Lessons from Hippo: Reading Augustine's City of God for Times of Crisis, week 3

The Origin of the Two Cities (bks. 11-14)

Rightly Ordered Love: Augustine argues that the love of the city of God is well-ordered. It loves God above all else. When loving humans, it loves them “in the Lord” or “for God’s sake.”

Ordered love can actually – ironically – love lesser goods better:

  • “You have enlarged the scope of my love, enabling it to work with joy even in dealing with things which are beneath me, things that perish and my own body” (Expositions of the Psalms, 1:195).

  • “What should a Christian do? Make use of the world, but not be enslaved to it. How can this be done? By possessing things with detachment” (Exposition of the Psalms, 4:435).

Augustine City of GodJoel & Karin .