Augustine (354–430 CE)

Augustine (354–430 CE) was the first major political thinker within the Christian tradition. Politically astute and highly intellectual, Augustine was a North African bishop during a period that saw immense changes in the political landscape. Following the Emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity in the mid-fourth century, Christianity was adapting to becoming a state religion. The process was complicated by two pressures: the external threat of invasion by barbarian forces and, internally, the legacy of persecution, which had left animosity between communities that had renounced their faith and those that had been steadfast despite the dangers. Augustinian political thought tackles the problem of living a Christian life amid these worldly pressures. [Page 89]Augustine's major political work, The City of God (413–427 CE) describes two cities: one heavenly and one worldly. The earthly city is motivated by self-interest, whereas the heavenly city is a community of true believers. The cities represent a spectrum of the best and worst human behavior; the heavenly city, the City of God, provides a guiding symbol for Christians as to how they should live their private and public lives. The City of God also discusses the nature of the state, justice, and good kingship.

Augustine wrote no systematic political philosophy, and his political views need to be reconstructed from a body of work containing more than 1,000 works, sermons, and letters. Augustine's first works reflect his early affiliation with the Manicheans (a quasi-Christian sect) while he was working as a professor of rhetoric in Milan, as well as his subsequent arguments refuting Manichaeism following his conversion to Christianity. The Confessions (397) presents in autobiographical form an account of Augustine's conversion and decision to withdraw from the world and to form a small contemplative religious community with friends in North Africa. Writing continuously for the rest of his life, Augustine tackled particular questions of Christian faith both in the form of episcopal letters and scholarly works, such as On Free Choice (388–395), The Nature of the Good (399), The Unity of the Church (405), and The Perfection of Human Justice (415/16). The City of God (413–427) provides the fullest expression of his mature political philosophy, while the Reconsiderations (426–427) sets out Augustine's final review of his own writings.

The rise of a Christian empire raised three political questions for Christianity. First, if Christianity was no longer opposed to the earthly powers, how were the demands of the otherworldly to be balanced against the considerations of the world? Second, if Christianity represented a natural historical triumph of belief in the true God and God's historical plan, then why was a Christian empire being threatened by nonbelievers? Thirdly, who belonged to the true church, and how was belief to be regulated?

Augustine's major political text, The City of God, completed in the years following the Gothic sack of Rome, provides a perspective on all these questions. The City of God is a moral community of those predestined to go to heaven, whereas the earthly city is inhabited by those who love themselves more than they love God. However, neither city exists anywhere in reality, and the best way to understand them is allegorically as representations of the extremes of human dispositions. The human condition entails membership and loyalty to both cities, and the world is always a mixture of the two cities. History is a dramatic tension between the forces of the two cities. No official earthly institution, such as the church, represents the City of God, and churchmen are as likely as any others to belong to the earthly city. Thus, in the political context of the times, a perfect church composed only of those who had stuck firm to their faith was an impossibility. Politically, Christianity, the church, and individual Christians are striving to establish the City of God and must do so even amid the threat of invasion.

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