Two Loves, Two Cities

Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God. PSALM 87:3

In August 410 the unthinkable happened. An army of Goths under their king Alaric entered the city of Rome and sacked it for three days. Rome had not fallen to a foreign enemy in some eight hundred years. It was not the capital of the empire any longer in practice, but it was its heart and symbol, the Eternal City. Refugees poured across the sea to Africa, some of them to Hippo, with terrible stories. And an old accusation was heard again. Rome had prospered, pagans said, while she worshipped her ancient gods. Now that she had become Christian, and the altars were deserted, she had fallen. The Christians were to blame.

A book for a falling world

Augustine’s answer took him thirteen years and more, and it became The City of God, twenty-two books long, his largest work. He began by answering the pagans on their own ground: Rome had suffered disasters long before Christ, her gods had never protected her, and her glory had always been stained with cruelty and pride. He is remembered for asking what kingdoms are, if justice is taken away, but great robberies. But he soon went far beyond a defence of Christianity. He set out to tell the story of the whole world, from creation to the last judgment, as the story of two cities.

For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come. HEBREWS 13:14

Two loves have made two cities

The heart of the book is a single sentence in its fourteenth book, which may be summarised this way: two loves have made two cities. The love of self, reaching even to contempt of God, has made the earthly city. The love of God, reaching even to contempt of self, has made the heavenly city. The one glories in itself; the other glories in the Lord. The one seeks glory from men; the other finds its greatest glory in God, the witness of its conscience.

This is the same insight we met in the last chapter, now written across the whole of history. What makes a people is what it loves. The two cities are not two places on a map. They are not simply church and state, though they are sometimes confused with them. They are two communities defined by the direction of their love, running together through every nation and every age, from Cain and Abel until the end.

For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy. 2 TIMOTHY 3:2

For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. HEBREWS 11:10

Mingled until the harvest

For now, the two cities are tangled together. Augustine insisted on this against those who wanted a pure church. Not everyone in the visible church belongs to the city of God, and some who seem to be outside it will one day be found within. The wheat and the tares grow in the same field, and only the Lord of the harvest can separate them.

Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn. MATTHEW 13:30

The separation will come. The Enchiridion describes it plainly: after the resurrection and the final judgment “there shall be two kingdoms, each with its own distinct boundaries, the one Christ’s, the other the devil’s.” Until then, believers live as pilgrims. They are citizens of the heavenly city, living for a time as resident aliens in the earthly one.

Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul. 1 PETER 2:11

Using the peace of Babylon

But pilgrims are not to despise the city they pass through. One of the wisest parts of The City of God, in its nineteenth book, explains how the two cities share the things of this life. Both need food and shelter, order and peace. The earthly city seeks an earthly peace, and the heavenly city, while it is on pilgrimage, makes use of that peace and is glad of it. Christians obey laws, pay taxes, serve the common good, and pray for their rulers, not because they expect the earthly city to save them but because God commands them to seek its welfare while they sojourn in it. Augustine reached for the words Jeremiah sent to the exiles in Babylon.

And seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the LORD for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace. JEREMIAH 29:7

This is a balanced and enduring vision. It forbids Christians to despise the world and withdraw from it. It equally forbids them to put their hope in any political order, any party, any empire or nation. Rome was not the city of God. Neither is any other.

When empires fall

The sack of Rome shook many believers, as the fall of familiar institutions shakes believers today. Augustine’s great book is a word to all such moments. Earthly cities rise and fall; this is their nature. The city of God does not fall. Augustine lived to see his own province invaded, and died in a besieged city. He did not pretend it did not matter. But he had set his hope where no army could reach.

And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. REVELATION 21:2

A word of caution belongs here. In the centuries after Augustine, rulers and churchmen sometimes used his ideas to identify the church’s earthly power with the city of God and to claim that power over nations. That was not his teaching; he refused to equate any earthly institution, even the visible church, with the heavenly city. Read him for what he said, not for what others made of him.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Ask which city your daily loves are building. Where does your love of self shade into contempt of God?

2. Identify one way you have put your hope in a political cause, leader or nation. Give that hope back to God.

3. Pray this week by name for your local and national rulers, and look for one practical way to seek the welfare of your town.

4. When news of decline or disaster unsettles you, read Hebrews 11:10–16 and remind yourself which city you belong to.

5. Resist the urge to sort people too quickly into wheat and tares. Leave the harvest to the Lord.

A PRAYER

Lord, glorious things are spoken of Your city, and I long to be found among its citizens.

Turn my love from myself to You, that I may build what lasts and not what falls.

Teach me to seek the peace of the place where You have set me, to pray for its rulers and serve its people, without making it my hope.

And when the cities of this world shake, keep my eyes on the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Amen.