Exploring The City of God

 

For in the ruin of the city it was stone and timber which fell to the ground; but in the lives of those Romans we saw the collapse not of material but of moral defences, not of material but of spiritual grandeur. The lust that burned in their hearts was more deadly than the flame which consumed their dwellings.

-City of God, Saint Augustine

Augustine started writing a mammoth work - City of God, in 413 AD, as the world was in a tumultuous time. Rome had fallen at the hands of the barbaric Goths (from the German north) and someone was to be blamed, the Christians. Christianity had been growing as the fall of Rome was unfolding. Augustine was a Bishop by that time in Northern Africa. He started writing this book as a response to the blame Christianity was receiving due to the reasoning that because they didn't worship the gods of Rome, it angered them.

Through a series of organized thoughts in books and chapters, Augustine places his argument and reasons using historical, theological, and philosophical means to build his case. In it, he contrasts the city of God with the city of man, starting with Adam who occupied the city of God. When sin entered the world, it thus began the city of man, leaving the rest of history to the present day intermingling the two cities.

The city of man represents the love of self (inward seeking only ones own selfish desires). And he explains with historical details how the fall of Rome was on a path long before the birth of Christ. The moral degeneration of the empire caused the collapse of the empire, not Christianity. The Roman world had once held high standards, but their demise was in the fact that they lost all that objective sense of morality. It came upon them not as any loss of a material deficit, but in a spiritual and moral collapse across the society. It became the norm to murder politicians and anyone you didn't agree with to gain power. The loss of respect of leadership and the human person degraded the values once held. Yet even as evil is done, human nature still has its own worth and the evil is evidence of God's existence, for evil presupposes good. But good doesn't presuppose evil.

In contrast, the city of God is founded on the love of God, dwelling in the virtues of love, humility, and charity. Augustine recognizes the importance of separation of church and state, noting that the church has a higher calling, that is, the salvation of souls. Further, the church should not seek power of the state to push its doctrine. 

Both of the cities pass along into our present time, intermingled, interwoven. But eventually the city of man will be judged and destroyed in final judgment, while the city of God will bloom fully being in the forever presence of God. Augustine covers topics such as creation, time, human freedom, forgiveness, sin, grace, happiness, and divine knowledge of the future. He brings 400,000 words into a developed argument that emphasize how the love of God is what is worth living for, and the earthly life is a small portion of our overall existence. Our purpose is fulfilled when we love God with all our hearth, soul, mind, and strength. But when we live through love of self, we lead lives that head to destruction due to glorifying earthly love and materials things. The lasting community which is rooted in faith and outward looking love is that which encourages spiritual growth and true understand of human connection and purpose.

New Book Coming Soon - Title Reveal!

 

I am thrilled to announce the title of my forthcoming book - Oxford Literarium - Oxford Writers in Time and Place.

Stay tuned for an October/November 2025 release for purchase (on Amazon)! 

Here is another little snippet from the introduction:

How does place impact writers and thinkers? As research took me deeper into the daily lives of these authors and their thoughts about Oxford, I encountered more than library visits for research reading, I also trotted across the city and into the countryside with these writers imagining it in their time, seeing what they saw in the colleges and on their walks and I would follow along in my modern time. Some things really are still the same. 

I read their journals and notes that describe Oxford and their experience as an undergraduate or a fellow. From sparkling moments to frustrations and everything in between. These places not only provided beauty (whether architectural or natural) which gave space to their thoughts, ideas, or ponderings, but also when a companion was with them a good discussion would ensue. Oxford is centered around discussion, whether in a tutorial or in a café. Meaningful conversations ensued and helped our authors develop their ideas, as it still does today.

Many of these sorts of discussions are recorded in letters and diaries that we can now imagine ourselves as we view them in these beautiful spaces, placing ourselves into their world for a time as our eyes cascade down the pages of records. C.S. Lewis, for example, had that now-famous late-night walk along Addison’s Walk with J.R.R. Tolkien and Hugo Dyson that changed the way he thought about myths that he loved, as he thought they were all false and Christianity was just a myth. In that conversation, Tolkien helped him realize that Christianity was the true myth, the myth became fact through the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ.  

Without that late night walk and conversation, highlighted with a sudden gust of wind that showered them with leaves causing them all to stand in awe, we might not have the C.S. Lewis we know today and the books he wrote in the years following that experience. 

Lewis also took long walks from town to town (walking tours) with many friends like J.R.R. Tolkien, Owen Barfield, and his brother Warnie, stopping at country pubs along the journey, reading and reciting poetry while they traverse the hilly, grassy countryside. 

C.S. Lewis’s house, The Kilns, is on a property with a natural reserve and a pond he would visit often, a very short walk from his front door, an area where it is said poet Percy Bysshe Shelley as young boy played around and sailed paper boats on more than 100 years earlier.  

What we see, what we read, what we think about, who we listen to, and what we take to heart. These things shape us. Late night discussions that challenge our thinking and reading good books that present us with ideas we had not considered.  Such ideas may augment what we already built in our understanding, but are we ever a closed book fully perfected in everything? Never. We have more to learn and discuss. 

The book is open, and many pages wait beyond this current page where we are now. Do we dare go further to discover? 

Wit and Wisdom - Pride and Prejudice

 

Why do we still read Jane Austen today, and why do we consider Pride and Prejudice to be one of the greatest English novels? 

Countless movies are made adapting the book. So many re-tellings are written. And even imaginings of the story expanding the book itself or exploring the other characters are written. For modern readers, the language may seem outdated, being written during 1796-1797, but published after revisions in 1813. Yet even though words and structure are not modern, we embrace it today with delight. Some of us dream about people talking today with such elegance.

Austen herself has an elegant way of writing subtlety in her stories which leaves the reader with the ability to imagine and fill in the blanks. It's not that the story is missing anything, it's that she exhibits restraint, letting the reader read between the lines. The result is that every reader can imagine themselves into the story (as a sort of mirror to view themselves) - this contributes to why it's still so good today.

If every single detail was locked tight, the reader would have fewer opportunities for using their own imagination, and would feel much less empathy and connection toward the characters.

Instead, we become attached quickly to Elizabeth, noticing how her wit and intelligence separate her out as one of the only truly sensible members of her family. And we cheer for her in her bright comments. We wait to read what she'll say because she shows how wise she is. And even so, she is still caught in a misjudgment of Wickham and Darcy, setting her up for humble moments of realization, thanks to Darcy's long letter of elegant explanation to clarify. This encourages the growth of her character as she reflects on how she was wrong.

Speaking of Darcy, we view him from the start as prideful and rude, with no regard for the feelings of others, yet something happens as Elizabeth softens him by his interest in her. Through her sharp, honest refusal of him he awakens to a humility he probably never saw coming, but essential to his growth as a character, as he takes to heart the errors Elizabeth presented, needing his correction.

Is this not the re-alignment of the Christian virtues? When we get out of alignment, we need to be rebalanced. Sometimes that comes with the difficult task of examining how you need to change, and recognizing humbly that you may have been wrong.

Austen did not write romance. It leaves all of that for between the lines. Most men out there probably never attempted to read this book assuming it was sappy and romantic. It's actually the opposite - ironic, sharp, witty, and filled with sparkling dialogue and difficult situations with people. This is timeless material. We can fit it into our day today. It's a huge part of why we love it so much and why I am re-reading it again (for the 5-6 time? I've lost track). I also love that C.S. Lewis read all of Austen's novels and he wrote an essay ("A Note on Jane Austen") that ends with a brief description of the cheerful moderation of the favorite characters:

She has, or at least all her favourite characters have, a hearty relish for what would now be regarded as very modest pleasures. A ball, a dinner party, books, conversation, a drive to see a great house ten miles away, a holiday as far as Derbyshire - these, with affection (that is the essential) and good manners, are happiness. She is no utopian.

Literary Tales - Poe and Longfellow

 

As we enter September we start to think about the changing of seasons, into Autumn, which evokes the natural changes of atmosphere and weather. We start to ponder those spooky tales and days when tricks and treats could be filled with a sense of terror. When we think of stories riddled with intrigue and murder, you likely think of Edgar Allan Poe. He is perhaps more popular today than he was in his own time (1809-1849), but why is it that he is popular amidst his tales of terror? He has a truly imaginative stance in his style and story-telling. Poe felt that reading should be delightful (and perhaps unexpected as some of his tales become), not instructional. This alone is a main reason he disliked and opposed Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, another writer in his time, and very well-loved. Poe harshly criticized Longfellow's writings as full of instruction, lacking anything unique, and possibly plagiarized (per Poe). 

Poe and Longfellow were both Boston connected. Poe was born there, but had a tumultuous history with the city, mostly because it was full of the elite writers of the day (Longfellow, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne) whom he opposed in their methods and beliefs. He explored his own way of writing, so he wasn't very fond of Boston or its writers. Though he and Longfellow did agree that Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Twice Told Tales" was worth praising. However, Poe continued to be critical of the literature being written, especially transcendentalist literature. He didn't believe there was a big problem with slavery so he was opposed to the abolitionists, too. When asked to speak publicly, or read a poem, he often did not present himself well, lacking a public presence that would have encouraged support. Poe seemed like he was on the edge of conflict whenever he spoke or wrote a critique. 

Poe disliked Longfellow because of his instruction-moral-type writing which may have seemed to him formulaic and lacking in imagination, and he predicted that Longfellow (who was very often-read and popular in their time) would fade in the future. In a sense, he was right. Longfellow is not nearly as popular or read today, whereas Poe is. I wonder if Poe is more popular today then Longfellow was in their day. I reflect that I was assigned readings of Poe in middle-school, but not Longfellow. Though society in their time likely thought Poe was a wild, drunken, immoral poet focusing too much on macabre themes. Today, he's deemed as a poetic and storytelling great, and I don't disagree with that. He is worth reading and is a master in his genre. He writes vividly, imaginatively, and he creates a wonderfully spooky tale of the actions of humans caught in their murderous plights, perfect for those blustery Autumn nights lit by candles and a fireplace. But likewise, Longfellow is worth reading. He worked on a translation of Dante's Divine Comedy with his colleagues at Harvard and his poems are pieces of American history. It is so fun to connect these very different authors to the same time and place (19th century Boston), and learn more about their reactions, critiques, and writings based on how they were experiencing life in history. I love to make literary connections, if you couldn't tell, which always offers more to explore and learn about. It's the joy of reading.