City of God by Augustine (available from Amazon or free on the internet, here for example)
The city of man could have been founded by Cain because there were plenty of people present at the time. This is due to:
(i) the longevity of human beings in the early ages;
(ii) early man having many, many children that are not mentioned in the Biblical record;
(iii) early man being able to marry his sister.
Then Augustine looks at the symbolism of the names Abel, Seth, Enos and Enoch - he claims that they prefigure the death and resurrection of Christ (Note: I'm not sure where Augustine is getting his translations of the names here, but as far as I can tell it doesn't appear to be from the Hebrew - I also checked the LXX and the Vulgate and they both have transliterations. In other words I wouldn't hang my hat on the city of God being shown in their names).
What grabbed me
Today is mostly a defence of the historicity of Genesis which is always encouraging to read in an age where Genesis as a historical record is often disregarded.
Also there was a good quote about how one enters either city: 'Now the intercourse of male and female is the seedbed, as it were, of a city, as far as the race of mortals is concerned. But the earthly city needs only generation, whereas the Heavenly City needs regeneration also, to escape the guilt connected with generation.'
If you are to be in the City of God you need to be generated and then regenerated.
Conclude Book 15 by reading Chapters 20 to 27.
Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.
No comments:
Post a Comment