i6 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
twenty-two books, upon which he labored twelve years, from il3 to 42G, amidst tlie storms of the great migration and towards the close of his life. He was not wanting in ap])reciation of the old Roman virtues, and he attributes to these the former greatness of the empire, and to the decline of them he imputes her growing weakness. But he rose at the same time far above the superficial view, which estimates persons and things by the scale of earthly profit and loss, and of temporary success. " The City of God " is the most powerful, comprehensive, profound, and fertile production in refutation of heathenism and vindication of Christianity, which the ancient church has bequeathed to us, and forms a worthy close to her literary contest with Graeco-Roman paganism." It is a grand funeral discourse upon the departing universal empire of heathenism, and a lofty salutation to the appi'oaching universal order of Christianity. While even Jerome deplored in the destruction of the city the downfall of the empire as the omen of the approaching doom of the world," the African father saw in it only a passing revolution preparing the way for new conquests of Christianity. Standing at that remarkable tm:Tiing-point of history, he considers the origin, progress, and end of the perishable kingdom of this world, and the imperishable kingdom of God, from the fall of man to the final judgment, where at last they fully and forever separate into hell and heaven. The antagonism of the two cities has its root in the highest regions of the spirit world, the distinction of good and evil angels ; its historical evolution commences with Cain and Abel, then proceeds in the progress of paganism and Judaism to the birth of Christ, and continues after that great epoch to his return in glory. Upon the whole his philosophy of history is dualistic, and does not rise to the unity and comprehensiveness of the divine plan to which all the kingdoms of this world and even Satan himself are made subservient. Tie hands the one city
' Milman says (1. c. book iii. cli. 10) : " The Cil;/ of God was unquestionably th« noblest work, l)oth in itaoriginsl dosit,'n and in the fulnnss of its elaborate execution, which the geniu.s of man had aa yot contril)utcd to tiie supfxirt of Christianity."
' Prolejr. in Ezek. : In una urbo totus orbis interiit. Epist. 60: Quid aah-un Mt, si Iluma iKrit 1
§ 12. ADviUSTLNE's CITY OF GOD. SI
over to God, the other to the demons. Yet he softens the rigor of the contrast by the express acknowledgment of sliades in the one, and rays of light in the other. In the present order of the world the two cities tonch and influence each other at innumerable points ; and as not all Jews were citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem, so there were on the other hand true children of God scattered among the heathen like Melchisedek and Job, who were united to tlie city of God not by a visible, but by an invisible celestial tie. In this sublime contrast Augustine weaves up the whole material of his Scriptural and antiquarian knowledge, his speculation, and his Christian experience, but interweaves also many arbitrary allegorical conceits and empty subtleties. Tlie first ten books he directs against heathenism, showing up the gradual decline of the Roman power as the necessary result of idolatry and of a pro-cess of moral dissolution, which commenced with the introduction of foreign vices after the destruction of Carthage ; and he represents the calamities and approaching doom of the empire as a mighty preaching of repentance to the heathen, and at the same time as a wholesome trial of the Christians, and as the birth-throes of a new creation. In the last twelve books of this tragedy of history he places in contrast the picture of the supernatural state of God, founded upon a rock, coming forth renovated and strengthened from all the storms and revolutions of time, breathing into wasting humanity an imperishable divine life, and entering at last, after the completion of this eai-thly work, into the sabbath of eternity, where believers shall rest and see, see and love, love and praise, without end.'
' "Ibi vacabimus," reads the conclusion,!, xxii. c. 30, " et videbimus; videbimus, et amabimus ; amabimus, et laudabimus. Ecce quod erit in fine sine fine, Inara quis alius noster est finis, nisi pervenire ad regnum, cuius nullus est finis/ Tillemont and Schrockli give an extended analysis of the Civitas Dei. So also more recently Dr. Baur in his work on the Christian church from the fourth to the sixth century, pp. 43-52. Gibbon, on the other hand, whose great history treats in some sense, though in totally different form and in opposite spirit, the same theme, only touohes this work incidentally, notwithstanding his general minuteness. ' He saya ia a contemptuous tone, that his knowledge of Augustine is limited to the " Confessions," and the " City of God." Of course Augustine's philosophy of history if almost as flatly opposed to the deism of the English historian, as to the heathen vii»w» of his contemporaries Ammianus, Eunapius, and Zosimus.