Here is my first blog for 2019, which will be short and sweet.
I have of recent been listening to the City of God audio-book (obviously recorded by somebody else). City of God was written by St. Aurelius Augustine (AD 354-430), a philosopher and theologian from the Latin (Western) church fathers. He served as the bishop of Hippo in North Africa. In this book, Augustine describes two cities — the city of God and the city of man. The contrast are night and day.
There are so many great things about the City of God that I will have to periodically come back periodically to blog on them. But there was something which Augustine penned that caught my attention and I thought it was worth a post. Regarding the city of man, Augustine writes on the way the Romans for the longest time worshiped myriads of gods. They did this even prior to the coming of Jesus Christ. Despite this, their pantheon of gods was unable to deliver them from suffering their greatest calamity, which was the corruption of their manners.
Augustine writes,
So that, unless the devil sometimes transformed himself, as Scripture says, into an angel of light, he could not compass his deceitful purpose. Accordingly, in public, a bold impurity fills the ear of the people with noisy clamor; in private, a feigned chastity speaks in scarce audible whispers to a few: an open stage is provided for shameful things, but on the praiseworthy the curtain falls: grace hides, disgrace flaunts: a wicked deed draws an overflowing house, a virtuous speech finds scarce a hearer, as though purity were to be blushed at, impurity boasted of. Where else can such confusion reign, but in devils’ temples? Where, but in the haunts of deceit? For the secret precepts are given as a sop to the virtuous, who are few in number; the wicked examples are exhibited to encourage the vicious, who are countless. (City of God, 2.26.1)
All this is part of a larger train of though wherein Augustine wants to demonstrate that Christian worship of the one true God of the universe was never really the cause for calamities which fell upon Rome. The problem was that the gods of Rome were impotent in cultivating among the populace qualities which would strengthen them as community and make them an enduring nation.
I think what Augustine observes parallels the same corruption of people witnessed even today on a daily basis in public and over dozes of social media venues. Impure things can be clamored about so everyone can listen, yet not even the slightest whisper of chastity is tolerated. Shameful acts get the spotlight, but the lights dim on the praiseworthy. Disgrace is flaunted. Grace is hidden. Doing a wicked deed gets a sold-out show, but for virtuous speeches auditoriums are empty. It is fine to boast of one’s own impurity but talk about purity gets people embarrassed. How the city of man is so topsy-turvy.
The city of man will continue to fade in glory and come to ruin but the city of God has eternal life.
More to come…
— WGN
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