The Ancient Witnesses

258 • The Ancient Witnesses: A Journey to Discover Our Sacred Roots

Church. Marcellus, for that was his name, had the gift of diplomacy, and Rome appointed him to come and make peace between the Donatists and the Church catholic in North Africa where I was the presiding bishop.” 62 “In the course of his negotiations,” Augustine continued, “Marcellinus made friends with an important Roman official and shared the gospel with him. The official expressed genuine interest in Christ but resented Christianity because he believed it was responsible for all the empire’s troubles. This was a common view among Romans, and Marcellinus turned to me for help in answering the official’s doubts. I wrote him a long letter outlining my basic answer and promised him a more complete answer when I could devote time to writing. It only took me another fourteen years to finish it!” He pointed to the open book, The City of God , as his answer. 63 62 In appealing to the authority of the entire Church against the Donatist schism, Augustine used the term catholikos (universal). Donatists refused to restore to full communion any who fled during the persecution, and rejected the authority of any church leaders willing to receive them back. 63 Augustine wrote The City of God to expose the inaccuracies of the provincial Roman view of Christianity, and offered in its place a detailed exposition of the grand biblical narrative as a blueprint of the relationship of the Church to Roman society. The heart of this blueprint was a “tale of two cities.” One city—the “City of Man”— represented earthly cities like Babel in Genesis 11, set on exalting itself and its fortune, and having its origin in the rebellious will of Cain (Gen. 4). Rome, for Augustine, was synonymous with the City of Man. Another city—“the City of God”—had sprung from righteous Abel and represented redeemed humanity. Having their citizenship “above,” they sought a city “whose designer and builder is God” (Heb. 11:10). Though strangers in the present world, Christians were exemplary citizens of the empire, praying for its rulers and seeking its best interests in accordance with the scriptural mandate (Jer. 29:7; 1 Tim. 2:1-3).