A Tale of Two Cities

As I read theses passages, I was constantly looking for where some sort of description of the City of God might be, so that I can properly compare it to the Republic. But unfortunately, Augustine does not go into every tune and pastry like Plato does, but instead sets out a fairly broad view of two cities. One city based on a love of pleasure, and the other based on a love of God.

Many people may get confused as Augustine doesn’t go into nearly as much detail with his utopia as Plato. But one reason for this is because Augustine doesn’t disagree with Plato on many of the minute aspects of society. For instance, on the subject of enforcing justice he says that the City “needs make use of this peace also” (877), and on the subject of socializing, “the philosophers hold the view that the life of the wise man should be social, and in this we support them much more heartily” (858).

Augustine’s primary focus is to criticize aspects of Platonic philosophy in light of Christian theology. In our class discussions, we concluded that Plato’s republic would fail because injustice comes from human nature (the fig-stealer). Apparently, Augustine felt similarly, for he states “the story of mankind is full of them at every point: for in that story we are aware of wrongs, suspicions, enmities, and war” (858). Whereas Plato gave reasons for the Republic to start wars, Augustine wars to “consider the scale of those wars, with all the slaughter of human beings, and all the human blood that was shed!” (861). Finally, and most importantly, we remember that Plato established his society on the grounds of certain immutable virtues, such as moderation and justice. Augustine, however, goes through these virtues one by one, and points out that they are impossible to fulfill because of human nature (854).

Instead, the single virtue that Augustine places at the head of his society is peace. But this peace is not of an earthly focus, which Augustine calls “a kind of compromise between human wills about the things relevant to mortal life” (877). But rather, he defines this peace as focus on eternal life in Heaven (865). In other words, Augustine is proposing a kind of theocracy where focus on God is the primary foundation for all aspects of society. Whereas Plato focused on education, and considered religion to be one aspect of it, Augustine instead believed that education without the proper religious backing is worthless.

That’s another reason why Augustine is so vague with his description of the City. He believed that the minute aspects of society don’t really matter so long as the right religion is established. In his own words, “She takes no account of any difference in customs, laws, or institutions, by which earthly peace is achieved and preserved – not that she annuls or abolishes any of those, rather, she maintains them and follows them, provided that no hindrance is presented thereby to the religion which teaches that the one supreme and true God is to be worshipped” (878).

I find it fascinating that even today, many religious people would agree with Augustine’s basic premise: the City of God, which focuses on heavenly things, will ultimately survive, whereas the City of Man, which focuses on earthly things, will ultimately perish. Many evangelicals today point out governments that abolished religion, places like Cuba, North Korea, the Soviet Union, and the French Directorate, and conjecture that they all failed because they threw out the out the only indispensable piece of society.