ARGUMENT.
AUGUSTIN TRACES THE PARALLEL COURSES OF THE EARTHLY AND HEAVENLYCITIES FROM THE TIME OF ABRAHAM TO THE END OF THE WORLD; AND ALLUDES TOTHE ORACLES REGARDING CHRIST, BOTH THOSE UTTERED BY THE SIBYLS, AND THOSEOF THE SACRED PROPHETS WHO WROTE AFTER THE FOUNDATION OF ROME, HOSEA, AMOS, ISAIAH, MICAH, AND THEIR SUCCESSORS.
CHAP.1.--OF THOSE THINGS DOWN TO THE TIMESOF THE SAVIOUR WHICH HAVE BEEN DISCUSSED IN THE SEVENTEEN BOOKS.
I PROMISED to write of the rise, progress, and appointed end of the two cities, one of which is God's, the other this world's, in which, so far as mankind is concerned, the former is now a stranger.But first of all I undertook, so far as His grace should enable me, to refute the enemies of the city of God, who prefer their gods to Christ its founder, and fiercely hate Christians with the most deadly malice.And this I have done in the first ten books.Then, as regards my threefold promise which I have just mentioned, I have treated distinctly, in the four books which follow the tenth, of the rise of both cities.After that, I have proceeded from the first man down to the flood in one book, which is the fifteenth of this work; and from that again down to Abraham our work has followed both in chronological order.From the patriarch Abraham down to the time of the Israelite kings, at which we close our sixteenth book, and thence down to the advent of Christ Himself in the flesh, to which period the seventeenth book reaches.the city of God appears from my way of writing to have run its course alone; whereas it did not run its course alone in this age, for both cities, in their course amid mankind, certainly experienced chequered times together just as from the beginning.But I did this in order that, first of all, from the time when the promises of God began to be more clear, down to the virgin birth of Him in whom those things promised from the first were to be fulfilled, the course of that city which is God's might be made more distinctly apparent, without interpolation of foreign matter from the history of the other city, although down to the revelation of the new covenant it ran its course, not in light, but in shadow.Now, therefore, I think fit to do what I passed by, and show, so far as seems necessary, how that other city ran its course from the times of Abraham, so that attentive readers may compare the two.
CHAP.2.--OF THE KINGS AND TIMES OF THE EARTHLYCITY WHICH WERE SYNCHRONOUS WITH THE TIMES OF THE SAINTS, RECKONING FROMTHE RISE OF ABRAHAM.
The society of mortals spread abroad through the earth everywhere, and in the most diverse places, although bound together by a certain fellowship of our common nature, is yet for the most part divided against itself, and the strongest oppress the others, because all follow after their own interests and lusts, while what is longed for either suffices for none, or not for all, because it is not the very thing.For the vanquished succumb to the victorious, preferring any sort of peace and safety to ******* itself;so that they who chose to die rather than be slaves have been greatly wondered at.For in almost all nations the very voice of nature somehow proclaims, that those who happen to be conquered should choose rather to be subject to their conquerors than to be killed by all kinds of warlike destruction.
This does not take place without the providence of God, in whose power it lies that any one either subdues or is subdued in war; that some are endowed with kingdoms, others made subject to kings.Now, among the very many kingdoms of the earth into which, by earthly interest or lust, society is divided (which we call by the general name of the city of this world), we see that two, settled and kept distinct from each other both in time and place, have grown far more famous than the rest, first that of the Assyrians, then that of the Romans.First came the one, then the other.
The former arose in the east, and, immediately on its close, the latter in the west.I may speak of other kingdoms and other kings as appendages of these.
Ninus, then, who succeeded his father Belus, the first king of Assyria, was already the second king of that kingdom when Abraham was born in the land of the Chaldees.There was also at that time a very small kingdom of Sicyon, with which, as from an ancient date, that most universally learned man Marcus Varro begins, in writing of the Roman race.For from these kings of Sicyon he passes to the Athenians, from them to the Latins, and from these to the Romans.Yet very little is related about these kingdoms, before the foundation of Rome, in comparison with that of Assyria.For although even Sallust, the Roman historian, admits that the Athenians were very famous in Greece, yet he thinks they were greater in fame than in fact.
For in speaking of them he says, "The deeds of the Athenians, as I think, were very great and magnificent, but yet somewhat less than reported by fame.But because writers of great genius arose among them, the deeds of the Athenians were celebrated throughout the world as very great.Thus the virtue of those who did them was held to be as great as men of transcendent genius could represent it to be by the power of laudatory words."(1) This city also derived no small glory from literature and philosophy, the study of which chiefly flourished there.But as regards empire, none in the earliest times was greater than the Assyrian, or so widely extended.For when Ninus the son of Belus was king, he is reported to have subdued the whole of Asia, even to the boundaries of Libya, which as to number is called the third part, but as to size is found to be the half of the whole world.