Augustine Aurelius on the City of God. Works of Aurelius Augustine

ESSAY “About the City of God”

1. Historical context and mentality…1 page.

2. “On the City of God” as Augustine’s answer to the pagans...1-2pp.

3. Picture of the world...2page

4. Aurelius Augustine as a patristic...2-4 pages

5. Structure of the work...4-19

6. Purpose of a person. Some contradictions in the work and the reason for the “longevity of the book”

1. The beginning of the 5th century was one of the most disastrous times in the history of the Roman state. The attacks of wild neighboring tribes, which began from this time, were almost continuous. The Roman Empire, even earlier upset and weakened by the cowardice and carelessness of the former sovereigns, was unable to successfully resist the attacks of wild tribes. In 410, Rome was taken by Alaric and subjected to terrible plunder by his soldiers. The city itself is destroyed; the inhabitants were beaten and dishonored, some were taken prisoner; property, gold and gems taken away; monuments of art were burned and destroyed. Great Rome turned into heaps of ruins. The impression made by the fall of Rome on Christians, and especially pagans, was stunning. What is the reason for this terrible event? The question lies in the shocked minds of the pagans, accustomed to seeing in all the events of their history the punishment or blessings of the gods. There could be two reasons: one - the gods are punishing their admirers for allowing Christianity, which does not recognize the gods; the other is that the Christian God punishes the pagans for their enmity towards Christians. But the pagans could not allow the second reason, because along with them the Christians were also subjected to the disasters of destruction. One thing remains - Rome fell due to the fault of Christians. And accusations rained down on these latter. Everything has rebelled against Christ and Christianity. There seemed to be no end in sight for the denunciations, blasphemies, slander, reproaches, and ridicule. The position of Christianity was dangerous. Previously, paganism attacked individual points of Christian doctrine and discussed them calmly. Now, with all its strength, with irritation, it attacked all of Christianity in its internal meaning, as the cause of the fall of Rome, and turned to all its points, “condemning and blaming them, as if they did not agree with common sense, or with the conditions of state and social life", at the same time "and opposing them with his own rational and mystical doctrines." The veneration of the Roman gods is the reason for the greatness and glory of the empire; Christianity, which blasphemously denies those gods, is the cause of the fall of Rome.

2. The clergy of that time was distinguished only by ignorance, inextricably linked with it superstition, luxury, wealth, greed, due to all this, unclean life and even instability in the faith itself. Aurelius Augustine is the only defender of Christianity. In his essay “On the City of God,” he showed the pagans that Christianity not only does not contradict common sense and meets the needs, because especially and beneficial for the private and public life of people. Christianity not only was not the cause of the fall of the empire, but Christ also benefited the Roman pagans. Paganism is a lie, it was precisely what led Roman citizens to physical and spiritual corruption, and the Roman empire to destruction. Only the City of God stands forever. You need to live in it.

3. There are two cities: the earthly one (where vice reigns - Rome) and the divine one (the good, true, eternal - the church). Eternal life near God is the real City of God, in contrast to the symbolic name of the earthly community of the righteous chosen for salvation. But in eternity, beyond time, there is no history. Human activity, our everyday empirical life, takes place only on this side of the City of God, and in the City itself, according to Augustine, “endless leisure” awaits man. Thus, in accordance with the Holy Scriptures, history in the teachings of Augustine begins with man’s falling away from God and ends with his return to God, to the City of God. Following the days of the creation of the world, the Christian thinker divides it all into six centuries. The first age extends from Adam to the flood; the second - from the flood to Abraham; the third - from Abraham to David; the fourth - from David to the Babylonian captivity; fifth - from the Babylonian captivity to the birth of Christ; finally, the sixth - from Christ to the end of the world and the Last Judgment. The purpose of human history is to improve goodness and increase the number of citizens of the City of God. The history of mankind is the process of improving future citizens of the City of God and identifying those unworthy of it. After this, eternal peace will come for the human spirit and body. Empirically, the historical process proceeds linearly. In it, time acts as an irresistible force, ensuring the continuous change and uniqueness of events. From a metaphysical point of view, the historical process turns out to be a circular movement, the beginning and end of which are limited by eternity. A person returning to eternity is no longer the same as when he left the hands of the Creator. Now he knows the truth that he suffered through the painful experience of earthly life. History begins with a catastrophe of world-historical significance: the first man carried out his first free act for evil, went against the highest commandments. The fall of Adam made it necessary for Christ to come to earth, sent to save mankind. And at the end of history, the Last Judgment awaits people. Everyone has to answer for all their thoughts and deeds. At the same time, the entire historical process takes place under the sign of freedom, but everything that happened was foreseen by God. God knew about the future fall of man and knows that “the devil, who plunged the first people into temptation, with the assistance of grace, will be defeated by man.” The temporary life of humanity is the threshold of eternal life. This ultimate goal fills the entire earthly history with meaning. “For what other goal is ours,” Augustine concludes his historical theory, “than to achieve a kingdom that has no end.”

4. Meaning of creations St. Augustine for the subsequent cultural development of the West, its scale is incomparable with other creations of patristics. He can be considered the true father of Western Christianity. In the western part of the former Roman Empire the works of the eastern Church Fathers were not very well known. Getting to know each other was complicated by language difficulties: there were not many experts in Greek among the leaders of the Western Church. Against this background, Augustine, who wrote in Latin, was, of course, more accessible and understandable, since Latin was (and still remains) the official language of the Roman Catholic Church. While there were many great theologians in the East, in the West Augustine had no equal, and his teaching dominated Latin theological thought until the emergence of medieval scholasticism (Thomas Aquinas). The most famous of his works: "Confessions", polemical writings against Manichaeism, Donatists, Pelageya, academicians, “On the Trinity”, “On the City of God”, “On the Blessed Life”, “On Order”, “Immortality of the Soul”, “Renunciation”.

Ontology. Augustine's doctrine of being is a synthesis of Christian doctrine and Neoplatonic philosophy. He identifies the highest idea of ​​Platonism and Neoplatonism - the idea of ​​the One = Good - with God, who turns out to be the source of being and good and who is the all-perfect truth, goodness and beauty. The Divine Trinity - God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit - are identified with the Platonic triad: the ideas of the One, the Logos (World Mind) and the World Soul.

It is precisely because of its origin from God that everything that exists in the world is good. Evil is understood as a lack, damage, damage.

Cosmology and cosmogony. God created the world out of nothing (out of non-existence), and the existence of the world is constantly maintained by God. If the creative power of God dried up, the world would immediately disappear (cease to exist).

The world is limited in space and time, and space and time themselves are created by God only together with the world (i.e., before the emergence of the world, time did not exist). There is only one world, and there were no other worlds before the creation of our world. The created world has a strict hierarchical structure, where each object occupies a specific and appropriate place in the general plan of the universe. At the bottom of the created world are inanimate objects and irrational beings, and at the top are rational beings, whose approach or distance from God depends on their own will. So, the devil, of his own free will, fell away from God, and then plunged people into sin.

Epistemology. The fallen can emerge from the state of sin only by uniting with God. There are two ways for this: the path of reason and the path of authority.

All the ancients (pre-Christian philosophers) followed the first path, the best of whom was Plato. Since the world is the creation of God, studying the world allows us to get closer to understanding God.

The second way is possible only under the condition of faith in God, which is given to us with God's help and primarily through Revelation (Holy Scripture, i.e. the Bible), given by God to all people. Only on this path is true comprehension of God possible; thus, Augustine proclaims the primacy of faith over knowledge (“believe in order to understand”).

In Augustine, the Neoplatonic doctrine of ecstasy as the highest way of knowledge develops into the Christian doctrine of illumination.

The doctrine of the soul and soteriology. The soul is immaterial, it is an independent substance, it is immortal. Before their Fall, Adam and Eve were free to choose: to sin or not to sin. After the Fall, both they and all their descendants could not help but sin. After the atoning sacrifice of Christ, God's chosen ones again received the opportunity to live without sin.

In the teachings of Augustine, the concept of Divine predestination and grace occupies an important place. God, even before the birth of each person, predestined some people to good, salvation and bliss, and others to evil, destruction and torment. A person receives good will (i.e. the will to salvation) only thanks to the grace given to him by God

The significance of the philosophy of Augustine the Blessed is that they:

Much attention is paid to the problem of history (a rarity for that time);

The Church (often subordinate to the state and persecuted in the Roman Empire) was also declared a power along with the state (and not an element of the state);

The idea of ​​the dominion of the Church over the state, and the Pope over the monarchs is substantiated - the main idea for the promotion of which and its subsequent embodiment in reality the Catholic Church honored and idolized Augustine the Blessed, especially in the Middle Ages;

The idea of ​​social conformism (acceptance of poverty and foreign power) was put forward, which was also extremely beneficial to both the Church and the state;

Man was glorified, his beauty, strength, perfection, godlikeness (which was also rare for that time and suited everyone);

5. Written between 413 and 426, The City of God was Augustine's response to the pagan accusations against Christianity following the sack of Rome in 410, and his most significant contribution to Western thought. . In the first five books of this voluminous work, Augustine points out that Rome fell through the fault of its own selfishness and immorality, but not through the fault of Christianity, as they say. The next five books speak of despicable paganism and the errors of previous philosophy. In the remaining twelve books he writes about the opposition between the secular (diabolical) power and the kingdom of God, the embodiment of which is the church; the struggle between them is presented as a struggle between good and evil.

The book opens with considerations arising from the sack of Rome and intended to show that even worse things happened in pre-Christian times. Many of the pagans who attribute the catastrophe to Christianity, the saint declares, during the sack of Rome themselves sought refuge in the churches, which the Goths, because they were Christians, spared. On the contrary, during the sack of Troy, the temple of Juno could not provide any protection, and the gods did not save the city from destruction. The Romans never spared temples in conquered cities; in this regard, the sack of Rome was more merciful than most others, and this was the result of Christianity. God brought difficulties to both sinners and the righteous, who are strengthened in faith through difficulties. The good also have minor sins. Their task is to fight sinners, putting them on the true path. But because they did not do this due to their sins or reluctance to intervene for fear of loss of reputation and bad consequences. They are punished together not because they led a bad life together, but because together (albeit unevenly, but nevertheless jointly) loved temporary life, which the good should despise, so that the bad, having been rebuked and corrected, would inherit eternal life (and if they did not want to be allies in inheriting it, let them be tolerated and loved as enemies: for while they live there is always hope, that they will change their will. There is another reason why the good are subjected to temporary disasters - such as occurred in relation to Job: so that the human soul tests itself and finally realizes how selfless it is, by virtue of piety alone. loves God. Christians who suffered during the plunder have no right to grumble for several reasons. Other wicked Goths could succeed at their expense, but they will be punished in the world to come; if every sin were punished here on earth, then the final judgment would not be needed. What Christians endured will turn into good for them, if they were pious, for saints lose nothing by losing temporary things. It doesn’t matter if their bodies lie unburied, because the beasts devouring them will not prevent the resurrection of the bodies. In the history of their famous husbands, they have the noblest example of the fact that for the sake of faith one should endure captivity even voluntarily. Marcus Attilius Regulus proved that the gods do not bring any benefit to their worshipers for this temporary happiness: because he himself, devoted to their cult, was defeated, taken prisoner, and because he did not want to act otherwise than as he swore to them , was killed by the tortures of execution. This most noble example forces them to admit that the gods should not be revered for the sake of bodily goods or such things that come to a person from the outside: because Regulus wished better to lose all this than to offend the gods by whom he swore. Augustine then turns to the issue of pious virgins who were forcibly desecrated during the sack. Apparently, there were people who believed that these women, without any fault of their own, had lost their crown of virginity. The saint very strongly opposes this view. “It will not defile (someone else’s voluptuousness) if it is someone else’s.” Chastity is a spiritual virtue and is not lost from violence, but is lost from the intention to commit a sin, even if it remains unfulfilled. Augustine argues that God allowed violence because the victims were too proud It is a sin to commit suicide in order to avoid violent desecration; this conclusion leads to a long analysis of the case of Lucretia, who had no right to kill herself. Suicide is always sinful. Defending virtuous women who have been subjected to violence, Augustine makes one reservation: they should not. at the same time, experience voluptuousness. In this case, they are sinners. To the pagans: who are you that it is worth talking to you about your gods, and especially about our God, who is “more terrible than all gods? For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord is heaven. created” And the people became money-loving and prone to luxury as a result of that prosperity, which Scipio very prudently considered dangerous when he did not want a very extensive, fortified and rich enemy city to be destroyed, so that lust would be curbed by fear, and, curbed, would not develop luxury, and with the elimination of luxury, the love of money did not appear; with the elimination of these vices, virtue useful to the state would flourish and increase, and freedom consistent with virtue would exist. With what zeal would he have expelled the theatrical spectacles themselves from Rome if he had dared to oppose those whom he considered gods! But he did not yet understand that these gods were demons, or, if he did understand, he thought that they should be appeased rather than despised. At that time, the heavenly teaching had not yet been revealed to the pagans, which, purifying the heart to seek heavenly and extra-heavenly objects, would change the passionate movements of human feeling into humble piety and free them from the domination of proud demons. Augustine then moves on to the wickedness of the pagan gods. For example, “stage games, obscene shows and vain revelry were established in Rome not thanks to the vices of people, but by the command of your gods.” It would be better if the Romans gave divine honors to some virtuous man like Scipio than to these immoral gods. As for the sack of Rome, it should not disturb Christians who have refuge in the “wandering city of God.”

If the weak understanding inherent in man did not dare to resist the obvious truth, but subjected its weakness to the saving teaching, as a cure, until the divine help received from pious faith healed it, then people of sound mind and expressing their opinions with sufficient clarity would not need to spend much words in order to prove the fallacy of one or another falsely formed idea. Do not forget, however, that in saying all this, I was still dealing with uneducated people, whose ignorance gave rise to the well-known common proverb: “there is no rain, the reason is Christians.” Sacrilege spectacles fed the wicked demons with their own food, the deities did not care about life and the morals of the cities and peoples in whom they were revered: without any prohibitions that would inspire fear, they allowed them to become worse and suffer great and disgusting losses of the soul. all admirers of such gods, as soon as they are overcome by lust, seasoned, as Perseus says, with burning poison*, rather look at what Jupiter did than at what Plato taught or what Cato thought. He adds a little further: “Our Twelve Tables, on the contrary, having prescribed criminal penalties for very few crimes, considered it fair to include among these crimes if someone sang or wrote poetry that dishonors or disgraces another. And that's great. Our life should belong to the court of magistrates and legal proceedings, and not to the imagination of poets; and we should hear shameful things about ourselves only on the condition that we can answer and defend ourselves in court” (4th book of Cicero “On the Republic”). Pagan feasts, theater, poetry - service to demons. Now compare the humanity of Plato, who expels poets from the state to prevent the corruption of citizens, with the divinity of the gods, who demand theatrical games in their honor. Plato, with his reasoning, if not convinced, then at least advised the frivolous and morally loose Greeks that works of this kind should not even be written; on the contrary, the gods urgently demanded from the respectable and moderate Romans that such works be performed on stage, and not only performed, but dedicated and solemnly performed in their honor. , the gods of the Romans did not care at all about turning away from their worshipers spiritual evil, the evil of life and morals, which is so great that their most learned men claim that republics perish from it, even with cities intact; but, on the contrary, they tried in every possible way so that, as mentioned above, this evil would increase even more (the laws for life were borrowed). Examples are given of the sinfulness of Rome during the times of Romulus, Tertullius, and the capture of Carthage. Now, I believe, you see (and anyone who pays attention to this will understand very easily) into what a deep abyss of moral corruption the Roman state was plunged before the coming of our Almighty King (apocalypticism). The path of the evolution of history. After the coming of Christ, riots began shrink. Before this, the republic was the most corrupt and dissolute. Why didn’t their gods take care of preserving the republic, which Cicero so bitterly mourned long before the incarnation of Christ? Anyone who praises her as she was in ancient times can also, looking closely, see that even then she was not so much morally alive as simply decorated and dressed up. Rome has always, since the abduction of the Sabine women, been vile and unjust. Many chapters are devoted to exposing the sinfulness of Roman imperialism. It is also not true that Rome did not suffer disasters before Christianity became the state religion; the disasters that he suffered from the Gauls and civil wars were no less, and perhaps even greater, than those that he suffered from the Goths. The Roman Republic was perishing from the corruption of morals, the gods did nothing to correct and improve them, so that save her from death; on the contrary, they contributed in every possible way to corruption and the deterioration of morals so that she would perish. How evil people, so evil spirits cannot do everything they want, but only what is allowed to them by the order of Him, whose fate no one can comprehend or justly reproach. We must follow the commandments of Christ and resist demons (gods), for there is only one God.

I will only talk about what concerns Rome and the Roman Empire, i.e., about what the city itself and those areas that were united with it as allies or conquered by force of arms endured before the coming of Christ and were, as it were, part of the body his republic. Troy (if these gods were so dissatisfied with human crimes that, offended by the act of Paris, they betrayed the Troy they left behind to fire and sword, then the murdered brother of Romulus should have armed them even more against the Romans than the offended Greek husband armed against the Trojans; fratricide the nascent state should have been angered more than by the adultery of the one that was already in force. The pagan gods began to patronize Rome) Ilion (a city that supported Rome was destroyed during the civil wars. It was not saved by the gods. “Leaving the temples and altars, all the gods left”) On On what reasonable basis, after the experience of the unfortunate Troy, was Rome entrusted to the gods of Ilion for the preservation? well deserved.Peace better than war. Placed under the protection of so many gods, Rome should not have endured and suffered so many great and terrible disasters, of which I will mention only a few. he insulted the highest and true God, to whom alone these rites of religious veneration should belong. Rome has always, since the abduction of the Sabine women, been vile and unjust. Many chapters are devoted to exposing the sinfulness of Roman imperialism. It is also not true that Rome did not suffer disasters before Christianity became the state religion; the disasters he suffered from the Gauls and civil wars were no less, and perhaps even greater, than those he suffered from the Goths.

At the same time, it was necessary to prove that the false gods, whom they revered openly, and some still honor in secret, are unclean spirits and insidious demons - unclean and insidious to such an extent that they delight in their either real or fictitious atrocities , commanding to glorify these atrocities on the days of their holidays; this is so that weak human nature cannot refrain from reprehensible actions, as soon as it is presented with a kind of divine example to follow in this. So, let us now consider how much impudence there is in the fact that they attribute the vastness and longevity of the existence of the Roman Empire to these gods of theirs, whom they consider even a decent thing to worship by performing vile games through vile people. Let us imagine one poor, or better yet, a man of mediocre condition, and another very rich, but greatly depressed by fears, consumed by sadness, overwhelmed by desires, not having a moment of calm and mental peace, living in an atmosphere of constant hostile disputes, multiplying his own life at the cost of these misfortunes. possessions to infinity, and with its increase multiplying the most difficult worries; a person of mediocre fortune - content with his small and meager belongings, dear to his family, living in peace with relatives, neighbors and friends, religiously reverent, affable in character, healthy in body, thrifty in life, pure in morals and calm in his conscience.

I don't know if anyone would be so crazy as to doubt which of them to give preference to. But just as this applies to two individuals, so to two families, to two peoples and to two states; Drawing such a parallel, we will very easily see, if we are observant, where vanity is and where happiness is. Therefore, when the true God is revered and He is worshiped through real sacred rites and good morals, the powerful and long-term government of virtuous people is useful. And it is useful not so much for themselves as for those whom they manage. As for themselves, for their true happiness, in which it is well spent and real life , and then you get eternal life, enough piety and honesty, which are the great gifts of God. States are gangs of robbers. Ninus, the king of Assyria, was the first of all to violate, due to greed for power, this ancient and, as it were, ancestral custom for the peoples of the world. If this state became so great and ruled for so long without any help from the gods, then why are the Roman gods credited with the expansion and longevity of the Roman Empire? Waging wars and expanding the state by conquering peoples seems to be a good thing for bad people, but for good people it is only a matter of necessity. Having a kind and peaceful neighbor is greater happiness than subjugating a bad and warlike neighbor. The desire to hate or fear someone so that there is someone to defeat is a bad desire. Injustice greatly contributed to the expansion of their empire, causing people to commit illegal actions so that they would have someone to wage war with and thereby increase the state. Gods are either treacherous if they leave their own and go over to their enemies or are not as strong as gods should be strong, and therefore can be defeated by politics or the power of people. The Assyrian kingdom had the same problems as Rome (a crowd of gods who were revered attributed the power and preservation of the empire). Analysis of the Roman pantheon - God is the creator of everything. The cumbersome nature of the pantheon, the chaotic nature of functions and the lack of action of Jupiter (the head of the pantheon) with the activity of his subordinates, who independently make decisions. Ardent criticism of paganism. The Goddess of Happiness (Virtue) is not in the pantheon, because... the people in the vast state are unhappy. Happiness was rightly offended that she was invited so late, and not for honor, but rather for desecration.) it is a gift from God, then one should seek the God who can bestow it, and leave the harmful multitude of demons, for it is the senseless one who serves him a crowd of madmen, making gods for themselves out of God's gifts, and insulting God Himself, whose gifts they are, with the stubbornness of their proud will. In the games, the most vile histrions sang, imagined and delighted the molester of chastity - Jupiter. If it had been imaginary, he should have been angry; if he delighted in his own, even fictitious, crimes, then when they honored him, didn’t they serve him like the devil? Was it really he who created, spread and preserved the Roman state - he who was more disgusting than any Roman, in whose opinion these things were vile? Is it really he who sends down happiness - he who was honored as evil and who was even more angry if he was not honored in this way? Without the will of the true God they could in no way have a kingdom; but if they did not know or rejected these many and false gods, but knew the one true God and served Him with sincere faith and morality, then here they would have had a better kingdom, and then they would have inherited an eternal kingdom, regardless of whether they had here kingdom or did not have it. Break free from superstitions. So, this God, the Author and Giver of happiness - since one is the true God - himself distributes earthly kingdoms to both the good and the evil. And He does this not indiscriminately and as if by chance (for He is God, and not Fortune), but in accordance with the order of things and times - an order that is hidden to us, but completely known to Him. He is not subordinate to this order, however, slavishly, but reigns over it as a Master, and disposes of it as a Ruler. But He bestows happiness only on the good. Subjects may or may not have this happiness, and rulers may or may not have it. It will be complete in the life where no one will be a slave anymore. Therefore, He gives earthly kingdoms to both the good and the evil, so that His admirers, still infants in their spiritual perfection, do not desire these gifts from Him as something great. This is the mystery of the Old Testament, in which the New was hidden, that it also promised earthly gifts: people who lived a spiritual life even then understood, although they did not yet openly preach, both what was signified by those temporal things and then in what gifts of God lies true happiness. , God multiplied His people from several people in Egypt and freed them from there with miraculous signs.

Astrology is not only bad, but also false; this can be proven by the difference in the fates of twins who have the same horoscope. The Stoic concept of Fate (which was associated with astrology) is a fallacy, for angels and men have free will. The cause of things that produces, but is not itself produced, is God. True, God foreknows our sins, but we sin not at all because of his foreknowledge. The Romans accomplished many great things, first out of the love of freedom, and then out of the love of domination and out of a passionate desire for a good opinion of themselves and glory. A reward awaits the saints who endure reproach here for the city of God, hated by the adherents of this world. That city is eternal. No one is born in it because no one dies. In him is true and complete happiness - not a goddess, but a gift from God. From there we received a pledge of faith, encouraging us while, while wandering, we sigh at its beauty. Freedom and the thirst for human glory - these were the two motivations that forced the Romans to do amazing things. It is a mistake to believe that virtue brings misfortune, even in the present world: Christian emperors, when they followed the path of virtue, were happy, even if they were not lucky, and Constantine and Theodosius were also lucky; on the other hand, the Kingdom of Judah existed as long as the Jews adhered to the true religion. Everything in the world, as it came from God, is also contained in existence by His power. Everything is in His power; He controls everything. He gives kingdom and power to whom, when and how much needed. From him - the quick and slow outcome of wars, victory and defeat; from Him are temporal and eternal blessings; from God the King - complete happiness. - the all-good God showered Emperor Constantine, who did not worship demons, but revered the true God, with such earthly gifts that no one dared to even dream of. He gave him the opportunity to create a city allied to the Roman state, like a daughter of Ancient Rome, but without any demonic temple and without any idol.

Despite all the doctor’s skill, the disease may remain invincible not due to the doctor’s fault, but due to the patient’s reluctance to be treated. It would be the most senseless folly to ask or hope for eternal life from such gods, who, in the present short and calamitous life and as regards its maintenance and reinforcement, are considered to oversee such small details that if anything were asked from one of them being in the power and control of another, then it would seem incongruous and absurd to such an extent that it would be very similar to the tomfoolery of mimes. Varro's books on the pagan heritage. According to Varro, divine things are established by people. But true religion is not established by any earthly state, but itself creates the heavenly city. It is instilled and taught to his true worshipers by the true God, the Giver of eternal life. He sees how divine things must differ from human falsity and emptiness; but in matters of public cult he is afraid to touch upon erroneous popular opinions and customs, although when you look at them one way or another and you yourself admit, all literature proclaims that they do not agree with the nature of even such gods as the weak human mind imagines in the elements of this world. Seneca is against the “bloody” worship of the gods. None of those gods who are honored so shamefully and who are even more shamefully angry if they are not honored in this way, thereby exposing themselves as unclean spirits. And if someone does not give happiness, then how can he give eternal life? For we call eternal life that in which endless happiness is found.

In the 7th book, “On the City of God,” Augustine sets out his attitude to ancient Greek philosophy in the form of a brief historical and philosophical excursion. He writes that Greek philosophy arose in two schools at once - Italian and Ionian. The founder of the first was Pythagoras. the second is Thales of Miletus. Augustine points out that Pythagoras was the first to use the term “philosophy.” From Thales through Anaximander. Anaximene. Anaxagora. Diogenes of Apollonia and Archelaus philosophy comes to Socrates. It was Socrates who first directed philosophy to the study of morals; before that we studied nature. Socrates was the first to understand that it is possible to know God and things only with a pure soul. However, Socrates was the kind of person who brought to light the stupidity of his contemporaries. for which they did not like him and in the end he was executed. Subsequently, they began to be revered to the point that one of his enemies, as Augustine writes, at whose libel Socrates was executed, was torn to pieces by the crowd, and the second escaped only by fleeing from Athens. Many schools were formed. However, they all took some aspect of Socratic philosophy, and only Plato was best student Socrates, who managed to develop the true features of Socratic philosophy. True, Plato has as his primary source the philosophy of not only Socrates, but also Pythagoras. As Augustine points out, from Pythagoras Plato took the contemplative part - the study of truth, and the active part - the arrangement of life issues - he took from Socrates. Augustine divides the entire philosophy of Plato into three parts: the natural (that is, physical) part, the rational (logic) and the ethical. In all his parts, Plato showed that he was superior to all ancient philosophers and the only one who came close to the tenets of Christianity. In the physical part, Plato was the first to show that God is immaterial, that He is above everything changeable in both material and mental life. Plato was also the first to show that everything exists thanks to God, that God created everything without Himself being created. and that, observing the variability of the world, realizing that the world is still knowable, and thus striving for truth, Plato was the first to learn that there are some immaterial images - ideas. Not knowing the phrase from the Epistle to the Romans of the Apostle Paul that “His invisible things, His eternal power and Godhead, have been visible from the creation of the world through the consideration of creation,” Plato understood all this, not yet living in the time of Augustine. In the logical (rational) part, Plato was also superior to all philosophers. because he proved that what is comprehended by the mind is higher than what is comprehended by the senses. And in ethics. moral part of his philosophy. Plato was also above all others, for, firstly, he showed that only he who knows God is blessed; that knowledge of God is the highest good (this is the view that is also contained in Holy Scripture). Augustine expresses two opposing points of view. On the one hand, he writes that Plato came to this through his own philosophical reflections, and on the other, he writes that Plato lived for some time in Egypt and, as some point out, could have heard the prophet Jeremiah (although Augustine himself argues that he Plato lived later). Others say that Plato could have read the Septuagint, although Augustine argues that Plato lived earlier, but agrees that in one way or another Plato became acquainted, while in Egypt, with the wisdom set forth in the Old Testament. Although, apparently, Plato simply described what was said in the book of Exodus (“I am who I am”), and in the dialogue “Timaeus” he stated what was stated in the first chapters of the book of Genesis. Augustine quotes other dialogues. without naming them or simply including thoughts from them in the context of your own thoughts. Augustine has a rather contradictory attitude towards other philosophical schools. He describes his attitude towards the Stoics and draws attention only to their teaching about the soul, more precisely about the passions in the soul. Some Stoics argue that a wise man must have no passions, and in this Plato is superior to the Stoics. Augustine, however, describes an incident that occurs in the “Attic Nights” of Aulus Gellius, when a certain Stoic was sailing on a ship and a storm broke out. Everyone noticed how this stoic was terribly frightened and turned pale, and when the storm subsided, everyone began to laugh at him: how can it be that you proclaim abstinence from passions, but you yourself were more frightened than anyone else. To which this philosopher said: “You have nothing to fear for your empty souls, but I have something to fear for my divine soul.” And further, as Augustine writes, Aulus Gellius describes how the philosopher proves that a sage by no means should not have passions, he must only possess them. This is according to Augustine. connects the Stoics with the Platonists and elevates these philosophers. Augustine shows the Epicurean school in the most unattractive light, and, probably, the myth about the Epicureans as philosophers came from Augustine. practicing only sensual pleasures, although in his theory of knowledge Augustine often agreed with the Epicureans and took a lot from their epistemology. Augustine called the Cynic philosophers “dog philosophers,” reducing their entire philosophy to sexual licentiousness. About Plotinus, Augustine writes that the bright face of Plato again shone in him. From him Augustine read many truths of Holy Scripture, and most importantly, Augustine took his method, thanks to which he was able to overcome his own skepticism and his own Manichaeism, solve the problem of evil and prove that truth exists and is knowable. Augustine devotes a lot of pages, perhaps most of all, to the analysis of the philosophy of Porphyry (and not even philosophy, but demonology) and calls Porphyry the most learned of philosophers and sees the superiority of Porphyry over Plotinus in that he comes much closer to the Christian interpretation of hypostasis. Porfiry abandoned the idea of ​​​​the cycle of souls, thus overcoming the misconception about the reincarnation of people; abandoned the doctrine of knowledge as recollection; taught about the grace of God; taught about respect for God and Jews. The traditions of the religion of Egypt and the remembrance of the dead are also examined in detail to strengthen the position of Christian teaching.

From this book of the Stoic Epictetus, says Agellius, he read that, according to the teachings of the Stoics, when mental images, which they call fantasies, the occurrence and time of occurrence of which in our mind does not depend on our will, come from terrible and terrible objects, then they inevitably excite the mind and the wise; so that for a short time he turns pale with fear and is exposed to grief, as passions that precede the activity of the mind and understanding. But from this, it does not follow that a bad disposition, approval or sympathy for evil will form in his mind. the wise man is not subject to passions and worries, perhaps because these passions and worries do not overshadow any delusion and do not endanger his wisdom, thanks to which he is wise. But they also arise in the soul of the wise, although without disturbing the clarity of his wisdom - they arise under the impression of what the Stoics call benefits or disadvantages and what they do not want to give the name of good or evil. the mind, in which such a concept is firmly held, does not allow any disturbances, even if they arise in the lower parts of the soul, to have a predominant force over itself contrary to reason; on the contrary, he himself dominates over them and, by his lack of sympathy, and even more so by resistance to them, establishes the kingdom of virtue. After all, the Stoics often condemn mercy; but it would be many times more honorable if the above-mentioned Stoic were touched by mercy towards a person in need of help, rather than succumb to the fear of shipwreck. Holy angels do not experience, for example, anger when they punish those who are subject to punishment on their part by virtue of the eternal divine law, nor compassion when they come to the aid of the unfortunate, nor fear when they save those in danger whom they love. The worldview of the Platonist Apuleius (about demons and man) is considered. The demons, whom philosophers placed as intermediaries between people and gods, although they can say about the soul and body: “We have one thing in common with the gods, and the other with people,” but, being, as it were, inverted and suspended head down, with the blessed the gods share the enslaving body, and the hapless people share the ruling spirit; in the lower part they are exalted, and in the higher part they are humiliated. The gods are defiled by the sound of a human voice; and as a result, they have demons as intermediaries, who, placed far from people, make these sounds known to them, so that they themselves remain alien to all defilement.

In Neoplatonism, the supreme deity is absolutely impersonal, nameless; it is just an abstract thing: a unit, a number. The One Dam, although above all and is the god of all gods, has absolutely no proper name and does not have its own biography. Any sacred history is alien to him, i.e. it is as impersonal as that nature of which it is the ultimate deification. It is not someone, and a person’s appeal to it is not an appeal to anyone. This is simply a theoretically conceivable and coldly experienced limit of everything that exists." The problem of sensory perception. Indeed, this is a serious problem for Augustine. On the one hand, Augustine strives to follow the Neoplatonists in his theory of knowledge, believing that like is known by like, and since God is immaterial, then and one can know God only by the method of self-knowledge, comprehension of one’s soul. On the other hand, Augustine cannot follow Plotinus and other Platonists and does not believe that only the intelligible world has reality, that the sensory world is a world of evil and non-existence. of course, he believes that the material world was created by God and therefore it is also good and kind (for it is “very good,” as it is said in Scripture). Therefore, feelings also provide a certain degree of truth. He only outlines some stages on the path from the sensory. material object, which, through the creation of images, pass into a physiological image, and from it into memory and imagination. Thus, some intangible image is created material item material item.

Pagans, keen on Neoplatonism, considered the body an obstacle to salvation; therefore, from their point of view, the body should be avoided in every possible way. But Christianity teaches that the Son of God deliberately took on a human body in order to save people. Thus, a dilemma was created in the minds of the pagans regarding Christianity, which they could neither understand nor resolve and because of which they attacked it. However, Augustine still places the main emphasis on rational, rational knowledge and points out that in addition to sensory knowledge, which is By its nature, changeable, there is also intelligible knowledge. In addition to the sensory world, which is changeable in itself, there is also an intelligible world - an unchanging, eternal world. This is proven, in particular, by the fact that (as Augustine pointed out in his dispute with skeptics), for example, the truths of mathematics are always truths. Three plus seven always equals ten, it does not depend on any material conditions; even if all matter disappears, this truth will remain. Therefore, this truth (since it is always true, eternal and unchangeable) cannot be derived from sensory perception.

The second part of the essay on the City of God begins, which speaks of the beginning, spread and destined end of two cities, heavenly and earthly. In this book, Bl. Augustine first of all indicates the initial beginnings of these two cities in the distinction that preceded them between good and evil angels, and on this occasion he speaks of the creation of the world, which is described in St. Scripture at the beginning of Genesis. A certain City of God, of which we passionately desire to be citizens because of the love that its Founder breathed into us. The citizens of the earthly city prefer their Gods to this Founder of the Holy City, not knowing that He is the God of gods - not false gods, that is, wicked and proud, who, having been deprived of His unchangeable and common light to all and limited to pitiful power, create for In some way, private autocracies demand divine honors from seduced subjects, and gods are pious and holy, finding more pleasure in subordinating themselves to one God than in subordinating many to themselves, and to honor God themselves than to be revered for God. But we responded to the enemies of this holy City with the help of our Lord and King, as best we could, in the previous ten books. Now, knowing what is expected of me, and not forgetting my duty, I will begin to speak, with ever-present hope in the help of the same Lord and our King, as far as I can, about the beginning, spread and destined end of both Cities, i.e. earthly and heavenly , about which I said that in the present century they are in some way intertwined and mixed with each other; and first of all I will say about the initial beginnings of these two Cities in the division of angels that preceded them. About the knowledge of God, the concept of Whom people acquire only through the Mediator between God and people - the man Jesus Christ. All nature was created by God. He speaks with the truth itself, if anyone is able to listen with the mind and not with the body. In this case, He speaks to that part of man that is better in man than the rest, of which, as we know, man consists, and better than which only God himself. For as soon as there is a direct conviction, and if it is not possible, at least the belief that man is created in the image of God; then the part with which it comes closest to supreme god, will, of course, be that part of him with which he rises above his lower parts, which he has in common even with animals. The Son of God, having assumed humanity and without losing the Divinity, strengthened and established this very faith, so that it would be the path to God for man through the God-Man. He is the Mediator between God and man - the man Jesus Christ. That is why He is a mediator, why He is a man and why He is a way. He is also God and man: as God, He is the goal to which they go, as a man, He is the path along which they walk. In regard to that which is removed from our senses, since we cannot know it by our own testimony, we certainly require outside testimony, and believe those about whom we do not doubt that it is not or has not been removed from their senses. So, just as in relation to visible objects that we do not see ourselves, we trust those who have seen them, and we also act exactly in relation to other things that are subject to one or another bodily sense: so in relation to what is felt by the soul or mind (for this too quite rightly called a feeling - sensus; where does the word itself come from? s e n t e n t i a ), that is, in relation to those invisible things that are removed from our inner sense, we must believe those who have cognized those placed in this incorporeal light and contemplate what abides in it. Of all visible things, the greatest is the world; Of all the invisible things, God is the greatest. That the world exists, we see, that there is God, we believe. And that God created the world - we cannot believe without hesitation in anyone except God himself. If they claim that the soul is co-eternal with God, then they can in no way explain where a new misfortune came from for it, which it had never known before from eternity. If they say that her happiness and misfortune alternated from eternity, then they must inevitably say that she herself is subject to change from eternity. She had never been truly blessed, but now she began to be blessed with some new, unfalse bliss, and therefore to recognize that something new had happened to her, and, moreover, something greatest and most beautiful, which had never happened to her from eternity. Once having experienced misfortune, she, being freed from it, will never be unhappy: then, of course, they will not doubt that this is possible only with the unchangeability of God’s advice. In this case, let them believe that the world could have been created in time, but that God, while creating the world, nevertheless did not change his eternal advice and will. those who agree that God is the Creator of the world, but ask what we can answer regarding the time of creation of the world, should think that they themselves will answer regarding the space occupied by the world. For how is it possible to ask why the world was created then, and not before? So the question is also possible about why the world is here, and not somewhere else. Epicurus (many worlds). If they say that one world was created, although it is extremely huge in its bodily mass, but the world is finite, limited by its space, and created by the action of God: then what will they answer about the boundless spaces outside the world, in explanation of why God stopped them to act, let them answer themselves the same about the endless times before the world, in explanation of why God remained without action during these times. God, in whose eternity there is no change, is the Creator and Organizer of time. The world was not created in time, but along with time. About the simple and unchangeable Trinity of the one God - the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, who has no other - property and no other - essence. There is only one simple, and therefore the only unchangeable good - this is God. By this Good all goods were created, but not simple ones, and therefore changeable. I say created, that is, made, unborn. For what is born from a simple good is equally simple and is the same as that from which It is born. We call these two Father and Son, and these two, together with the Holy Spirit, are one God. This Spirit of the Father and the Son in Holy Scripture is called the Holy Spirit, in some special sense of the word. And He is other than the Father and the Son; because He is neither Father nor Son; but I say - another, and not another: because this good is equally simple, and also unchangeable and co-eternal. And this Trinity is one God, and does not lose its simplicity because it is a Trinity. For we call this nature of good simple, not because there is one Father, or one Son, or one Holy Spirit in it; and not because this Trinity existed only in name without the independence of persons, as the Sabellian heretics thought. But it is called simple for the reason that what it has is itself, except for what is said about each person in relation to another. For although the Father has a Son, He is not the Son; and the Son has the Father, yet He is not the Father. Neither the vessel is liquid, nor the body is color, nor the air is light or warmth, nor the soul is wisdom. Moreover, they can lose these things that they have, go into other states or change properties: a vessel, for example, can be freed from the liquid with which it is filled; the body may lose color; the air may become darkened and cool, and the soul may become unreasonable. But if the body is incorruptible, as is promised to the saints in the resurrection, then although it will have the indelible property of incorruptibility itself; however, as long as the bodily substance remains, incorruption itself will not exist. For incorruption in each separate part of the body will be whole, and will not be greater there, but less here: because no part will be more incorruptible than the other; but the body itself as a whole will be larger than in part; however, although one part of it will be more voluminous, the other less, the more voluminous part will not be more incorruptible than the one that is smaller. So, another is a body that is not in all its parts a whole body; and the other is incorruptibility, which in each part is a whole: because each part of the incorruptible body, although it is uneven with the other parts, is equally incorruptible. For example: just because the finger is smaller than the whole hand, the hand will not be more imperishable than the finger. For God did not create anything without knowing, just as, strictly speaking, even any artist does not create; if He created everything knowing, then, without a doubt, He created what He knew. From this follows something surprising, but nevertheless true, namely, that this world could not be known to us if it did not exist; but if it were not known to God, then it could not exist. But God did not only know that it was good when it was created: none of this would have happened if it had not been known to Him. So, when God sees that good is something that in no case would have happened if He had not seen it before it appeared; then He teaches, but is not taught, that this is good. The knowledge of God is by no means so diverse that it would represent differently what will happen. For God despises the future, looks at the present, and views the past not in our way, but in some other way, far different from ordinary image our thinking. Without changing his thoughts from one to another, He sees, but in a completely unchanging way. /From what happens in time, the future, for example, does not yet exist, the present just exists, the past no longer exists; but He embraces all this in a constant and eternal present. And He contemplates no differently with his eyes, and no differently with his mind; because He does not consist of soul and body; not otherwise now, not otherwise before, and not otherwise after: because His knowledge does not change like ours, according to the difference of time, present, past and future. The intention of him in whose incorporeal contemplation all that He knows does not pass from thought to thought, exists simultaneously together. He knows times without any concepts of a temporary property, just as he sets the temporal in motion without any movement of a temporary property. And therefore, where He saw good what He created, there He saw good in order to create it. And what He saw created did not double His knowledge or increase it in some part, since He would have had less knowledge before He created what He saw: He would not have acted with such perfection, if it had not been so perfect His knowledge, to which nothing was added by His works. That is why, if we needed to give an idea of ​​the One who created the light, it would be enough to say: God created the light. But if it was necessary to give an idea not only of who created it, but also of what he created through, But since we needed to point out three things that are especially important for the knowledge of creation, namely: who created it, through what he created it, why did he create; That’s what it says: And God said: may God give light as good. There is no creator more excellent than God, no art more valid than the word of God, no reason better than that good should be created by the good God. And Plato recognizes as the most fundamental reason for the creation of the world that good creations had to come from a good God - whether he read this, or perhaps learned from those who read, or with his very insightful mind he saw the invisible of God's creatures thought, or learned from those who thought of it before. God despises the future, looks at the present, and views the past not in our way, but in some other way, far different from the ordinary way of our thinking. About the divine Trinity, which throughout all creation has scattered the signs of its trinity. We believe, unshakably maintain and sincerely preach that the Father begat the Word, that is, Wisdom, through which all things were created, the only begotten Son, the one - the one, the eternal - the co-eternal, the highest good - equals good; and that the Holy Spirit is together the Spirit of both the Father and the Son, and is itself consubstantial and coeternal with both; and that all this is a Trinity according to the property of persons, and one God according to the indivisible deity, as well as one omnipotent according to the indivisible omnipotence; but so, however, that when asked about one of them, we say in response that each of them is both God and omnipotent, and when we talk about all of them together, then there are not three Gods or three omnipotents, but one God omnipotent: such is the three indivisible unity, and so it must be confessed. Because of this, the philosophers, as far as can be understood, decided to divide the system of philosophy into three parts, or rather, they managed to notice that it was divided into three parts (for they themselves did not establish that this was so, but rather found that this is so), of which the first is called physics, the second logic, the third ethics. Because I must exist in order to be deceived, even if I were deceived; then there is no doubt that I am not deceived in what I know about my existence. About being and knowing, and about love for both. we love the very love with which we must love both being and knowledge in order to draw closer to the image of the Divine Trinity.

In this book. bl. Augustine first talks about angels, and precisely about where some have good will, others have evil, and what was the cause of the bliss of the good angels and the misfortune of the evil. Then, he speaks about the creation of man and teaches that he was created not from eternity, but in time, and not by another Creator, but by God. Evil will is the cause of evil action; For evil will, nothing serves as a reason. When the will, having left the highest, turns to the lower, it becomes evil not because what it turned to is evil, but because its very turning has a perverse quality. the divine nature can never diminish in any respect; and what is created from nothing can decrease. Whoever has a perverted love for a good of any nature, even if he has achieved it, becomes evil when he possesses the good, and unhappy, as having been deprived of a better good. Here is expected to follow eternal life, and there, although a blessed life is known, it is not eternal, but must one day be lost. God creates. The cycles in which the soul was presented as necessarily having to return to the same misfortunes have been refuted. God created man in his own image.

In this book, blessed. Augustine teaches that death in relation to people has the meaning of punishment, and that it came from Adam's sin. Although the human soul is rightly recognized as immortal, however, for it there is a certain kind of death. She is called immortal because she never ceases to exist. known form and to some extent live and feel; the body is called mortal because it cannot completely lose life and is completely incapable of living on its own. But the death of the soul occurs when God leaves it; just as the death of the body occurs when the soul leaves it. For that final and eternal punishment, about which we will speak in more detail in its place, is rightly called the death of the soul, because it does not live by God; but how can one call it the death of the body when it lives by the soul? After all, otherwise it could not feel those very bodily torments that will happen after the resurrection. life in the bodies of the wicked is not the life of the soul, but of the body. Such a life can be imparted to them even by those who have died, that is, souls abandoned by God, by their own, by any kind of life, as a result of which they are immortal. about the first bodily death we can say that it is good for the good and evil for the evil. The second is not good for anyone, since none of the good is exposed to it. From the moment someone begins to be in this body that is subject to death, for him it is always about the approach of death. life is nothing other than the path to death, on which no one is allowed to stop for a little while or go a little slower - but everyone is forced, of necessity, to move equally and approach evenly. About the bodies of the saints after the resurrection, which will be spiritual, but in such a way that the flesh will not turn into spirit. What is to be understood by the natural body and the spiritual body, or who are those who die in Adam and who are quickened in Christ? When God, with the words: Adam, where are you (Gen. III, 9), indicated the death of the soul, which took place as a result of His abandonment, and with the words: You are earth and went back to earth (Gen. III, 19), designated the death of the body, which occurs as a result of abandonment his soul; This is probably because he did not say anything about the second death, because he wanted it to be hidden for the sake of the economy of the New Testament, in which the second death is announced with complete clarity; so that initially that first death, which is common to all, becomes known, as arising from that sin, which in one thing became common to all; the second death is not at all common to all, because of those who are called according to foreknowledge: For these you foreknow and ordain, says the apostle, to be conformed to the image of His Son, as if He were the firstborn among many brethren (Rom. VIII, 28, 29). The latter were delivered from the second death by the grace of God through the Intercessor. So, the first man was created, as the apostle says, with a soul body. The apostle wanted to explain what the spiritual body is. Further, the apostle points out a new, most obvious difference between one and the other person, saying: The first man is from earth with a ring, the second man is from heaven. As in the ring, so in the ring, and as in the heavenly, so in the heavenly. And just as we have put on the image of the earthy, let us also be clothed in the image of the heavenly. Into the image of the earthy man due to the location of crime and death, which birth gave us; but we put on the likeness of the heavenly man by the grace of mercy and eternal life. You need to understand the breath by which man came into being in the soul, and the one that the Lord made when he said: accept the Spirit of the I am a man formed from the dust of the ground, or from dirt (for it was wet dust), or - to put it more expressively, as Scripture said - this F o r t o t h e s e a l d became, according to the teaching of the Apostle, a spiritual body when it received a soul. The breath of God seems to come from the mouth of God; if we recognize it as a soul, then naturally we will have to admit that it is of the same nature. People who have received the grace of God, fellow citizens of the holy angels living in a blessed life, will so put on spiritual bodies that they will no longer sin or die. Their immortality, similar to that of angels, will not be able to destroy sin; Although the physical nature will remain, there will be absolutely no corruption or inertia left in it. If the lust of disobedient members arose in the first people from the sin of disobedience, when the grace of God abandoned them; if this is what made them open their eyes to their nakedness, that is, pay more attention to it, and cover their shameless members, since their shameless movement did not obey their will: then how would they give birth to children if they remained without sin? in the same state as they were created.

In book XIV, in the light of the higher understanding of the nature of evil in man, presented in the Book of Genesis, the negative attitude of Plato to the bodily principle and the Stoics to the passions is criticized. St. Augustine gives a very sympathetic characterization of Plato, whom he places above all other philosophers. All others must yield to him “who, with a mind devoted to the body, saw the bodily principles of nature”: now in water, like Thales, now in the air, like Anaximenes, now in fire, like the Stoics, now in atoms... like Epicurus. All of them were materialists; Plato rejected materialism. Plato understood that God is not a certain corporeal thing, but that everything that exists in the world has its existence from God and from something unchangeable. Plato was right even when he argued that sensory perception is not. source of truth. The Platonists are much higher than other philosophers in logic and ethics and are closest to Christianity. “Plotinus is known as the best understander of Plato, at least in the times closest to us.” As for Aristotle, he was inferior to Plato, but far superior to everyone else. However, both Plato and Aristotle argued that all gods are good and they all need to be given divine honors. Objecting to the Stoics, who condemned all passions, St. Augustine declares that the passions that stir the souls of Christians can motivate them to virtue; anger or compassion per se (in themselves - lat.) should not be condemned, but first we must find out what cause causes these passions. The Platonists held the correct view of God, but were mistaken regarding the gods. They were also mistaken in that they did not recognize the doctrine of the incarnation. Throughout many pages of St. Augustine, in connection with the problem of Neoplatonism, discusses the issue of angels and demons. Angels can be good and evil, but demons are always evil. Knowledge of temporal objects defiles angels (although they possess it). Together with Plato, St. Augustine argues that the sensory world is lower than the eternal world.

Book XV defines the essence of the two "cities", earthly and heavenly, one of which is based on self-love, personified by the biblical Cain, and the other on the love of God, personified by Abel, and tells how these two opposing cities coexisted in history. Since the Fall, the world has always been divided into two cities, of which one will reign forever with God, and the other will remain in eternal torment with Satan. Cain belongs to the city of the devil, Abel to the city of God. Abel, by grace and predestination, was a stranger on earth and a citizen in heaven. The patriarchs belonged to the city of God. Analysis of the death of Methuselah is given by St. Augustine to the controversial issue of comparing the “Translation of the Seventy Interpreters” and the Vulgate. The date of Methuselah’s death, indicated in the “Translation of the Seventy Interpreters,” leads to the conclusion that Methuselah survived the flood and lived another fourteen years, which could not have happened, for he was not in the ark. The Vulgate, following the Hebrew manuscripts, gives a date from which it follows that Methuselah died in the very year of the flood. St. Augustine declares that the truth in this matter must be on the side of St. Jerome and Hebrew manuscripts. Some argued that the Jews, out of malice toward the Christians, deliberately forged the Hebrew manuscripts; this is the assumption of St. Augustine rejects. On the other hand, the “Translation of the Seventy Interpreters” must be recognized as divinely inspired. One thing remains to be concluded - Ptolemy’s scribes made mistakes when rewriting the “Translation of the Seventy Interpreters.” Speaking about translations of the Old Testament, St. Augustine states: “The Translation of the Seventy was accepted by the Church as if it were the only one, and is in use among the Greek Christian peoples, many of whom do not even know whether another one still exists. From the translation of the Seventy, a Latin translation was made, which is in use in the Latin churches. In our time there lived Presbyter Jerome, a most learned man, versed in all three languages, who translated the Holy Scriptures into Latin not from Greek, but from Hebrew. But, despite the fact that the Jews recognize his learned translation as correct, and the translation of the Seventy in many places as erroneous, the churches of Christ believe that no one should be preferred to the authority of so many people chosen from this matter by the then high priest." St. Augustine accepts the tradition that although the seventy translators sat at their work separately from one another, there was amazing agreement in their words, and sees in this proof of the divine inspiration of the “Translation of the Seventy Interpreters.” But the Hebrew text is also inspired by God. This conclusion leaves the question of the authority of Jerome's translation unresolved. Maybe St. Augustine would have taken the side of Jerome more decisively if the two saints had not quarreled over the issue of opportunistic tendencies in the behavior of St. Petra.

BOOKS 16-18

Augustine outlines the earthly history of two cities: Cain and Abel, Sarah and Hagar, Remus and Romulus. Between Noah and Abraham the evidence for the City of God is very scanty. With Abraham, however, his story comes to light, and in it the promises finally fulfilled by Christ can be discerned. The Old Testament becomes a storehouse of “symbols.” Parallel to the history of the City of God, the fate of the earthly city is developing, which is characterized by incessant struggle, for humanity did not remain faithful to Absolute Being. With the help of Rome, God decided to “conquer the whole world in order to bring it into one society, into a state ruled by law, and to send down to it a lasting and extensive peace.” But at what cost - at the cost of bloodshed and wars! Meanwhile, in difficult times, tears teach the Church hope. Spreading under the tutelage of the spirit and in fulfillment of prophecies, until the Second Coming it remains the wandering City of God.

In Book Nineteen, Augustine brings the narrative up to date and argues for Christian rather than Platonic ethics. talks about the meaning of peace for the human community, the ultimate goal of which is to achieve eternal peace in God. Christians are convinced that eternal life is the highest good and that virtues are real only for those who believe in God. Philosophers fail because they seek the temporal rather than the eternal. Christians also long for peace and recognize that until their mortal nature is overcome, such peace is relative, but they seek it in obedience to God and, by faith, have already found it. Philosophers lack such faith.

BOOKS 19-22

In the final three books, Augustine looks to the future. He does not accept millenarianism. The millennial kingdom is called either the millennium after the coming of Christ, or the entire remaining period of the world. As soon as the Church began its march from Judea throughout the world, the Devil was bound. Two cities - the City of God and the City of the Devil will reach the peak of their development by the day of the last judgment, to which 21 books are dedicated. Unlike Origen, Augustine did not hope for the redemption of everyone, especially the Devil. Even faithful Catholics must beware: salvation depends on righteous life, and not simply from baptism, the Eucharist or the giving of alms. Neither heretics, nor schismatics, nor bad Catholics will escape punishment without repenting. In Book 22, Augustine outlines the eternal blessedness of the City of God, but devotes a significant part of it to the doctrine of the resurrection and miracles. He claims that the Church was not short of miracles in his day. Even if pagan philosophers deny the Resurrection, writes Augustine, they still agree with Christians regarding rewards after death; Moreover, both Plato and Porfiry believed that God could do the impossible. In the Eternal City, Christians will achieve perfect freedom, and their wills will completely merge with the will of God in the promised Sabbath Rest

6 Augustine believed that not all demons are kings of the earthly kingdom. They have one prince, the “worst king” of the earthly kingdom - the devil (XI, 33. P. 229; XVII, 16. P. 265; XVIII, 41. P. 67; 51. P. 85). He, cast down from heaven with his minions (XI, 33. p. 229), founded a kingdom hostile to God. Members of this kingdom. These are unclean spirits and wicked people who do not honor God. (XVIII, 18. p. 24) According to the characteristics of the members of the kingdom of the earth. These are all selfish people who make themselves the center of their lives, wholly attached to the earth, people of earthly benefits and lower, carnal desires and passions. The name of the kingdom of the earth - “enemies of the Kingdom of God”, clearly defines the relationship of the first to the second. Enmity is the general nature of these relations. In particular, the devil raised heretics who opposed Christian teaching. But in this way he only brought benefit to the members of the Kingdom of God, exercising, and therefore strengthening, patience in them. (XVIII, 51. P. 85) However, the hostile relationship of the kingdom of earth to the Kingdom of God does not interfere with the fact that both kingdoms live together, mixed, intertwined (I, 35. P. 59; XIX, 26. P. 158), even in real earthly life they use some of the same things (XIX, 17. pp. 139-141) And with regard to the mood of the members of both kingdoms during the period of this earthly life, their (members’) composition cannot be established once and for all. Now, in earthly life, among the members of the earthly kingdom, future members of the Kingdom of God may be hidden, and among the members of the Kingdom of God - future members of the earthly kingdom. During the period of earthly life, transitions of members of kingdoms from one to another are possible. (I, 35. pp. 58-59)

Doubt in itself acts as a boundary in relation to skepticism, because as a fact it becomes undoubted. “Without any fantasies and without any deceptive game of ghosts,” writes Augustine, “it is extremely certain for me that I exist, that I know it, that I love. I am not afraid of any objections regarding these truths from the Academicians who could would say: “What if you are deceived?” “If I am deceived, then therefore I already exist” (IV pp. 216-217)

It owed its influence to the idea of ​​the separation of church and state, which clearly implied that the state could become part of the city of God only by submitting to the church in all religious matters. Since this idea was proclaimed by St. Augustine, it has always been an element of the teaching of the church. Throughout the Middle Ages, during the period of gradual growth of the power of the papacy and throughout the conflict between the papacy and the Empire, St. Augustine supplied the Western Church with doctrines that served as a theoretical justification for its policies. The Jewish state in the legendary times of the judges and in the historical era after the return from Babylonian captivity was a theocracy; a Christian state should imitate him in this respect. The weakness of the emperors and most medieval monarchs made it possible for the church to largely realize the ideal of the city of God. In the East, where the emperor was a powerful ruler, historical development never went in this direction and the church remained much more subordinate to the state than it was in the West.

The Reformation, which revived the doctrine of St. Augustine about salvation, rejected his theocratic teaching and stood on the platform of Erastianism; this was caused mainly by the practical needs of the fight against Catholicism. Erastianism is the doctrine of the subordination of the church to the state. However, Protestant Erastianism lacked conviction, and those Protestants who showed the greatest zeal in matters of faith remained under the influence of St. Augustine. Part of his doctrine was also adopted by the Anabaptists, the “People of the Fifth Monarchy” and the Quakers, but they attached less importance to the church. St. Augustine adhered to the point of view of predestination and at the same time insisted on the necessity of baptism for salvation; these two doctrines do not agree well with each other, and representatives extreme trends in Protestantism rejected the latter doctrine, but their eschatology remained Augustinian.

"On the City of God" does not contain much that is fundamentally original. Eschatology is of Jewish origin and penetrated into Christianity mainly through the Apocalypse. The doctrine of predestination and election is Paulinist, although in comparison with what we find in the Epistles of St. Paul, St. Augustine added it is a much more complete and logical development. The idea of ​​​​the difference between sacred and secular history is quite clearly expressed in the Old Testament. The merit of St. Augustine was that he brought these elements together and related them to the history of his own time. were able to accept the collapse of the Western Empire and the subsequent period of chaos without subjecting their religious beliefs to too severe a test.

The Jewish example of history, past and future, is characterized by features that allow it at all times to find a powerful response in the hearts of the oppressed and unfortunate.

Augustine the Blessed.

About the city of God

Book one

Refutes the pagans who attributed the disasters of the empire, especially the last devastation of Rome by the Goths, to the Christian religion, which prohibits the cult of the gods. He talks about the prosperity and adversity that were at that time, as usual, common to both good and evil people. It curbs the arrogance of those who reproached Christianity with the rape of Christian women by soldiers.

Preface

About the purpose and content of the undertaken essay

In this work, my dear son Marcellinus, conceived by you, and for me, by virtue of the promise I made, obligatory, I set it as my task to defend the city of God, most glorious as in this passage of time, when it wanders among the wicked, “living by faith” ( Hab.2:4), and in that eternal life, which he now “awaits with patience” (Rom.8:25), believing that “judgment will return to righteousness” (Ps.93:15), and which he will acquire, by virtue of its undoubted superiority, to defend against those who place their gods above its Founder. This work is great and hard; but “God is our refuge” (Ps. 61:9).

I know what strength is needed to convince the proud, how great is the valor of humility, thanks to which all earthly greatness, wavering from the impermanence of time, is surpassed not by the height assigned to itself by human arrogance, but by that which is bestowed by divine grace. For the King and Founder of this city, about which we are planning to speak, revealed to His people in Scripture the definition of the divine law, which says: “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6; 1 Pet. 5:5) . But what belongs to God alone, the arrogant spirit of a proud soul also tries to appropriate to itself, and loves to be credited with glory.

Spare the humble, overthrowing the proud.1)

Therefore, as far as the work I have undertaken requires it and as far as it seems possible, it is impossible to pass over in silence the earthly city, which, striving for domination, is itself under the power of this passion to dominate, although people worship it.

About the enemies of the name of Christ, whom the barbarians during the devastation of Rome spared for the sake of Christ

From this city come the enemies from whom we must defend the city of God. Many of them, however, having corrected the error of wickedness, become quite decent citizens of the city, but many are so inflamed with hatred of it and so ungrateful to the obvious benefits of its Redeemer that they are now raising their tongues against him even because , avoiding the enemy's sword, saved a life that they are proud of in its sacred places.2)

Are it not precisely those Romans whom the barbarians spared for the sake of Christ who turn out to be hostile to the name of Christ? This is evidenced by the places of martyrs and the basilica of the apostles, which during the devastation of Rome protected both their own and strangers. A bloodthirsty enemy was raging at their doorstep; there the murderer's fury stopped; there, compassionate enemies brought those who were spared outside these places, so that others who did not have such compassion would not attack them. Even among those of them who killed and savaged enemies in other places according to the custom, and among those who, after they came to places where things were prohibited that were permitted in other places by the law of war, all their ferocity was tamed and their greed for war disappeared. mining In this way, many survived, now humiliating Christian times and blaming Christ for all the disasters that their city experienced, and attribute those blessings of life that were given to them in honor of Christ not to our Christ, but to their fate.

Meanwhile, if they had any common sense, they would have to attribute everything that they suffered from their harsh and cruel enemies to divine providence, which usually corrects and smoothes out the corrupted morals of people through wars, and a just and commendable life mortals at the same time are trained by these defeats and after the test either transfers them to a better world, or keeps them on this earth for the benefit of others. And the fact that the bloodthirsty barbarians, contrary to the custom of war, spared them for the sake of the name of Christ in places dedicated to the name of Christ - this should have been attributed to them by Christian times, and for this they should have thanked God, and, in order to avoid punishment by eternal fire, sincerely resorted to to His name, a name that many have used falsely to avoid certain destruction. Indeed, among those whom you see so boldly and brazenly mocking the servants of Christ, there are very many who would not have escaped this death and extermination if they had not falsely presented themselves as the servants of Christ. And so, in their ungrateful pride and the most wicked madness, in order to receive punishment with eternal darkness, they rebel with their perverted hearts against His name, the name to which they resorted with their crafty lips in order to use temporary light!

That no wars have ever been fought in such a way that the victors spared the conquered for the sake of the gods of those whom they defeated

Many wars have been described that were fought both before the founding of Rome and after, including during the times of the empire: let them read and say whether any city was taken by foreigners in such a way that the enemies who took it spared those whom they found hiding in the temples of their gods; or that some barbarian leader, upon breaking into a city, would order not to kill anyone who would flee to this or that temple? Didn't Aeneas see how Priam did on the altar? For after that

With his blood he desecrated the consecrated fire?3)

Or is it not Diomedes and Ulysses

The guards of the sacred temple were killed and stolen

The most holy image; hands covered in blood,

Did you dare touch the clean bandages of the goddess?4)

And yet, it was not true, as stated below:

After that, the hope of the Achaeans weakened,

for after that they were victorious; after that they destroyed Troy with fire and sword; after that they beheaded Priam, who sought refuge at the altars. What then did Minerva herself lose before this, that she died? Aren't they their guards? Indeed, it could only be taken away after they were killed. After all, it was not the statue that protected the people, but the people – the statue. Why then did they pray to her to protect her homeland and citizens, if she did not even have the strength to preserve her guards?

Chapter 3

How unreasonably the Romans believed that the gods of the Penates, who could not save Troy, could benefit them

City of God

When Rome was sacked by the Goths in 410, the pagans quite naturally attributed the disaster to the oblivion of the ancient gods. As long as the Romans revered Jupiter, they declared, Rome remained powerful; now, when the emperors turned away from Jupiter, he stopped protecting his Romans. This pagan argument demanded an answer. The work “On the City of God,” written gradually between 412 and 427, was the answer to St. Augustine; but as the writing of the book moved forward, it went far beyond the scope of the original plan and developed a whole Christian scheme of history - past, present and coming. The book of St. Augustine enjoyed enormous influence throughout the Middle Ages, especially in the struggle that the church waged against secular rulers.

Like some other outstanding books, the work of St. Augustine remains in the memory of those who read it long ago as something better than it appears at first glance when you read it again. The book contains much that can hardly be accepted by anyone today, and its central thesis is somewhat obscured by layers belonging to the century of St. Augustine. But the broad concept of the opposition between the city of this world and the city of God has remained an inspiring idea for many, and even now can be re-stated in non-theological language.

To omit the details when characterizing the book and focus on its central idea would mean to present the work of St. Augustine in an unjustifiably favorable light; on the other hand, to focus on the details would be to miss what is best and most significant in the book. I will try to avoid both mistakes by first giving some idea of ​​the details and then moving on to the central idea as it took shape in historical development.

The book opens with considerations arising from the sack of Rome and intended to show that even worse things happened in pre-Christian times. Many of the pagans who attribute the catastrophe to Christianity, the saint declares, during the sack of Rome themselves sought refuge in the churches, which the Goths, because they were Christians, spared. On the contrary, during the sack of Troy, the temple of Juno could not provide any protection, and the gods did not save the city from destruction. The Romans never spared temples in conquered cities; in this respect the sack of Rome was more merciful than most others, and this was the result of Christianity.

Christians who suffered during the plunder have no right to complain for several reasons. Other wicked Goths may have succeeded at their expense, but they will be punished in the world to come; if every sin were punished here on earth, then the final judgment would not be needed. What Christians endured will turn into good for them, if they were pious, for saints lose nothing by losing temporary things. It doesn’t matter if their bodies lie unburied, because the beasts devouring them will not prevent the resurrection of the bodies.

Augustine then turns to the issue of pious virgins who were forcibly desecrated during the sack. Apparently, there were people who believed that these women, without any fault of their own, had lost their crown of virginity. The saint very strongly opposes this view. “It will not defile (someone else’s voluptuousness) if it is someone else’s.” Chastity is a spiritual virtue and is not lost from violence, but is lost from the intention to commit a sin, even if it remains unfulfilled. Augustine argues that God allowed violence because the victims were too proud by his abstinence. It is a sin to commit suicide in order to avoid violent desecration; this conclusion leads to a long analysis of the case of Lucretia, who had no right to kill herself. Suicide is always sinful.

In defending virtuous women who have been subjected to violence, Augustine makes one reservation: they should not experience voluptuousness. In this case they are sinners.

Augustine then moves on to the wickedness of the pagan gods. For example, “stage games, obscene spectacles and vain revelry were established in Rome not thanks to the vices of people, but at the command of your gods.” It would be better if the Romans gave divine honors to some virtuous person like Scipio, than to these immoral gods. Well, Regarding the sack of Rome, it should not disturb Christians who have refuge in the “wandering city of God.”

In the real world, two cities - earthly and heavenly - are mutually mixed; but in the world to come the predestined and the reprobate will be separated. In real life, it is not given to us to know who, even among our seeming enemies, will ultimately be among the chosen ones.

The most difficult part of the work, according to St. Augustine, will constitute a refutation of the theories of philosophers, with the best of whom Christians agree on many issues, such as immortality and the fact that the world was created by God.

Philosophers did not cease to pay divine honors to the pagan gods, and since the gods were evil, the moral instructions of the philosophers did not help a virtuous life. St. Augustine does not admit that these gods are an empty fable; he believes that they really exist, but are demons. The demons wanted shameful things to be told about them, because they wanted to harm people. Most Romans would rather look at what Jupiter did than what Plato taught or what Cato thought. “Now compare the humanity of Plato, who expels poets from the state to prevent the corruption of citizens, with the divinity of the gods, who demand theatrical games in their honor.”

Rome has always, since the abduction of the Sabine women, been vile and unjust. Many chapters are devoted to exposing the sinfulness of Roman imperialism. It is also not true that Rome did not suffer disasters before Christianity became the state religion; the disasters he suffered from the Gauls and civil wars were no less, and perhaps even greater, than those he suffered from the Goths.

Astrology is not only bad, but also false; this can be proven by the difference in the fates of twins who have the same horoscope. This argument is not original, but borrowed from the academic skeptic Carneades. The Stoic concept of Fate (which was associated with astrology) is a fallacy, for angels and humans have free will. True, God foreknows our sins, but we sin not at all because of his foreknowledge. It is a mistake to believe that virtue brings misfortune, even in the present world: Christian emperors, when they followed the path of virtue, were happy, even if they were not lucky, and Constantine and Theodosius were also lucky; on the other hand, the Kingdom of Judah existed as long as the Jews adhered to the true religion.

St. Augustine gives a very sympathetic characterization of Plato, whom he places above all other philosophers. All others must yield to him “who, with a mind devoted to the body, saw the bodily principles of nature”: now in water, like Thales, now in the air, like Anaximenes, now in fire, like the Stoics, now in atoms... like Epicurus. All of them were materialists; Plato rejected materialism. Plato understood that God is not a certain corporeal thing, but that everything that exists in the world has its existence from God and from something unchangeable. Plato was right even when he argued that sensory perception is not. source of truth. The Platonists are much higher than other philosophers in logic and ethics and are closest to Christianity. “Plotinus is known as the best understander of Plato, at least in the times closest to us.” As for Aristotle, he was inferior to Plato, but far superior to everyone else. However, both Plato and Aristotle argued that all gods are good and all of them should be given divine honor.

Objecting to the Stoics, who condemned all passions, St. Augustine declares that the passions that stir the souls of Christians can motivate them to virtue; anger or compassion per se (in themselves - lat.) should not be condemned, but first we must find out what reason causes these passions.

The Platonists held the correct view of God, but were mistaken about the gods. They also erred in that they did not recognize the doctrine of the incarnation.

Throughout many pages of St. Augustine, in connection with the problem of Neoplatonism, discusses the issue of angels and demons. Angels can be good and evil, but demons are always evil. Knowledge of temporal objects defiles angels (although they possess it). Together with Plato, St. Augustine argues that the sensory world is lower than the eternal world.

Book eleven opens with a characterization of the nature of the city of God. The City of God is a community of chosen ones. The knowledge of God is acquired only through Christ. There are things that can be known with the help of reason (this is what philosophers do), but regarding any religious knowledge remote from our inner sense, we must rely on the Holy Scriptures. We should not seek to understand how time and space existed before the creation of the world: before creation there was no time, and where there is no world, there is no space.

Everything that is blessed is eternal, but not everything that is eternal is blessed, such as hell and Satan. God foresaw the sins of the devils, but also that they would be used to improve the universe as a whole, a role analogous to antithesis in rhetoric.

Origen is mistaken in believing that bodies were given to souls as a sign of punishment. If this were so, then bad souls would receive bad bodies, but devils, even the worst of them, have airy bodies that are better than ours.

The reason the world was created in six days is because the number six is ​​perfect (that is, equal to the sum of its factors).

There are good and evil angels, but even evil angels do not have any essence that is contrary to God. God's enemies oppose him not by nature, but by will. Evil will has a non-producing, destructive cause; it is not a replenishment, but a decrease.

The world is not yet six thousand years old. History does not know circulation, as some philosophers believe, “for Christ died once for our sins.”

If our first parents had not sinned, they would have been immortal, but they sinned, and therefore all their descendants are mortal. The result of eating an apple was not only natural death, but also eternal death, that is, a curse.

Porfiry is mistaken in refusing to admit that the saints will remain in heaven, clothed in bodies. The saints will have bodies with best properties than Adam before the Fall: spiritual (but in such a way that the flesh does not turn into spirit) and weightless. Men will have male bodies, women will have female bodies, and those who died in infancy will be resurrected with the bodies of adults.

Adam's sins would have plunged all people into eternal death (that is, damnation), if the grace of God had not saved many from it. The impulse to sin arose from the soul, not from the flesh. Platonists and Manichaeans are mistaken in attributing the origin of sin to the nature of the flesh, although Platonists are more tolerant than Manichaeans. The retribution to which the entire human race was subjected for the sin of Adam was just, for through this sin man, who could have become spiritual in the flesh, became carnal in the spirit as well. This leads to a lengthy and meticulous analysis of the problem of sexual lust, the susceptibility to which is part of the retribution that is sent down on us for the sin of Adam. This analysis is very important, since it reveals the psychology of asceticism; therefore we cannot ignore this topic, although the saint admits that it offends modesty. The theory he puts forward is as follows.

It must be recognized that carnal intercourse in marriage is not sinful, provided that the purpose of marriage is the production of offspring. But even in marriage, a godly person should desire that his members serve the purpose of procreating offspring without any lust. Even in marriage, as the desire to cover it up with secrecy shows, people are ashamed of carnal intercourse, for “what is decent by nature is accomplished in such a way that it is accompanied by what is shameful as a result of punishment.” The Cynics held the idea that people should not know shame; Diogenes also rejected shame, wanting to to resemble dogs to everyone; but even he, after a single attempt, abandoned this extreme form of shamelessness in practice. The object of shame in lust is that it is not restrained and controlled by the will. Adam and Eve, before their fall, could commit carnal intercourse without lust ( although they did not take advantage of this opportunity). Masters of bodily arts, practicing their craft, move their hands without any lust; so Adam, if only he had stayed away from the apple tree, could have performed his masculine work without the excitement that it requires now. In this case, the reproductive members, like all other members of the body, would obey the will. The need for lust during sexual intercourse appeared as retribution for Adam’s sin; If Adam had not sinned, copulation would have been separated from pleasure. The above is the theory of St. Augustine on the issue of gender relations, from which I omitted only some physiological details, very wisely left by the translator in the bashful incomprehensibility of the Latin original, we are talking about the English translation. In the Russian edition, the corresponding chapters 14, chapters 16 - 26) are fully translated. From what has been said above, it is clear what motivates the ascetic to have an aversion to sexual life: he believes that it is not restrained and not controlled by the will. According to the ascetic, virtue requires complete power of the will over the body, but with such power, sexual intercourse is impossible. Therefore, sexual intercourse seems incompatible with a perfect, virtuous life.

Since the Fall, the world has always been divided into two cities, of which one will reign forever with God, and the other will remain in eternal torment with Satan. Cain belongs to the city of the devil, Abel to the city of God. Abel, by grace and predestination, was a stranger on earth and a citizen in heaven. The patriarchs belonged to the city of God. Analysis of the death of Methuselah is given by St. Augustine to the controversial issue of comparing the “Translation of the Seventy Interpreters” and the Vulgate. The date of Methuselah’s death, indicated in the “Translation of the Seventy Interpreters,” leads to the conclusion that Methuselah survived the flood and lived for another fourteen years, which could not have happened, for he was not in the ark. The Vulgate, following the Hebrew manuscripts, gives a date from which it follows that Methuselah died in the very year of the flood. St. Augustine declares that the truth in this matter must be on the side of St. Jerome and Hebrew manuscripts. Some argued that the Jews, out of malice toward the Christians, deliberately forged the Hebrew manuscripts; this is the assumption of St. Augustine rejects. On the other hand, the “Translation of the Seventy Interpreters” must be recognized as divinely inspired. One thing remains to be concluded - Ptolemy’s scribes made mistakes when rewriting the “Translation of the Seventy Interpreters.” Speaking about translations of the Old Testament, St. Augustine states: “The Translation of the Seventy was accepted by the Church as if it were the only one, and is in use among the Greek Christian peoples, many of whom do not even know whether another one still exists. From the translation of the Seventy, a Latin translation was made, which is in use in the Latin churches. In our time there lived Presbyter Jerome, a most learned man, versed in all three languages, who translated the Holy Scriptures into Latin not from Greek, but from Hebrew. But, despite the fact that the Jews recognize his learned translation as correct, and the translation of the Seventy in many places as erroneous, the churches of Christ believe that no one should be preferred to the authority of so many people chosen from this matter by the then high priest." St. Augustine accepts the tradition that although the seventy translators sat at their work separately from one another, there was amazing agreement in their words, and sees in this proof of the divine inspiration of the “Translation of the Seventy Interpreters.” But the Hebrew text is also inspired by God. This conclusion leaves the question of the authority of Jerome's translation unresolved. Maybe St. Augustine would have taken the side of Jerome more decisively if the two saints had not quarreled over the issue of opportunistic tendencies in the behavior of St. Petra.

St. Augustine gives a synchronization of sacred and profane history. We learn that Aeneas arrived in Italy at a time when Judge Abdon was in charge in Israel, and the last persecution will be from the Antichrist, but when 3JO will happen is unknown. About Abdon we only know what he had. 40 sons and 30 grandsons and that they all rode donkeys (Judges 12:14).

After a magnificent chapter against judicial torture, St. Augustine enters into polemics with the new academicians, who considered everything dubious. “The City of God resolutely rejects such doubt as madness; for he has knowledge about objects accessible to understanding and reason... the most reliable." We must believe in the truth of the Holy Scriptures. Further, St. Augustine explains that there cannot be true virtues where there is no true religion. Pagan virtue is defiled by the service of “the evil and unclean demons." What would be a virtue in a Christian turns into vice in a pagan. “Why even the very virtues that he apparently has, through which he commands the body and vices to take or maintain this or that direction, if he does not attribute them to God, are rather vices than virtues.” To those who do not belong to this community (the church) will have to endure eternal torment. “When such a collision occurs in real life, then either suffering conquers, and death takes away the sensation of pain; or nature conquers, and the sensation of pain is eliminated by recovery. But suffering will remain there to torment. “And nature will continue to exist in order to feel suffering; both will not cease, so that punishment will not cease.”

We must distinguish between two resurrections: the resurrection of the soul at death and the resurrection of the body at the final judgment. After examining various dark questions relating to the thousand-year reign and the subsequent acts of Gog and Magog, St. Augustine turns to the text from the second Epistle to the Thessalonians (2; 2, 12): “And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, so that they will believe a lie. Let all be condemned who have not believed the truth, but have loved unrighteousness." Some may think it unfair of the Almighty that He should first lead people astray, and then punish them for being led astray; but this seems to St. Augustine quite correct: “Those judged, they will be subject to deception and, having been deceived, they will be condemned. But those judged by those judgments of God, secretly righteous and righteously secret, will be subject to deception, with which God has not ceased to judge from the very beginning the sin of the rational creation.” St. Augustine argues that God divided people into the chosen and the damned, not because of their merits or sins, but according to his own will. Everyone equally deserves damnation, and therefore the damned have no right to grumble about their fate. The above excerpt from St. Paul shows that, according to St. Augustine, evil people are evil because they are cursed, not cursed because they are evil.

After the bodies are resurrected, the bodies of the damned will burn forever without being destroyed. There is nothing incredible about this; This is how the salamander and Mount Etna burn. Demons, although immaterial, can burn in material fire. The torments of hell are not purifying and will not be moderated by the intercession of the saints. Origen was mistaken in believing that hell is not eternal. Heretics, as well as sinful Catholics, will be damned.

The book ends with a description of a vision in which God in heaven and the eternal bliss of the city of God appear to the saint’s gaze.

The above summary of the contents of the book “On the City of God” may not give the reader a clear idea of ​​​​the meaning of the book. It owed its influence to the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe separation of church and state, which clearly implied that the state could become part of the city of God only by submitting to the church in all religious matters. issues. Since this idea was proclaimed by St. Augustine, it has always been an element of the teaching of the church. Throughout the Middle Ages, during the period of gradual growth of the power of the papacy and throughout the conflict between the papacy and the Empire, St. Augustine supplied the Western Church with doctrines. , which served as a theoretical justification for its policy. The Jewish state in the legendary times of the judges and in the historical era after the return from the Babylonian captivity was a theocracy; the Christian state should imitate it in this regard. The weakness of the emperors and most of the medieval monarchs made it possible for the church to largely implement the ideal. city ​​of God. In the East, where the emperor was a powerful ruler, historical development never went in this direction and the church remained much more subordinate to the state than it was in the West.

The Reformation, which revived the doctrine of St. Augustine about salvation, rejected his theocratic teaching and stood on the platform of Erastianism; this was caused mainly by the practical needs of the fight against Catholicism. Erastianism is the doctrine of the subordination of the church to the state. However, Protestant Erastianism lacked conviction, and those Protestants who showed the greatest zeal in matters of faith remained under the influence of St. Augustine. Part of his doctrine was also adopted by the Anabaptists, the “People of the Fifth Monarchy” and the Quakers, but they attached less importance to the church. St. Augustine adhered to the point of view of predestination and at the same time insisted on the necessity of baptism for salvation; these two doctrines do not agree well with each other, and representatives extreme trends in Protestantism rejected the latter doctrine, but their eschatology remained Augustinian.

"On the City of God" does not contain much that is fundamentally original. Eschatology is of Jewish origin and penetrated into Christianity mainly through the Apocalypse. The doctrine of predestination and election is Paulinist, although in comparison with what we find in the Epistles of St. Paul, St. Augustine added it is a much more complete and logical development. The idea of ​​​​the difference between sacred and secular history is quite clearly expressed in the Old Testament. The merit of St. Augustine was that he brought these elements together and related them to the history of his own time. were able to accept the collapse of the Western Empire and the subsequent period of chaos without subjecting their religious beliefs to too severe a test.

The Jewish example of history, past and future, is characterized by features that allow it at all times to find a powerful response in the hearts of the oppressed and unfortunate. St. Augustine adapted this model to Christianity, and Marx to socialism. To understand Marx psychologically, the following vocabulary should be used:

Yahweh - Dialectical materialism Messiah - Marx

The Chosen People - Proletariat Church - Communist Party Second Coming - Revolution Hell - Punishment for Capitalists Millennial Reign of Christ - Communist Society

The terms on the left give the emotional content of the terms on the right, and it is this emotional content, familiar to those raised in Christian or Jewish traditions, that makes Marx's eschatology worth considering. A similar dictionary could be made for the Nazis, but their concepts are more purely Old Testament and less Christian in nature than Marx’s, and the Nazi messiah resembles not so much Christ as the Maccabees.

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MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

FEDERAL STATE BUDGET EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION OF HIGHER EDUCATION

"TULA STATE UNIVERSITY"

Department of Criminal Law and Procedure

Test in the discipline: “History of political and legal doctrines”

On the topic: “Augustine Aurelius “On the City of God””

Completed by: student gr. z741063/10

Sushkov A.S.

Checked by: Ph.D., Associate Professor. Kovalev S.N.

Introduction

1. Personality and destiny

3. Augustine's teaching about the City of God and the Earthly City

4. Treatise “On the City of God”

Conclusion

References

Introduction

The personality of Aurelius Augustine deserves special mention, primarily because the significance of his works for the subsequent cultural development of the West is incomparable in scale to other works of patristics. In the western part of the former Roman Empire the works of the eastern Church Fathers were not very well known. Getting to know each other was complicated by language difficulties: there were not many experts in Greek among the leaders of the Western Church. Against this background, Augustine, who wrote in Latin, was, of course, more accessible and understandable, since Latin was (and still remains) the official language of the Roman Catholic Church. These facts do not in any way detract from the depth and content of Augustine’s works, which are of educational interest for the modern study of philosophy for this reason alone. In addition, without familiarity with the works of Augustine, it is impossible to understand the meaning of the subsequent philosophical era in the West - the era of scholasticism.

Augustine wrote many books in Latin. Let us mention only some of the most famous: “City of God”, “City of Man”, “Confession”.

In the work “On the City of God,” Augustine develops his own vision of history and the doctrine of the “Two Cities” (“Kingdoms”) - the Earthly City and the City of God.

The purpose of this test work: consider the teaching of Aurelius Augustine “On the Heavenly City.” Based on this goal, we have set the following tasks:

Study the personality and fate of Augustine Aurelius;

Consider Augustine's teaching about the Earthly City and the Divine City;

Study the structure and main provisions of the treatise “On the City of God.”

1. Personality and destiny

Augustine Aurelius - philosopher, influential preacher, Christian theologian and politician. A saint of the Catholic Church, called blessed in Orthodoxy. One of the Church Fathers, founder of Augustinianism. He had a huge influence on the development of Western philosophy and Catholic theology.

Before accepting Christianity (in 387), he was first close to the Manichaean movement, then became interested in skepticism, the philosophy of Plato and the Neoplatonists, and the works of Cicero. Having become a Christian, he took an active part in the persecution of “heretics” Nersesyants, V. S. History of political and legal doctrines: a textbook for universities / V. S. Nersesyants - Moscow: Norma: Infra-M, 2012 .- 109 p. .

The most influential figure in Western history, Augustine Aurelius was born in Tagaste, a small town in the North African Roman province of Numidia on November 13, 354 (now Souk-Aras in Algeria). His mother Monica, an intelligent, noble, devout and unyielding Christian, tried with all her might to raise her son in the spirit of the Catholic faith, but Father Patricius, a Roman citizen, a small landowner who had not yet converted to Christianity, set completely different tasks for the boy. Both parents hoped for a bright future for their son. After studying in the schools of Tagasta and neighboring Madaurus, they somehow raised money and sent him to Carthage, where he found not only learning, but also love, entering into a long relationship with a woman who bore him a son named Adeodatus.

In his youth, Augustine showed no inclination towards traditional Greek, but was captivated by Latin literature.

At the age of nineteen, Augustine experienced his first “conversion” by reading Cicero’s Hortensius, which has come down to us only in fragments. “This book transformed my desires,” he wrote in “Confession.” “I began to rise and return to You.” Burdened with guilt, finding no relief in the teachings of the Church, Augustine joined the Manichaean sect.

Manichaeism taught about the dualism of world good and evil and argued that human creatures have two souls, one of which is good and light, and the other is evil and dark. Each person's actions are the result of the conflict between these two souls. Augustine accepted this teaching - it explained the presence of evil in this world Skirbekk G., Gilje N. History of philosophy. - M.: VLADOS, 2010. - 183 p. .

Manichaeism helped to temporarily calm his conscience, burdened by debauchery, and taught him to do without the Old Testament. But the death of a close friend, who convinced Augustine to join the sect, caused a deep personal spiritual crisis and showed him the superficiality of Manichaean theology. Nine years later he breaks with the Manichaeans and turns to Neoplatonism.

Neoplatonism provided Augustine with a more satisfactory solution to the problem of evil. If Manichaeism considered the material world to be evil, Neoplatonism denied the very existence of evil. There is only goodness; therefore, evil is just the absence or distortion of good. From now on, Augustine knew: he did what he did because he wanted it, and not because it was destined for him. But at the same time, he realized that he could not completely retreat from the evil he hated without the help of divine grace. The conversion of the prominent Neoplatonist Maria Victorina allowed him to understand that it was possible to be both a Christian and a philosopher.

Augustine took the final step towards conversion in July 386 at Cassiciacus, where friends who had followed him from Carthage, Rome and Milan gathered around him. Pontitian told about the conversion of two noble Roman youths who believed after hearing about the conversion of Anthony, who learned about Jesus’ answer to the rich young man’s question. This story, according to Augustine’s own description, brought him out of his “stupor” and allowed him to look at “his own filth and ugliness.” Desperate, he hid in the far part of the garden and plunged into despondency and thought. Some time later, a child’s voice sang: “Take it, read it.” The book thrown to the ground opened at Romans 13:14, which urged him to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ and not turn the cares of the flesh into lusts.” On April 24, 387, he was baptized by Ambrose, Bishop of Milan.

At the age of thirty-two, Augustine returned to North Africa, having first sold all his property and almost completely distributed it to the poor. His fame is spreading rapidly. In Tagaste, he immediately organized a monastic community around himself. In 391, Aurelius visited Hippo the King and was ordained a priest by Bishop Valerius. Four years later, he appoints Augustine as his deputy. From then on, Augustine served as bishop in Hippo until his death on August 28, 430, when the siege of the city by the Vandal king Genseric began. Great Thinkers of the West / Ed. I. McGreal. - M.: KRON-PRESS, 2009. - 108 p. .

The remains of Augustine were transferred by his followers to Sardinia to save them from the desecration of the Aryan-Vandals, and when this island fell into the hands of the Saracens, they were ransomed by Liutprand, king of the Lombards, and buried in Pavia in the church of St. Petra. In 1842, with the consent of the pope, they were again transported to Algeria and preserved there near the monument to Augustine, erected to him on the ruins of Hippo by the French bishops.

The insight and depth of his mind, the indomitable power of faith and the ardor of imagination are best reflected in his numerous writings, which had incredible influence and determined the anthropological side of the doctrine of Protestantism (Luther and Calvin). Even more important than the development of the doctrine of St. Trinity, his research on man's relationship to divine grace. He considers the essence of Christian teaching to be precisely man’s ability to perceive God’s grace, and this basic position is also reflected in his understanding of other dogmas of faith. His concerns about the structure of monasticism were expressed in the founding of many monasteries, which, however, were soon destroyed by vandals. Augustine's teaching on the relationship between human free will, divine grace and predestination is quite heterogeneous and is not systematic.

As bishop of a relatively small diocese, Augustine becomes the recognized leader of the Catholic Church in North Africa. He wrote more as a polemicist than as a systematic theologian, responding in turn to his former fellow Manichaeans, then to the Donatists and Pelagians, and finally, after the capture of Rome by the Goths in 410, to the pagans.

Augustine's dispute with the Manichaeans (389-405) focused on the relationship of faith and knowledge, the origin and nature of evil, free will and revelation through Scripture. The most impressive answer was the Confessions, written by him between 397 and 400 years.

His objections to the Donatists (405-412) were supposed to answer two questions raised by opponents: 1) Does the guilt of the clergy destroy the effectiveness of the sacraments they perform? 2) Does the tolerance shown towards such clergy by the North African churches defile the entire Church? In countering the first charge, he distinguishes between efficiency and effectiveness. Only Christ, Augustine argues, determines whether an act of sacred rite is effective; the faith of the person receiving the sacrament determines whether it will be effective for salvation; the person of the clergyman has no effect on the sacrament at all. In answer to the second point, he states that the issuance of the Scriptures by some priests in North Africa could not invalidate the Church in other places. The Church is a corpus permixtum ("mixed body") whose holiness depends on Jesus Christ and not on the personal merits of its members.

Augustine's response to the Pelagians is based on the concept of grace, familiar to him from personal experience. The British monk Pelagius seized on Augustine's emphasis on free will in his anti-Manichaean treatises and decided that foregrounding natural grace correctly conveyed Augustine's views. Augustine, however, emphasized supernatural grace.

Augustine developed his views before his polemic with Pelagius. He argued that because of Adam's sin, humanity had lost the ability not to sin, given at creation. In their fallen state, inherited from Adam, people cannot help but sin. The will of mankind has become perverted, and without the prevenient grace of God to awaken the ability to choose for God, men will inevitably choose evil. However, along with prevenient grace, a person receives new, supernatural principles. This grace predisposes and motivates the will even before a person has any desires. Thus, salvation begins under the direct initiative of God. Following prevenient grace is given sustaining grace, by which God assists the human will after it has been awakened to action. It is replaced by sufficient grace, which encourages a person not to weaken in doing good. The culmination of the outpouring of Divine grace is efficacious grace, which gives real power for good works. Thus, God's grace is irresistible and is based on God's predestination by which He determines who among the vast mass of sinful people will receive His supernatural grace. Therefore, salvation comes solely from God, by His will, and is given to those whom He chooses.

In 418, Augustine criticized Arianism, which was causing increasing concern due to the onslaught of northern barbarians, most of whom were Arians. Great Thinkers of the West / Ed. I. McGreal. - M.: KRON-PRESS, 2009. - 109 p. .

3. Augustine's teaching about the City of God and the Earthly City

The life of Augustine Aurelius occurred in the period following the recognition of Christianity as the dominant religion and the division of the Roman Empire, the period immediately preceding the invasion of Germanic tribes that destroyed the Western Roman Empire. The decline of this world empire was accompanied by the emergence of various church organizations. It was they who ultimately accomplished the task of preserving cultural heritage in the Greek and Latin-speaking world. In addition, in the context of the weakening of imperial power, the Church took on part of the political responsibility (together with Byzantium and the states formed as a result of the resettlement of peoples). Thus, Christian theologians also became political ideologues.

Augustine turned out to be one of the first great theologians who connected Antiquity and Christian times. He synthesized Christianity and Neoplatonism. Augustine theologian philosopher

Therefore, in Augustine we find the already mentioned new Christian ideas: “man in the center,” the linear development of history, a personified God who created the Universe out of nothing. But in Augustine these ideas are expressed in the language of ancient philosophy Skirbekk G., Gilje N. History of philosophy. - M.: VLADOS, 2010. - 184 p. .

On the one hand, everything is concentrated around man, man is at the center of everything, since God created everything for man and since salvation is sought by man, created in the image of God and who is the crown of His creation. On the other hand, Augustine, who refuted the skeptics, claims that the most reliable knowledge we have is about inner world person. Introspection provides more definite knowledge than sensory experience. The inner world of a person has epistemological priority. The argument for this claim is that subject and object “match” through introspection, whereas sensory experience is always indeterminate due to the difference between subject and object.

For Augustine, the inner world of man is more a battlefield for various feelings and impulses of the will than an area of ​​cold activity of the mind. The inner is the realm of irrational impulses, sin, guilt and a passionate desire for salvation. But unlike the Stoics, Augustine does not believe that we ourselves are able to control our inner life. We need mercy and “superhuman” help. Augustine does believe that people have free will, but at the same time he emphasizes that they are completely part of God's ordained plan for their salvation.

The force that largely determines a person’s salvation and his aspiration to God is divine grace. Grace is a special divine energy that acts towards a person and produces changes in his nature. Without grace, human salvation is impossible. The free decision of the will is only the ability to strive for something, but a person is able to realize his aspirations for the better only with the help of grace.

Grace in Augustine's view is directly related to the fundamental dogma of Christianity - the belief that Christ has redeemed all humanity. This means that by its nature grace is universal and should be given to all people. But it is obvious that not all people will be saved. Augustine explains this by saying that some people are not able to accept grace. This depends, first of all, on the capacity of their will. But as Augustine had to see, not all people who accepted grace were able to maintain “constancy in goodness.” This means that another special divine gift is needed that will help maintain this constancy. Augustine calls this gift “the gift of constancy.” Only by accepting this gift will those “called” be able to become “chosen.”

Augustine basically shares the Neoplatonist understanding of the relationship between soul and body. In other words, the soul represents the divine principle in man. The body is the source of everything sinful. A person should, if possible, become free from the body and concentrate on the spirit, on his inner world, in order to thus get closer to the spiritual source of existence of the Universe - God. But as a Christian, Augustine adds to what has been said the idea of ​​original sin. The soul is directly affected by sin.

Augustine believes that the struggle between God and the Devil unfolds within every person. He discovers her and historical level in the form of a confrontation between the City of God (civitas Dei) and the City of the earth (civitas terrena). Just as each individual life is a battlefield between salvation and sin, so history is a battlefield between the good and the sinful “kingdom.”

The cause of evil, according to Augustine, is free will and its perversity. “Evil,” he notes, “is called both what a person does and what he suffers. The first is sin, the second is punishment... A person commits the evil that he wants and suffers the evil that he does not want.” The weakness of the human will became hereditary after the punishment for Adam's sin. Man's only hope is now associated with grace, which does not destroy free will, but heals it: “Grace heals the will.” The idea of ​​the connection of evil in the world and in human relations with the free will of man in the theological interpretation of Augustine is developed in such a way as to show: God is not responsible for evil Nersesyants, V. S. History of political and legal doctrines: a textbook for universities / V. S. Nersesyants .- Moscow: Norma: Infra-M, 2012 .- 112 p. .

Augustine's doctrine of the City of God and the Earthly City is rather underdeveloped to be a political theory, since he argues primarily as a theologian rather than as a politician. The author shows relatively little interest in how political ideas might be actualized. Given this, we can nevertheless say that Augustinian ideas about the struggle between these two “kingdoms” were apparently inspired by the political situation of his time. Christianity was considered the cause of the fall of the Roman Empire, and Augustine had to defend it against such accusations. Another interpretation is that, most likely, Augustine thought, although he never expressed it explicitly, that the Church in a certain sense represents God's “kingdom”, while the Empire is an earthly “kingdom” Skirbekk G., Gilje N. History of Philosophy . - M.: VLADOS, 2010. - 185 p. .

However, Augustine did not view the earthly kingdom as accidental and unnecessary. He believed that due to the nature of man corrupted by the Fall, a strong earthly kingdom was necessary to curb evil. Therefore, the earthly kingdom is a necessary evil while the historical conflict of good and evil continues, that is, in the period of time between the Fall and the Day of Judgment.

This view of the earthly kingdom differs from the Aristotelian (and Thomistic) understanding of the relationship between man and society, according to which man is viewed as a social being by nature. It also differs from Plato’s understanding of the state as a teacher of morality, educating people for a perfect life. Plato strived for the ideal, while Augustine had enough problems related to curbing evil.

From a moral point of view, for Thomas Aquinas the function of politics is to create the conditions for moral life, the ultimate goal of which is the salvation of the soul. In Augustine, the distinction between politics and morality (religion), between the sovereign (politician) and the priest is less clear. Politics also has a directly moral function. It is an authoritarian means of controlling moral evil. Simply put, this is Augustine's view of the state and politics after the Fall. Before sin came to earth, men were equal, and Augustine suggests that they were then by nature social creatures. But sin made necessary an organized state system, using coercion for punishment and protection and having a clear distribution of rights between rulers and subjects. Even in the absence of sin, a certain order and thereby a certain form of government should reign in society, but without the use of coercion. In an earthly state where evil exists, rulers are appointed by God to maintain order and therefore do not derive their power from the people. The rulers of such a state are God's chosen ones, and the people are obliged to obey them, since they are obliged to obey the will of God.

However, how can the evil (worldly) kingdom correct the evil in people? Here the good (church) kingdom helps him. The Church as an organization is necessary for the salvation of the soul through its moral, religious education, as well as through supervision of the worldly kingdom and its actions to eradicate evil.

All these ideas became decisive for subsequent times. The Church as an organization is necessary for the salvation of the human soul. The existing empire is a Christian state in the sense that all its members are at the same time subjects of both the emperor and the pope.

Thus, Augustine had a great influence on the subsequent development of political ideas Western Europe. Until the 12th century. Augustine's political theology dominated Christian thought. His teaching influenced the views of Thomas Aquinas. It manifested itself with renewed vigor during the Reformation in the teachings of Luther and Calvin. To some extent, he influenced the views of Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Rousseau. Currently, it is referred to by supporters of natural law concepts, and in neo-Protestantism, the political and philosophical doctrine can be called neo-Augustinian.

4. Treatise “On the City of God”

Human history, which Augustine sets out in his book “On the City of God,” “the first world history,” in his understanding is a struggle between two hostile kingdoms - the kingdom of adherents of everything earthly, enemies of God, that is, the secular world (civitas terrena or diaboli), and kingdom of God (civitas dei). At the same time, he identifies the Kingdom of God, in accordance with his earthly form existence, with the Roman Church. Augustine teaches about the self-reliability of human consciousness (the basis of reliability is God) and the cognitive power of love. At the creation of the world, God laid the embryonic forms of all things in the material world, from which they then independently develop.

The City of God, written between 413 and 426, was Augustine Aurelius's response to the pagan accusations against Christianity following the sack of Rome in 410, and his most significant contribution to Western thought. In the first ten books, he critically examines the attacks of the pagans, who insisted that, by undermining the Romans' reverence for the gods who brought Rome greatness, Christianity was responsible for the fall of Rome. In books 11-22 he builds a majestic plan for the implementation of divine providence in history. According to Augustine's teachings, the goal of humanity is to achieve the city of God. Eternal peace will be established, there will be a state in which it is impossible to sin, there will be no evil, there will be endless leisure, there will be no labor caused by need Machin, I. F. History of political and legal doctrines: textbook. manual for universities / I. F. Machin - Moscow: Yurait, 2012 .- 45 p. .

In books 1-5, Augustine answers two questions: 1) Is Christianity responsible for the fall of Rome, and paganism for its rise? 2) If not the Roman gods, then what spiritual force led Rome to greatness?

He answers the first question with a resounding “no.” Christianity softened, not hardened, the wrath of the gods. Moreover, it brought comfort, reminding us that our existence here is fleeting. Another, Eternal City awaits the righteous who turns to Christ. As for, on the other hand, absurd paganism, it is of little use. Rome experienced wars and disasters long before Christianity appeared on the scene. How then can we explain the rise of Rome? The point is not in the gods and not in the reverence of the Romans for them, but in the providential plan of God. God raised the Empire to give the Romans laws, literature and civilization. Thus, Rome owes its greatness not to fate, but to the omniscience and providence of God.

In books 6-10, Augustine challenges the truth claims of all pagan systems. He lists facts taken mainly from Varro to point out the absurdity of polytheism, and quotes Socrates and Plato in support of monotheism. While not an exposition of his philosophy, books 8-10 certainly reflect Augustine's desire to express his opposition to Neoplatonism, especially since the latter incorporated popular paganism into its system. He contrasts the Christian cult of martyrs with the worship of wandering spirits, despite their external similarity. Platonists try to find mediators between God and man in their demons; Christians have a true mediator in Jesus Christ. In the sacrament of the Eucharist they offer a true sacrifice to God.

In books 11-14, Augustine develops his historiosophy in terms of the struggle of two “cities” - two types of man and society. It begins in prehistory: even then there were “holy and faithful angels who never fell away and will never fall away from God,” and “those who rejected eternal light and turned to the darkness." What happened then was repeated during the creation and fall of man. Created good, humanity fell because of its disobedience and is now subject to not only physical but also spiritual death. And now there are two cities - the city of those who live according to the law of the flesh, obeying and becoming like the Devil, and the city of those who love God and other people. The first will die, the second will reach his eternal homeland. “Therefore, we see that two societies arose from two types of love. Earthly society arose from selfish love, which dared to despise God himself, while the community of saints is rooted in love for God and is ready to neglect itself.”

In the next four books (15-18), Augustine outlines the earthly history of two cities: Cain and Abel, Sarah and Hagar, Remus and Romulus. Between Noah and Abraham the evidence for the City of God is very scanty. With Abraham, however, his story comes to light, and in it the promises finally fulfilled by Christ can be discerned. The Old Testament becomes a storehouse of “symbols.” Parallel to the history of the City of God, the fate of the earthly city is developing, which is characterized by incessant struggle, for humanity did not remain faithful to Absolute Being. With the help of Rome, God decided to “conquer the whole world in order to bring it into one society, into a state ruled by law, and to send down to it a lasting and extensive peace.” But at what cost - at the cost of bloodshed and wars! Nevertheless, in difficult times, tears teach the Church hope. Spreading under the tutelage of the spirit and in fulfillment of prophecies, until the Second Coming, it remains the wandering City of God Great Thinkers of the West / Ed. I. McGreal. - M.: KRON-PRESS, 2009. - 110 p. .

History appears before us in a light that was decidedly unfamiliar to the Greeks. It has the beginning of creation and the end of the created world with a boundary moment in the form of resurrection and the Last Judgment. Three significant events mark the course of historical time: original sin with all the ensuing consequences, the expectation of the coming of the Savior, the incarnation and suffering of the Son of God with the formation of his home - the Church.

Augustine insists at the end of The City of God on the dogma of resurrection. The flesh will be reborn again. Although transformed, integrated, it will still remain flesh: “The flesh will become spiritual, submit to the spirit, but being flesh, not spirit; just as the spirit was subject to the flesh, but still remained spirit and not flesh.”

History will end with the day of the Lord, which will be the eighth day sanctified by the coming of Christ, which will be an eternal rest not only of the spirit, but also of the body.

In addition, the author interprets the reasons for the emergence and purpose of the state as an institution of power. For Augustine, the state is a conditionally necessary institution. There might not have been a state if there had not been Adam’s original sin.

Unlike Aristotle, for whom man is a political being and must live in the state, Augustine perceives the state only as intermediate moment human pilgrimage on earth.

Unlike Cicero, for whom a republic as a people's affair exists when it is governed well and fairly by one, a few or all the people, Augustine believed that true justice exists only in the city of God: “there is no true justice anywhere except that republic, the founder and the ruler of which is Christ, if you want to call this latter a republic, since it cannot be denied that it is also a people’s cause.” Machin, I. F. History of political and legal doctrines: textbook. manual for universities / I. F. Machin. - Moscow: Yurayt, 2012. - 47 p. .

In the historical process, Augustine (18th book) identified seven main eras (this periodization was based on facts from biblical history Jewish people):

First era - from Adam to the Great Flood

Second - from Noah to Abraham

Third - from Abraham to David

Fourth - from David to the Babylonian captivity

Fifth - from the Babylonian captivity to the birth of Christ

The sixth - began with Christ and will end with the end of history in general and with the Last Judgment.

The seventh is eternity.

Humanity in the historical process forms two “cities”: the secular state - the kingdom of evil and sin (the prototype of which was Rome) and the state of God - the Christian church.

“Earthly City” and “Heavenly City” are a symbolic expression of two types of love, the struggle of selfish motives. These two cities develop in parallel, experiencing six eras. At the end of the sixth era, the citizens of the “city of God” will receive bliss, and the citizens of the “earthly city” will be given over to eternal torment.

Augustine Aurelius argued for the superiority of spiritual power over secular power. Having accepted the Augustinian teaching, the church declared its existence as an earthly part of God's city, presenting itself as the supreme arbiter.

In Book 19, Augustine brings the narrative up to date and argues for Christian rather than Platonic ethics. Christians are convinced that eternal life is the highest good and that virtues are real only for those who believe in God. Philosophers fail because they seek the temporal rather than the eternal. Christians also long for peace and recognize that until their mortal nature is overcome, such peace is relative, but they seek it in obedience to God and, by faith, have already found it. Philosophers lack such faith.

In the final three books, Augustine looks to the future. He does not accept millenarianism. The millennial kingdom is called either the millennium after the coming of Christ, or the entire remaining period of the world. As soon as the Church began its march from Judea throughout the world, the Devil was bound. Two cities - the City of God and the City of the Devil - will reach the peak of their development by the day of the last judgment, to which the 21st book is dedicated. Unlike Origen, Augustine did not hope for the redemption of everyone, especially the Devil. Even faithful Catholics must beware: salvation depends on living a righteous life, not simply on baptism, the Eucharist, or almsgiving. Neither heretics, nor schismatics, nor bad Catholics will escape punishment without repenting. In Book 22, Augustine outlines the eternal blessedness of the City of God, but devotes a significant part of it to the doctrine of the resurrection and miracles. He claims that the Church was not short of miracles in his day. Even if pagan philosophers deny the Resurrection, writes Augustine, they still agree with Christians regarding rewards after death; Moreover, both Plato and Porfiry believed that God could do the impossible. In the Eternal City, Christians will achieve perfect freedom, and their wills will completely merge with the will of God in the promised Sabbath Rest. Great Thinkers of the West / Ed. I. McGreal. - M.: KRON-PRESS, 2009. - 111 p. .

On the threshold of the Middle Ages, the theocratic ideal of the Western Church was thoroughly tested by a wide variety of opponents. Denial is opposed to him, sometimes in a speculative form, sometimes in a practical form: he has to fight simultaneously both against the spontaneous worldview of the East and against the individualistic currents of the West. All the centrifugal forces that existed in the society of that time and in human society of all centuries took up arms against him: a self-sufficient individual, a self-sufficient community and nationality. The self-sufficient “earthly kingdom” of the Roman pagans rebels against him. The Church enters the Middle Ages, experienced in all kinds of struggle. And to all these opponents the “city of God” is opposed as a speculative system, as a legal order and as a religious ideal. An amazing combination of heterogeneous elements in one teaching and diverse gifts in one person! In Augustine we are struck by that extraordinary flexibility of the Latin genius, which finds a weapon against all kinds of negation and easily adapts to all kinds of historical situations, that iron energy of thought and will, which does not stop at any obstacles in pursuing a single trend in theory and in practice that wide universalism, which is primarily hostile to all kinds of particularistic aspirations and knows how to triumph over them. These are the very qualities thanks to which Rome could once again conquer western world, and Latin civilization could triumph over German barbarism.

Thanks to Augustine, Western Christianity entered the Middle Ages with a clear consciousness of its ideal tasks and goals. Medieval Catholicism inherited the contradictions of the great father of the church, but also inherited the ideal plan that he opposed to social decay and barbarism. With this plan in hand, the Western Church curbed barbarism and laid the foundations of a new society.

Conclusion

The most prominent representative of patristics was the bishop of Hippo ( North Africa) Augustine the Blessed (354-430), who had a strong influence on medieval philosophy, as well as on many later representatives of philosophical thought.

For Augustine, “true philosophy and true religion are one and the same.” He tried to find a philosophical basis for Christianity in the philosophy of Plato, noting that Plato’s ideas are “the thoughts of the creator before the act of creation.” God created the world out of nothing. Man's salvation lies, first of all, in belonging to christian church, which is the representative of the “city of God” on Earth Augustine. World of Philosophy. Part 1. - M., 1991. - 14 p. . Augustine considered two opposing views human activity- “earthly city”, i.e. statehood, which is based “on self-love, brought to the absolute, contempt for God,” and “the city of God” - a spiritual community, which is based on love for God, brought to self-contempt” Philosophy: Textbook / Ed. V.N. Lavrinenko. - M.: Yurist, 2006. - 44 p. . His main works are “City of God”, “City of Man”, “Confession”.

The significance of the works of Augustine Aurelius for subsequent philosophical and cultural development is very great. It is due primarily to the fact that he “created a holistic and complete picture of the universe, a picture so complete that for more than eight centuries the Latin West could not create anything similar. Augustine’s influence on the formation and development of medieval thought was as universal as his teaching.” Stolyarov A.A. Augustine: Life. Teaching // Augustine Aurelius. Confession. - M., 2011. - 45 p. . Thomas Aquinas, according to many researchers, “the only powerful competitor of Augustine in the millennium,” did not escape such influence. The success of Augustine’s works was facilitated not only by the depth and universality of his teaching, which does not need proof, but also by a number of favorable circumstances. Augustine's legacy was preserved despite many extraordinary circumstances, which are not uncommon in history. Many generations of scientists read, studied, and rewrote his works. It is also important that, being a church man and a monk (Augustine was the founder and abbot of the monastery), the author addresses his works to a wide range of readers, without limiting it to the monastery walls. In this way, Augustine's works differ from the works of the Eastern Fathers, many of which (especially those relating to the spiritual life of the individual) were written in the form of instructions addressed to monks. Augustine’s works turned out to be in an advantageous position, since it did not immediately become clear to everyone that monastic “smart work” is directly related to the spiritual life of any person. Meanwhile, the similarity of many of Augustine’s ideas with the ideas of Eastern patristics is quite obvious.

References

2. Great thinkers of the West / Ed. I. McGreal. - M.: KRON-PRESS, 2009. - 656 p.

3. Zvirevich V.T. Philosophy of the ancient world and the Middle Ages: A textbook for the course on the history of philosophy. - M.: Academic Project, 2002. - 348 p.

4. Kurbatov V.I. History of philosophy. - Rostov: Phoenix, 2007. - 448 p.

5. Machin, I.F. History of political and legal doctrines: textbook. manual for universities / I. F. Machin. - Moscow: Yurayt, 2012. - 413 p.

6. Mussky I.A. One Hundred Great Thinkers. - M.: Veche, 2000. - 688 p.

7. Nersesyants, V. S. History of political and legal doctrines: a textbook for universities / V. S. Nersesyants. - Moscow: Norma: Infra-M, 2012 .- 704 p.

8. Russell B. History of Western philosophy and its connection with political and social conditions from antiquity to the present day: In three books. - M.: Academic Project, 2000. - 768 p.

9. Skirbekk G., Gilje N. History of philosophy. - M.: VLADOS, 2010.- 800 p.

10. Stolyarov A.A. Augustine: Life. Teaching // Augustine Aurelius. Confession. - M., 2011.

11. Chanyshev A.N. Course of lectures on ancient and medieval philosophy. - M.: Higher School, 2001. - 512 p.

12. Shapovalov V.F. Fundamentals of philosophy. From classics to modernity. - M.: FAIR PRESS, 2008. - 576 p.

13. History of philosophy / Ed. V.M. Mapelman, E.M. Penkova. - M.: PRIOR, 2007. - 464 p.

14. History of philosophy in summary/ Per. I.I. Boguta. - M.: Mysl, 2011. - 590 p.

15. History of philosophy: West - Russia - East (book one: Philosophy of antiquity and the Middle Ages) / Ed. N.V. Motroshilova. - M.: “Greco-Latin Cabinet” by Yu.A. Shichalina, 2010. - 480 p.

16. Philosophy: Textbook / ed. V.N. Lavrinenko. - M.: Yurist, 2008. - 512 p.

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About the City of God
De Civitate Dei
Manuscript "On the City of God", c. 1470
Genre	theology and philosophy
Author	Aurelius Augustine
Original language	Latin
Date of writing	413-427

The work “On the City of God” was written in 413-427, a few years after the capture of Rome by the Visigoths. This event had a great influence on Augustine, who wrote that earthly states are unstable and short-lived compared to communities created on the basis of spiritual unity. At the same time, he believed that secular state power given to people from above so that there is at least some order in the world, therefore, in accordance with the principle “God’s to God, Caesar’s to Caesar,” people must obey the legal ruler.

Another important topic The book is a fight against heresies. Augustine justifies repressive measures against heretics and forced conversion to orthodox Christianity, describing it with the phrase “Force to enter [the bosom of the Church]!” (lat. Coge intrare! ). [ ]

Criticism of paganism

Augustine begins by criticizing Roman customs and pagan religious and philosophical ideas. He emphasizes that the pagan gods were not particularly favorable to the Romans. For example, they did not save them from the Ephesian Vespers (3:22) or from the civil war between Marius and Sulla (3:29). Moreover, the pagan gods were not at all concerned with morality (2:6). In the Christian God, Augustine notes “divine mercy” (Latin: Divina misericordia - 1:8).

Relation to Plato

He further notes that Plato is closest to Christianity (8:5). At the same time, the Platonists (Apulei), honoring God the Creator, made sacrifices to demons as intermediaries. Augustine resolutely rejects this error.

Criticism of Stoicism

Augustine affirms the virtue of love and condemns the apathy of the Stoics (14:9). He calls the beginning of sin (lat. peccati) not the flesh, but the evil will, which is guided by pride (lat. superbia) (14:13-14).

Political philosophy

Following Plato, Augustine argues that the state is based on the idea of ​​justice (lat. iustitia), without which it turns into a “band of robbers” (lat. latrocinia - 4:4). From here Augustine derives the concept of “just war” (Latin iusta bella - 4:15; 19:7). It is noteworthy that he classifies murders, robberies and fires as customs of war (Latin: consuetudo bellorum; 1:7). Reflecting on the commandment “thou shalt not kill,” Augustine emphasizes that it does not apply to soldiers and executioners, since they kill not of their own free will, but out of necessity to fulfill their service (1:21)

In politics, Augustine distinguishes a triad: family - city - state (19:7). He cites the difference in languages ​​as the reason for interhuman strife. However, there is no true peace in the earthly world, since even righteous kings are forced to wage just wars. The Roman Republic as a people's work never existed (19:21). Augustine explains slavery as a consequence of sin (19:15). True virtue does not come from government education, but from true religion (19:25).

City of God and City of Earth

Augustine describes the history of mankind as the coexistence of two communities - the City of God (lat. civitas Dei) and the Earthly City (lat. civitas terrena). Some are destined to “reign forever with God,” while others are “destined to be punished forever with the devil” (15:1). The very term “city of God” (1:21) Augustine borrows from the Psalms (Ps.). The first citizen of the earthly city was Cain. The citizens of the higher city are born by grace, and the lower ones by nature corrupted by sin (15:2). Augustine compares Noah's ark with Jesus Christ, and the hole of the first with the wound of the second (15:26). However, he rejects the extremes of both literal and allegorical understandings of Scripture (15:27). Among the citizens of the City Augustine of God names the Edomite Job (18:47), who lived three generations later than the patriarch Jacob.

Story

Augustine believes that no more than 6 thousand years passed from the time of Adam to the decline of the Roman Empire (12:10). He also strongly rejects the “co-eternality” of creation to the Creator (12:16)

Augustine connects the time of Abraham with the era of Assyria under Semiramis (18:2) and Egypt under Isis (18:3). The following describes