Who Influences You? The Democrats? The Republicans? I Long for Augustine's Influence on Politics! Check It Out!

A rendering of St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, at his desk writing.

Longing for Augustine's Influence on Politics

This is a guest blog article from the pen of Dr. Michael AG Haykin. Professor of Church History at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Used by permission.

Oh, if only politicians today would read and be guided by Augustine’s model of the godly prince found in The City of God 14.28, where Augustine provides one of his most succinct descriptions of the two cities that run throughout human history: the City of God, the heavenly city, and the City of Man, the terrestrial city, which he sometimes calls the City of the Devil. [Haykin quotes "The City of God"]:

"We see then that the two cities were created by two kinds of love: the earthly city was created by self-love reaching the point of contempt for God, the Heavenly City by the love of God carried as far as contempt of self. In fact, the earthly city glories in itself, the Heavenly City glories in the Lord. The former looks for glory from men, the latter finds its highest glory in God… In the former, the lust for domination lords it over its princes as over the nations it subjugates; in the other both those put in authority and those subject to them serve one another in love, the rulers by their counsel, the subjects by obedience. The one city loves its own strength shown in its powerful leaders; the other says to its God, ‘I will love you, my Lord, my strength.’[1]"

Here Augustine contrasts the two communities by means of their deepest passions, for Augustine was rightly convinced that the core of a society is found in what loves and cherishes most highly.[2] As he says elsewhere: love—love for God and love for our neighbour—is the central thing that God commands,[3] the implication being that it is the most important thing in human existence.

Also noteworthy about this text is that Augustine depicts the contrast between these two cities in political terms. In the City of God, there is a loving relationship between ruler and ruled, in which leaders lead in such a way as to benefit those being led, for the leaders are seeking to “serve … in love (serviunt … in caritate).”

It is quite otherwise in the earthly city, where “a lust for domination” (dominandi libido) prevails that creates the desire to conquer other nations and acquire empire.[4] Earlier in the book Augustine had made a similar remark when he bluntly described many of the great empires of the ancient world as “gangs of criminals on a large scale.”[5] [Haykin quotes again "The City of God"]:

"…to attack one’s neighbours, to pass on to crush and subdue more remote peoples without provocation and solely from the thirst for dominion—what is one to call this but brigandage on the grand scale?"[6]

The description of the earthly city in such stark terms would immediately call to mind for Augustine’s readers the Roman imperium and it would indicate Augustine’s implicit criticism of any identification of the City of God with this earthly realm, and indeed, with any terrestrial realm.

Instead of being guided by this Augustinian model, however, it seems to me that it is The Prince by the medieval author Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) that shapes contemporary politics and has made of it a stinking place of hubristic aggrandizement and the naked desire for power.

[1] Augustine, City of God 14.28, trans. Henry Bettenson, St Augustine, Concerning the City of God against the Pagans (London: Penguin, 2003), 593.

[2] Frederick Van Fleteren, “De Civitate Dei: Miscellaneous Observations” in Dorothy F. Donnelly, ed., The City of God. A Collection of Critical Essays (New York: Peter Lang, 1995), 418-419.

[3] Augustine, City of God 19.14.

[4] Gerard O’Daly, Augustine’s City of God: A Reader’s Guide (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999), 159.

[5] Augustine, City of God 4.4, trans. Bettenson, City of God, 139.

[6] Augustine, City of God 4.6, trans. Bettenson, City of God, 142. Cf. City of God 2.17.