• In 410, Rome was sacked by Visigoths. Christianity (Rome had become Christian under Constantine in 312) was blamed by the pagans because of the sack and the weakening of the city. The City of God was written between 413-426 as a response to the critics, but it also addresses "all subsequent attempts to understand the complex relations among politics, religion, history, and the moral ends of human life". "In it, moreover, Augustine not only responds to the critics of Christianity; he also incorporates into his own conception of the “city of man” many central political values of his republican, stoic, and Roman law opponents, thereby providing a vehicle for transmitting these values to medieval Europe." (Morgan, 443)
• During his youth, Augustine was introduced to a neo-Platonic interpretation of Christianity and maybe because of this we can call Augustine a Neo-Platonist (???).

The City of God (De civitate Dei)

Book XIX

Chapter 1

• Augustine starts the book by the promise to discuss the proper ends of the two cities of the earthly and the heavenly.
• "Now the philosophers have engaged in a great deal of complicated debate about the supreme ends of good and evil; and by concentrating their attention on this question they have tried to discover what it is that makes a man happy. For our Final Good is that for which other things are to be desired, while it is itself to be desired for its own sake. The Final Evil is that for which other things are to be shunned, while it is itself to be shunned on its own account. … These two ends , then, are the Supreme Good and the Supreme Evil." (843)
• During his analysis of Varro's classification, he says that it is an ugly way of life when virtue is the slave of tyrant pleasure. (845)
• "For indeed the only purpose man has in philosophizing is the attainment of happiness; but that which makes him happy is the Supreme Good itself. Therefore the only purpose of philosophizing is the Supreme Good." (846)

Chapter 2

• There are three kinds of life: (i) leisurely (life devoted to contemplation), (ii) busy (life devoted to conducting human affairs), and (iii) mixed (mixes both of these kinds). Many people choose and live one of these kind of lives, but they err with respect to desiring the final good. The final good and evil are not disputed in a question regarding these kinds of lives.
• Augustine analyzes Varro's classification of philosophical schools (288 different sects) and the 4 objects which men naturally seek: (i) "the primary goods of nature are chosen for the sake of virtue", (ii) "virtue is chosen for the sake of primary goods of nature", (iii) "both - that is, both virtue and the primary goods of nature - are chosen for their own sakes".

Chapter 4

• "If, therefore, we are asked what reply the City of God gives when asked about each of these points, and first what view it holds about the Ultimate Good and the Ultimate Evil, the reply will be that eternal life is the Supreme Good, and eternal death the Supreme Evil, and that to achieve the one and escape the other, we must live rightly. That is why the Scripture says, 'The just man lives on the basis of faith'." - faith and belief are needed to live rightly. People looking for the final good and the final evil in this life, placing supreme good either in the body or in the soul, or in both are in a vain effort. Their strife to be happy here and now is vain. "The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain."
• What are the goods of nature? They are the postures and movements of body when they are fitting and harmonious, for the body; they are sense and intellect, for the mind. Bodily functions and mental state can wither away. There are the primary goods of nature. Therefore, we cannot base our happiness and the supreme good on the primary goods of nature.
• Virtue, "is not among the primary goods of nature because it is added afterward through education". It is in a perpetual war with its opposites: vices. Flesh is warring over spirit. It seems virtue arises from the spirit but it is not easy to control spirit over the flesh. Even though we say happiness comes from virtue, it is not easy to make spirit have over flesh, virtue over vice. "We are not strong enough to do this in this life, however much we will, but with the help of God, let us at least not surrender the spirit and so yield to the flesh warring against the spirit, and be dragged into sinning by our own consent."
• We are not made well by justice too. "By hope we are made well. However, hope that is seen is not hop, for how can one hope for what one sees? However, if we hope for what we do not see, we look forward it with patience." True virtues cannot exist except those who possess true piety. And a person is happy through hope in a future world. So, happiness comes with virtue and hope and both arise from piety. We can only be happy in this world through hope, but the final doesn’t reside in this world. Philosophers saw a false kind of happiness and they refused to believe in the true kind.

Chapter 7

• Three levels of human society: (i) household (domus), (ii) city or municipality (civitas), and (iii) the world (orbis terrae)
• The diversity of languages in the world alienates one man from another and there is no common base other than the similarity of nature among men when the language is excluded. Thus, the imperial city imposes not only its yoke, but also its language by taming people through the peace of society. "Nevertheless, the very size of the empire has given rise to wars of a worse kind; namely, social and civil wars." It seems he is criticizing the Roman Empire here because of its violence over the people it was trying to subject.
• Just war theory: "If they [the wars] were not just, he would not be required to wage them, and thus he would be free of the necessity of war."

Chapter 11

• Death is not about peace, actually, it is about eternal life and it comes at the end of the earthly city. "Now, indeed, having been liberated from sin and having become servants of God, you will have your reward in sanctification, your true end in eternal life."
• The idea of the philosophers and theologians is that the eternal punishment of the impious is not true. Otherwise, impious would be eternal too, he would live eternally. He says the life of the wicked will not be a peace in eternity, but he doesn’t say it is eternal or not. Piety brings eternal life in peace. But what about impiety? It doesn’t bring peace in eternal life, but does it bring eternal life or not?
• "So that it can be understood more easily by all, it must be said that the end of this city, in which it will have its highest good, is either 'peace in eternal life' or 'eternal life in peace'. Peace is such a great good that even with respect to earthly and mortal things, nothing is heard with greater respect to earthly and mortal things, nothing is heard with greater pleasure, nothing desired more longingly, and in the end, nothing better can be found." Peace is the characteristic of the final (or supreme) good. It seems the city of God promises "eternal life in peace".

Chapter 12

• Even the desired end of war is peace. Everyone seeks peace, "but no one seeks war by making peace". Peace in a household is possible only by subjecting to a ruler in the household. In his own home, he is the ruler. There is an analogy between the father as the ruler of the household and the ruler as the ruler of a city.
• He thinks sociability is peculiar to human kind.
• "If Cacus were not blamed too much, Hercules would be praised too little." Cacus is a product of fiction and no one is savage like it. Everyone looks for peace, even criminals.
• An iniquitous ruler "hates equality with partners under God, but wants to impose its own domination upon its partners in place of God. Consequently, it hates the just peace of God and loves its own iniquitous peace." "The peace of the iniquitous, in comparison to the peace of the just, should not be called 'peace' at all."
• The laws of the supreme creator serves for the well-being of peace -in the soul and in the nature.

Chapter 13

• In the beginning of the 13th chapter, he gives the formulas of peace for each being like the body, the irrational soul, etc. For example he says "the peace of the heavenly city is a fellowship perfectly ordered and harmonious, enjoying God and each other in God" and "the peace of all things is the tranquility of order". "Order is the arrangement of things equal and unequal, alloting to each its own position." Miserable people have lack of tranquility, therefore peace. However, if they are deservedly and justly miserable, they are outside of that order. Those people are "surely not united to the happy, but, by the law of order, are separated from them".
• No one is evil by nature and there cannot be a nature in which there is no good. Evil is evil because of a distortion of its nature. "The distortion of that nature makes him evil." "Good did not then reproach the good that he created, but the evil that the devil has committed." This is the acceptance of free-will as it seems. God gives human the opportunities of a good life in both lives. It is up to the individual to use them in a proper way or in a bad way. Using mortal goods rightly provides peace in an eternal life.
• "Kötülük, Augustinus'a göre kendi başına var olmaz. Kötülük, hakiki iyiliğin yokluğu demektir. Tanrı kötülüğün var olmasına izin verir, çünkü ancak kötülüğün olduğu yerde insan iyiliğin ne olduğunu daha derinden kavrayabilir." (MAA, 145)

Chapter 15

• "He [God] did not will that man dominate man, but that man dominate the beasts." First, it seems he is against slavery, but then he says slavery is actual because of the sins of these people. The name slave is earned by action. No one is slave by nature. The word "slave" is first used in the scripture in order to qualify the sinner ("Noah punished the sin of his son with this word"). "He earned the name through fault, not through nature." The first cause of slavery is sin and it results with man is placed under man by the bondage of slavery. Being enslaved by an iniquitous master means being enslaved by a slave. Because, being a slave of a lust is worse than being a slave of a man. We can infer that an iniquitous master is the slave of the lust for dominating. However, he says that slavery to preserve order is not unjust. Also he advises the slaves to obey the orders of their master and serve them with good will and from the heart "until iniquity is transformed and all human rule and power are made void, and God is all in all". A person earned the name "slave" through fault, not through nature. No one is slave by nature. Actions make it be attributed:
• For Augustine, slavery is an unnatural, prelapsarian institution, which God permits as a form of either “reformatory” or “retributive” punishment for sin. (http://percaritatem.com/tag/augustine-and-slavery/)
• St Augustine thought that slavery was inevitable. He didn't think that it was the result of the natural laws of the universe - indeed he thought that in a pure world slavery would be quite unnatural, but in our world it was the consequence of sin and the Fall of Man. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/slavery/ethics/philosophers_1.shtml)
• Like war, enslavement of man by man is also not strictly in accordance with Eternal law. But it is also justified by what Troeltsch calls the Augustinian doctrine of “relative natural law”. It is both a punishment and a corrective for the sinful act of men. St. Augustine’s views on slavery are opposed to Aristotle’s; they are more akin to Stoicism modified in the light of Christian theology, that is, the notion of the fall of man. (http://www.shareyouressays.com/essays/st-augustines-views-on-state-property-and-slavery-essay/114539)

Chapter 16

• Punishment to the disobedient household member is just. Besides, in order to be innocent, "duty demands not only not bringing evil to anyone, but also that one restrain another from sin or punish his sin..." The accordance and order in household leads to the accordance and order in the city. Laws of the city should influence the rules of the household. The father is responsible for the harmony between them.

Chapter 17

• Temporal goods –that a person chooses only earthly peace gives priority to- do not seize a faithful person and do not turn him away from the path to God. (The household of) the person living by faith looks forward to the future, to those things which are promised as eternal. The goal of the earthly city is earthly peace. However, the goal of the heavenly city (for the people living by faith) is the eternal peace. "Both sorts of men and both sorts of households [earthly and heavenly] use the things necessary for this mortal life, but the ends of such use is unique to each and varies greatly." Mortal life is just a journey for the heavenly people. While the peace of the earthly city passes away, the heavenly city is eternal. Heavenly city is universal. So, customs, race, languages, etc. differences do not trouble it. The only point that matters is believing in the one, supreme, and true God.
• Insofar as it is agreeable to sound piety and religion, the heavenly city uses the earthly peace on its journey. "When that peace comes, there will not be mortal life, but a whole and certain life." The good and order of heavenly city is also common for the heavenly city, but it exceeds the earthly one. He is urging people to believe in an after/eternal life and to believe in God, to live by faith. It is similar to Plato's the material and the ideal world difference in one sense. The eternal peace and the heavenly city is immaterial.

Chapter 19

• The religious official (superintended) should care for the people. Indeed, "episcopacy" (piskoposluk -derived from Greek word skopos means intention) means taking care. "He who desires to be over others rather than to benefit others should understand that he is not a bishop."

Chapter 21

• Cicero, in Res Publica, defines "republic" as "the affair of a people", and "a people" as "a fellowship of a multitude united through o consensus concerning right and a sharing of advantage". Augustine's argument is that there never was a Roman republic according to these definitions. So, "where there is no true justice, there can be no right" and "it is not possible for a republic to be managed without justice". So, where there is no true justice, there is no republic according to the definition of Scipio or Cicero. The Romans served and sacrificed to the gods except to the Lord. Therefore, it is said that they don't have justice. If there isn't any justice in such a man, there isn't any fellowship of human beings, therefore, no " consensus concerning right", then no "people", and then no "republic".
• Justice: the virtue which distributes to everyone his due.
• Augustine rejects the argument that right is the advantage of the strongest. "The iniquitous institutions of human beings must not be said or thought to exist by right."
• The imperial argument: "the rule over the inhabitants of the provinces is just because servitude is advantageous for such men and is done for their benefit when it is done correctly." Even though it is said that it is unjust for a man to serve another man, the domination of an imperial city is said to be beneficial to the people who are serving for this city. The domination of the city makes them live in a better condition. "Servitude is advantageous to some and that serving God is indeed advantageous to all." Serving God makes the soul rule the body. Not serving God causes the soul in no way justly rule the body. It seems he puts the God in place of the rational part of the soul in Plato's conception of justice.

Chapter 23

• Justice, according to Augustine, "exists when the one and supreme God rules his obedient city according to his grace. … As a result, in everyone belonging to that same city and obeying God, the soul faithfully commands the body, and reason the corrupt parts of the soul, in accord with the lawful order." The right and justice are themselves are right as long as they depend on God's will. Therefore, there is no justice, no people, and no republic except the city that all people living there are following the path of God. Earthly city exists, but it cannot reach to the heavenly city as long as it has people and justice, and it is a republic in its own right sense.

Chapter 24

• He thinks a happy society (the well-being of a people) and a long-lasting city are only possible through faith. Maybe, in the idea of the heavenly city, he is revising and updating Plato's after-life description in the Book X of Republic.

Bibliography

Ağaoğulları, M. A., & Köker, L. (2011). İmparatorluktan Tanrı Devletine. Ankara: İmge Kitabevi Yayınları.

Augustine. (2001). City of God. In M. L. Morgan (Ed.), Classics of Moral and Political Theory (pp. 382-394). Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.