August 9, 2010

City of God - Augustine - XXXI - Book 16 commenced

Required reading
City of God by Augustine (available from Amazon or free on the internet, here for example) - Commence Book 16 by reading Chapters 1 to 12.

My summary
Today we primarily look at the development of the two cities from Noah to Abraham.

Firstly Augustine looks at the names of the sons of Noah to work out which city they belonged to.

Next the other descendants of Noah are evaluated down to Abraham, including those involved in the tower of Babel.

What grabbed me
I was a bit sceptical about the truth of a lot of today's reading concerning who was in the city of God during the Noah to Abraham period. 

Even Augustine admitted: 'If it is asked whether the progress of the holy City can be traced in a continuous line after the Flood, or was so interrupted by intervening periods of irreligion that there are times when not one man emerges as a worshipper of the one true God, it is difficult to find an answer to the question from any clear statement from Scripture.'

Although it may be interesting to try and answer questions that Scripture gives us very little data on, I'd rather not waste too much time on them. 

I think we can fairly safely say that many people were in the city of man and not too many in the city of God during this period and leave it at that.

Next week's reading
Continue Book 16 by reading Chapters 13 to 28.

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

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