Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/133

 THE CITY OF GOD 97 the Roman gods and their worship, describing the vicious Roman stage, the immorality of the gods themselves as set forth in classical mythology and of the rites used in their worship, ridiculing Roman theology for its multiplicity of deities and infinite subdivision of functions among them, denying the belief in oracles and pagan methods of divina- tion, engaging in a passing tilt with the astrologers of his day, and, finally, affirming that all the deities and divine forces believed in by the non-Christian world are "demons" only in the sense of being evil spirits, fallen angels, and servants of Satan. Having thus disposed of paganism, he declares that one Christian God controls all states and all human endeavor. It was He, not any gods snatched by ^Eneas from the flames of a Troy which they could not save, who had raised Rome to power because of the moral and devoted lives of her early patriots. Her decline in turn was 1 due to the decay of those pristine virtues, not to the intro- duction of Christianity, since even before the birth of i Christ the Roman Republic had gone to ruin. Augustine [ also insists that Christians do not favor peace at any price, j ally by both people and officials, would save the State. But ! he has not yet answered the natural query, Why has God
 * and that the principles of Christianity, if practiced gener-
 * allowed the barbarians to sack Rome now that it has become

Christian? He can only say that such an earthly disaster is no death-blow to the true Christian, and turn his readers' attention from the earthly to the heavenly city, from the city of Rome to the city of God, just as we saw the Stoic emperor, Marcus Aurelius, turn his mind from the dear city of Cecrops to the dear city of Zeus. The city of God is not merely heaven, the abode of the Trinity and angels, to which those who have been saved by divine grace may look forward from among the The Chris- woes of this world as their eternal home. It also as the city has an existence here on earth in the spiritual life of God of true believers. Augustine traces its history from creation down through Abel and the story of the Jews, God's chosen people, to the coming of Jesus, preaching of the Gospel, and