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Okay, so I tried to read—I really did!-- Augustine’s treatise on The City of God against the Pagans. And I think that I understand its basic premise: starting out with reflections on the sack of Rome, Augustine develops a contrast between the elect, who have been chosen for the City of God, and those lost members of the earthly city. Both of these communities transcend space and time, and each is united by an agreement: the first by their love of God, the second by their love of self. This means that the pagan state institutionalizes human weakness--greed, vanity, lust for power and glory--and also that the state is primarily a means of restraining and controlling disruptive human behavior. Arising from these roles is an association of political power with sin (=that is base and destructive), and the concomitant—and utter—dependence of human kind upon divine grace: which unites people by the common worship of God.

So why in God’s name would we do this book? Or even selections therefrom ??

Like that sad angel-man, Damiel, in Wings of Desire, I want to play in the city that immerses us in the cares and pleasure of the present, passing world....