Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/236

 218 THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE [chap. away from God. Within the guidance of His love, endured and grew the other city, the heavenly, the ciuitas dei. Two opposite desires — amoves — made these two commonwealths, and carry them along diver- gent paths to different ends, the one toward the false good of this life, the other toward the true good of life eternal: Fecemnt itaque civitates duas amoves duo ; tevvenam scilicet amor sui usque ad contemptum dei, coelestam vevo amor Dei usque ad contemptum sui} The fortunes of the earthly commonwealth appear through the history of States, until finally all elements of earthly greatness converge in the imperial destiny of Rome. The course of the other commonwealth is traced through the Old Testament ; which is shown to be in harmony with what its events and teachings prefigure and prophesy, Christ and the universal Church. Even the earthly commonwealth, represented in Rome, had not gained its power through the heathen gods, but by its energies, under God's providence. Augustine's work refuted pagan assertions that Rome had stood by the power of her gods : it set forth all the calamities which had come before Christianity; it showed the evil folly of pagan worship, the futility and falsity of pagan philosophy. With all-embracing arguments of universal scope the Civitas Dei should utterly invalidate paganism and its claims, and show Christianity's absolute and universal truth. Like Lactantius, like Arnobius and Cyprian, Augus- tine had been a professor of rhetoric, and his training often appears in the use of antithesis and word-play 1 Civ. Dei, XIV, 28.