Church Matters: Retrieving the Great Tradition

Session 1: The Apostolic Age, the Ancient Church, the Apologists, and the Great Tradition 29

h. He provided a systematic account of the trinity in Treatise on the Holy Trinity .

6. Between 413 and 427 he wrote his longest work, The City of God .

a. Rome fell to barbarian invaders in 410, with the occurrence being blamed on Christianity!

b. Augustine responded to this with The City of God , which is considered “the greatest apologetic work of the early Church.”

c. The argument

(1) Pagan gods do not provide earthly fortune.

(2) The Gospel’s benefits deal with inner peace and eternal life.

(3) Two cities or societies can be traced from creation to eternity, the city of God and the city of Satan, or the heavenly and the earthly city, Jerusalem and Babylon. (4) These are not nations or organizations, but two groups of people marked by two different loves: the love of God versus the love of self. d. “Two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly city by the love of self, leading to contempt of God and the heavenly city by the love of God, leading to contempt of self. . . . These two cities are two communities of men. One is predestined to reign eternally with God, the other to suffer eternal punishment with the devil. . . Citizens are born into the earthly city by a nature spoiled by sin, but they