ugustine of Hippo (354-430), a man whose work had a profound impact on Christendom through the middle ages, began writing
The City of God in 413 A.D., three years after the city of Rome was sacked by the Christian-Arian Goths, and, in Augustine's estimation, the
Roman empire came to an end. The sack of Rome provided a historically unique collision of world views between the displaced paganism and the
victorious gospel, for the Roman pagans blamed the Christians and their prohibition of pagan worship for Rome's overthrow. (Ironically, these
pagans lived to complain only because they claimed to be Christians, and were thus spared by the invaders.)
The City of God is Augustine's response to that charge.
The City of God is long, and myriad sub-plots weave in and out of the main theme. And while The City of God is not by any means a political treatise, from it can be gleaned Augustine's practical vision of Christian kingship at a time when Christian kings were a novelty. Augustine outlined a Christian civil order to a world still tainted with paganism. Christian rulers for centuries were expected to abide by this standard.
One aspect of this was a denial of the lust for empire. Augustine warns against the greed and sensuality that are the dangers of prosperity, and which provide the context for excessive ambition. "For when can that lust for power in arrogant hearts come to rest until, after passing from one office to another, it arrives at sovereignty?" (Bk I, 31). "Is it reasonable," Augustine later asks, "is it sensible, to boast of the extent and grandeur of empire, when you cannot show that men lived in happiness, as they passed their lives amid the horrors of war, amid the shedding of men's blood--whether the blood of enemies or fellow-citizens--under the shadow of fear and amid the terror of ruthless ambition? The only joy to be attained had the fragile brilliance of glass, a joy outweighed by the fear that it may be shattered in a moment" (Bk IV, 3). Augustine compared a pagan empire to a rich man "tortured by fears, worn out with sadness, burnt up with ambition, never knowing serenity of repose, always panting and sweating in his struggles with opponents"(Ibid.). The more he obtains, the more he desires, and the less he is able to enjoy it for fear of losing it.
The Christian king, by contrast, will be content to rule with justice the kingdom God has given him. "He is loved by family and friends," says Augustine, "he enjoys the blessings of peace with his relations, neighbours, and friends; he is loyal, compassionate, and kind, healthy in body, temperate in habits, of unblemished character, and enjoys the serenity of a good conscience" (Bk IV, 3). He will look on war as a "stern necessity" brought about when a bad neighbor threatens war against him (Bk IV, 15). He will not "ask to have someone to hate or to fear, so that he may have someone to conquer" (Ibid).
A Christian nation will be characterized by the justice of its rulers. Without justice, "what are kingdoms but gangs of criminals on a large scale?" (Bk IV, 4). Augustine reminds us of the story told by Cicero of the "apt and true reply which was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had been seized. For when that king had asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the sea, he answered with bold pride, `What thou meanest by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, whilst thou who dost it with a great fleet art styled emperor'" (Ibid.).
Augustine describes the men God chose to build a Western empire as those "who served their country for the sake of honour, praise and glory, who looked to find that glory in their country's safety above their own and who suppressed greed for money and many other faults in favour of that one fault of theirs, the love of praise" (Bk V, 13). How much better to maintain the good works, but to overcome "the greed for glory--"from which lies "a slippery slope...to the burning passion for domination" (Bk V, 19)--with the love of truth and justice, and to do all things to the glory of God? (Bk V, 14). The Christian ruler should be such a man.
Augustine describes the "happy" Christian ruler not, as the Romans held, as the one who reigns long, dies in peace, or is able to subdue his enemies or suppress insurrections; attributes which any pagan king may enjoy. Augustine calls rulers happy "if they rule justly; if they are not lifted up amid the praises of those who pay them sublime honors, and the obsequiousness of those who salute them with an excessive humility, but remember that they are men; if they make their power the handmaid of His majesty by using it for the greatest possible extension of His worship; if they fear, love, worship God; if more than their own they love that kingdom in which they are not afraid to have partners; if they are slow to punish, ready to pardon; if they apply that punishment as necessary to government and defence of the republic, and not in order to gratify their own enmity; if they grant pardon, not that iniquity may go unpunished, but with the hope that the transgressor may amend his ways; if they compensate with the lenity of mercy and the liberality of benevolence for whatever severity they may be compelled to decree; if their luxury is as much restrained as it might have been unrestrained; if they prefer to govern depraved desires rather than any nation whatever; and if they do all these things, not through ardent desire of empty glory, but through love of eternal felicity, not neglecting to offer to the true God, who is their God, for their sins, the sacrifices of humility, contrition, and prayer" (Bk V, 24).
What a glorious vision. Instead of the shallow conservatism we content ourselves with, shouldn't we hold our
rulers to Augustine's standard?
