City of God - Augustine - I - Book 1 commenced

Required reading
City of God by Augustine (available from Amazon or free on the internet, here for example) - Read Book 1, Chapters 1-15.

My summary
Augustine begins by looking at reasons why Rome has fallen despite having many Christians.

Augustine firstly comments that the Barbarians did, by the grace of God, in many cases spare Christians.  This Augustine suggests is highly unusual as most enemies do not care about respecting the gods of the enemy.

Augustine then gives reasons why suffering comes to the good as well as the bad.  One of the main reasons is that Christians are disciplined for not being as faithful as they could have been: 'Good and bad are chastised together, not because both alike live evil lives, but because both alike, though not in the same degree, love this temporal life.'  Even the sacking of Rome is working for the good of the Christians by purging them of sin.

Next Augustine answers a few objections:
(i) Why did Christians die? Augustine says that we must remember that 'death is not to be regarded as a disaster, when it follows on a good life, for the only thing makes death an evil is what comes after death.'  Therefore death is not the greatest tragedy to befall man and so we should not grumble.
(ii) Why did Christians not receive proper burial? Augustine remarks that this is not a tragedy either, as 'no one has separated any of them from heaven and earth, and the whole universe is filled with the presence of him who knows from where he is to raise up what he has created.'  God will still resurrect you.  Don't grumble.
(iii) Why did Christians need to endure captivity and torture? We need to trust in the God who did not leave the captives in the Bible, such as Daniel.  Also it is unfair to say that only Christianity leads to captivity when others have experienced captivity for following false religions.

What grabbed me
So much excellent food for thought in these first few chapters.  If anyone out there is still thinking of joining in on this book, let me encourage you to do so.  Also, Augustine is not as difficult to read as you might think.

I particularly liked Augustine's rebuke of hypocritical Christians: '...many escaped who now complain of this Christian era, and hold Christ responsible for the disasters which their city endured.  But they do not make Christ responsible for the benefits they received out of respect for Christ, to which they owed their lives.'  So true.  As soon as trouble comes, instead of remembering God's kindness and believing that he is still working for our good we forget his previous mercies and start grumbling against him.

Next week's reading
Read the rest of Book 1 (Chapters 16-36)

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