The City of God

Augustine lays out his book’s premise, addressing his follower Marcellinus. His intention, he writes, is to defend “the glorious City of God against those who prefer their own gods to the Founder of that City”—that is, pagan Romans (5). Many such Romans, Augustine writes, survived during the Sack of Rome by Christ’s mercy, hiding in Christian places of worship that “barbarian” attackers did not enter. Some of these very people now wish to lay the blame for the Sack of Rome at the feet of Christianity, when in fact they should see their trials as God’s way of improving their moral lives.

The conquerors’ mercy is a sign of the true changes Christianity had brought to the world. Treating churches as places of sanctuary, off limits to foreign enemies, was previously unheard of. Augustine quotes the Aeneid’s tales of the despoilment of Minerva’s temples for support. The men killed in those temples received no protection from Minerva: “the image did not preserve the men; the men were preserving the image” (8). The same Romans who are outraged at Christians memorize the Aeneid and revere Virgil, and through his works learn many stories of the gods calling humans to their defense. Why, Augustine asks, would any sensible Roman continue to adhere to gods whom, as Virgil repeatedly demonstrates, need human protection?