may be herself a true sacrifice to Him.
Augustine, The City of God
There are few, if any, Christians in history that have had as significant an impact as Augustine, and “The City of God” is his most significant work. Following the sacking of Rome by the Visigoths in 410 AD, Augustine uses Rome as a picture of the earthly city and compares it to an infinitely greater city, the City of God.
Augustine uses history and philosophy to highlight how Rome was built on a system of beliefs that ultimately didn’t hold up to examination. He highlights the pantheon of gods, gods that oversaw every aspect of life and the world-sometimes even multiple gods overseeing the same thing-yet they didn’t seem to have an effect. Bad things still happened, and if the gods were in charge of things like the weather and crops, and if they really were protectors of the Roman cities, then they apparently weren’t very good at it!
On the other hand, we have the City of God, not an earthly city but an eternal, heavenly city where God reigns on high, where there is no suffering, where everything is good. It’s a city that we can choose to be a part of through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
The earthly city glories in itself, the Heavenly City glories in the Lord.
Augustine, The City of God
What always strikes me when I read Augustine is the fact that, despite half a world and 1,600 years separating us, he still seems to understand how the world around us works. He sees how sin infects humans, how it twists everything and blinds us.
Its ironic, because often times those who embrace sin claim that they are the enlightened ones! That isn’t a new thing-the pagans claimed they were enlightened and it was the Christians that were out of touch in Augustines day. They thought it was because of the Christians that Rome was sacked, because Christians just didn’t understand the truth. Even in the beginning, the serpent claimed that disobeying God would bring new knowledge, that Adam and Eve’s eyes would be opened to the truth.
But that’s not how sin works. Sin corrupts us. It takes our eyes off of God and fixes our gaze, ultimately, on ourselves. We think that we are in control, that we are the masters, rather than giving that Lordship over to the one that really deserves to be in control – the Creator of the Universe.
We have a choice of what city to live in. We can live in the earthly city, subject to natural disasters, to attacks and destruction, where the only meaning to be found is in what we can gain for ourselves, or we can receive citizenship in the City of God, where we acknowledge that it isn’t about us, it isn’t about what we can get, it’s all about the glory of God.
The bodies of irrational animals are bent toward the ground, whereas man was made to walk erect with his eyes on heaven, as though to remind him to keep his thoughts on things above.
Augustine, The City of God
Driven 