City of God - Augustine - XXXV - Book 17 concluded

Required reading
City of God by Augustine (available from Amazon or free on the internet, here for example) - Conclude Book 17 by reading Chapters 9 to 24.

My summary
Sorry that this is a day late.  Monday is my day off and I did the reading in the morning and then postponed writing the blog post in the afternoon.  But then totally forgot.  I'll try and make sure it doesn't happen again.

Augustine continues looking at the prophecies of Christ in the Old Testament and now concentrates on the Psalms. 

Augustine says the Psalms show Christ's incarnation, suffering, peace, church, priesthood, death and resurrection.  They also demonstration the unbelief and obstinacy of the Jews.

Then we look at the prophecies of Christ in the writings of Solomon, including the Apocryphal books that are also ascribed to Solomon.

Finally Augustine touches lightly on the prophecies of Christ and his church in the times of the Kings of Judah and Israel and the beginning of the gospels.

What grabbed me
I found it interesting that Augustine included the Apocryphal books (Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus) in his analysis of Old Testament prophecy.

Augustine said his reason for doing so is that 'the Church, and in particular the Western Church, has from early times accepted them as canonical.'

But he was careful to qualify that these books are not as readily accepted by all the churches: 'However, the writings not included in the Jewish canon do not carry as much weight as the canonical books when put forward as evidence against the opposition.'

Sorry Augustine, but I am one of those that don't think they carry much weight.

Next week's reading
Conclude Book 18 by reading Chapters 1 to 16.

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