City of God - Augustine - XXX - Book 15 concluded

Required reading
City of God by Augustine (available from Amazon or free on the internet, here for example) - Conclude Book 15 by reading Chapters 20 to 27.

My summary
Now we finish looking at the founding of the City of Man and the City of God.

Firstly Augustine examines the number of generations in both cities before the flood and tries to come up with reasons for the dissimilarities.

Then he observes how the two cities intermingled as the human race progressed and increased.  This happened through the sons of God being attracted to the physical beauty of the daughters of men.

Finally, Augustine discusses how the end of the City of Man came with the flood and how Noah's ark functions as a symbol of Christ and the church.

What grabbed me
Some interesting ideas were discussed in today's reading and we also hit some more of Augustine's strange allegories and interpretation of numbers.

One of the points I found helpful was the discussion of how the cities become mixed through interfaith marriage: 'When the human race, in the exercise of this freedom of will, increased and advanced, there arose a mixture and confusion of the two cities by their participation in a common iniquity.And this calamity, as well as the first, was occasioned by woman, though not in the same way; for these women were not themselves betrayed, neither did they persuade the men to sin, but having belonged to the earthly city and society of the earthly, they had been of corrupt manners from the first, and were loved for their bodily beauty by the sons of God, or the citizens of the other city which sojourns in this world.Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but that the good may not think it a great good, God dispenses it even to the wicked.And thus, when the good that is great and proper to the good was abandoned by the sons of God, they fell to a paltry good which is not peculiar to the good, but common to the good and the evil; and when they were captivated by the daughters of men, they adopted the manners of the earthly to win
them as their brides, and forsook the godly ways they had followed in their own holy society.'

Solomon is another classic example of the danger of marrying those in the City of Man.

And yet so many Christians today repeat the same sin by marrying non-Christians.

Next week's reading
Commence Book 16 by reading Chapters 1 to 12.

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.