Well, it has taken me over a year to read this book, but I did it! And I'm glad I did it! I feel like I should just go back to page one and start over again because 1) It took me so long to get through it, I can't really remember the beginning! and 2) It is so full of wisdom and profound, thorough thought that it deserves many, many readings.
I started this December 2016 because I was in a group twitter read lead by a theologian from Catholic University. He recommended everyone reading the first book (chapter) before we even officially started. I did so dutifully. Then the semester began. I was suppose to complete this book in a semester, just like a college student who was studying this book with the professor. Life however got in the way and, though at times I tried to rush through it, I didn't force myself much because I found it hard reading and not worthwhile if I wasn't comprehending what I was reading in my rush to get through it. So by the end of the semester, I had read little more than half. I had followed the comments people were making in the group read, but since I had gotten behind I couldn't contribute myself at the end there.
So the rest of the year was spent either "being good" and reading a bit every morning as a sort of meditation to start the day off with, or I would go weeks and weeks without picking it up at all.
City of God by St. Augustine is his great masterpiece. His other masterpiece is his Confessions, which is shorter and an easier read, imo. I read the Penguin Classics edition translated by Henry Bettenson. I found one typo in the whole book! The word angels spelled angls.
Usually when students study this work they skip right to Part II. Part I has ten books in it each one assessing what is wrong with the city of man - that is man's sinfulness that is played out in Augustine's world of the late Roman empire and the pagan cults around him. That society blames Christians for all its ills. Augustine takes on the task of pointing out in great detail just how much they've got it wrong. Augustine's mode of attack is to lay out what the other side says and then go over it with a fine tooth comb to expose all the fallacious thinking. He is quite devastating in how he does this. Not one detail escapes his notice, it seems.
Part II is a thorough examination of Christianity itself. Augustine asks such questions as whether the ages people lived in the Old Testament could have been real or what angels are and the like. Many, many questions, some of which I'd never thought about before. Augustine is nothing if not thorough. He is methodical and witty as he moves carefully through every topic he wants to analyze. And he wants to analyze everything! He'll often make the aside comment that he'd love to delve more into a particular topic but he can't because the book is too long as it is!
There are so many points of beauty in how Augustine describes the various aspects of Christianity. His vision of the greatness of God and the profundity of the Church and her relationship with Christ is so wide and deep that it is easy to feel lost and at the same time overtaken with amazement at the breathe and depth of his grasp on it all. He ends with what he images heaven to be. He really has such an awesome view of God's unfathomable glory and love. Augustine gets us a far as his prodigious intellectual capabilities can get us into the mystery.
One thing I was on the look out for was Augustine's supposed misogyny. I'd heard rumors of this and seen quotes here and there that seemed to support this take on him. I wish I had taken better note of where I'd read things that flew in the face of this judgment of him. Apparently, the critics are taking these things from earlier writings? Not sure, but while I do think Augustine was a creature of his time in terms of male-female relationships, he says many thing that belie his misogyny. In fact, he says misogyny is a sin caused by the fall of Adam. In paradise, man and woman were equal, hence Eve coming from Adam's rib rather than his foot. So it is because we live in a sinful world that women are subjected to men's dominance. And he says other things besides that really don't line up with a misogynist view. I found him pretty refreshing in that way.
And I always wondered about that particular interpretation of him anyway, since I know his mother, Monica, played such an influential and critical role in his life. Can you be close to your mother and have respect for her, take direction from her, and still be a misogynist? Just seems unlikely, especially with a man of such searching intellect and deep reasoning.
I would love to get a lecture series on this book so I could understand it better.
Two thumbs up but a difficult, long and intellectually overwhelming read (at least for little ole me!).
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