This Is Why I Should Never Talk About Religion Ever

On Wednesday, MJ was spending an afternoon having lunch with the new Pope. He was significantly nicer than the old Pope, but just as unwilling to listen to MJ's concerns about the church's influence. She also thought it particularly odd that he didn't want the Devil or her personal Angel at this lunch. This was significantly better than MJ's experience with the last Pope, of course, who greeted the Devil (then appearing as Anakin Skywalker) like an old friend.

"So explain to me again what your concerns are," the Pope said.

"It was something I said in class," MJ replied. "We were discussing controlling the masses with utopia."

"All right," the Pope said. His ice cream arrived. Rocky Road. MJ found this worrisome, but she was happy to see her cookie arrived. Ice cream was gross.

"Isn't that exactly what you lot do?" MJ asked.

"I beg your pardon?" the Pope asked.

"Control the masses with utopia," MJ replied. "Or, at least, the promise of Utopia."

"I don't understand."

MJ sighed. "Heaven. It's basically a utopia, isn't it? I mean, it's where everything is great and wonderful and you get to have head-explody."

The Pope looked at MJ with a confused expression on his face.

"Sorry, that was a comic book reference."

"Please continue," the Pope said.

"Okay," MJ replied. "So, basically, you do good works, you get into Utopia. That's what we were talking about. Isn't that heaven? You do good works on Earth, you get into heaven. That's the whole basis of your religion."

"I think there's a good deal more to our religion than you understand, my child," the Pope said.

"Is there?" MJ inquired, taking a bite of her cookie. "I mean, really?"

A Non-Utopian Perfect Place

      Is Augustine's Heavenly City a utopia? Initially, I thought that it wasn't based on Lyman Tower Sargent's definition: “[It involves] a topos—a location in time and space” (5); however, I've given it some thought, and it appears to fit the criteria.

      First, let's look at the temporary City of God, the one which inhabits the people who work toward peace on earth. Does it have some sort of physical location? It is located in the physical being of the aforementioned group of people. The answer to this question, therefore, is “yes.” Does it exist in some point in time? Well, this City got its start with the birth of Christianity, which would indicate that it exists in some sort of temporal way. The answer to this question, then, is also “yes.” It looks like the temporary City fits the bill.

      Now let's look at the eternal City of God, which is heaven. At first, it appears as though this version of the City disqualifies its possibility of being a utopia because it doesn't appear to exist in time or space. A closer examination of Christian canon, however, reveals that the final version of the City of God does indeed exist in time and space in some sort of capacity. For instance, the book of Revelation states that the New Heaven will be located on the New Earth. While this description is rather vague, it does actually situate the City at some point in space. Revelation also describes the City as being the beginning of Eternity—at which point time no longer matters—but the fact that it begins could indicate that it exists at some point in time even if time is irrelevant. It would seem, then, that Augustine's heavenly City also fits Sargent's description.

      And yet it doesn't. Sargent also states that a utopia is a “no place,” meaning that it doesn't exist (5). To Augustine (and the larger Christian community), both the temporary City and the heavenly City are very real places, which means that they exist in some capacity. In this way, they do not fit Sargent's description and therefore are not “utopias” by his definition. Reading Augustine's work really made me think hard about this, and even though I thought the Heavenly City may be a utopia by Sargent's definition, it isn't.

      Lastly, I'd like to give a quick explanation of the temporary City of God. The common belief is that when a person accepts Christ, he or she immediately becomes a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven. Scripture then states that he or she is no longer a citizen of the world, meaning that his or her worldly nature and national heritage no longer matter. This individual is spiritually bound to all others with the same faith, meaning that they are united into one big City. This is where Augustine gets his idea. Hopefully, this helps explain it a bit.

(Image of New Heaven taken from www.bloodynailsguiltyhands.wordpress.com).

Eternal Mercy Triumphing Temporal Destruction: The City of God over Rome

The Sack of Rome by the Visigoths in 410 AD was more than just a single event in history. To contemporary Romans, their entire world was falling apart at the seams. What had caused such an event to occur, where the center of the Roman Empire itself falls? Saint Jerome, in a letter written two years after the Sack, bluntly states that “The City which had taken the whole world was itself taken.”[1]

What did the Romans blame this catastrophe on? After all, the last time Rome was sacked was over eight hundred years earlier, around 390 BC,[2] so, according to contemporaries something introduced in the meantime must have caused this. But what?

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 Sadly, not this.

 

The most obvious introduction is the advent and rise of Christianity. Catholic Christianity had become the official state religion of the Roman Empire less than fifty years prior to the attack, in 380 AD.[3] Those who were over thirty years old would clearly connect the downfall of the Eternal City to the introduction and acceptance of this new and foreign religion. Clearly, to these people, the ancient Roman gods were punishing them for accepting this religion from Judea!

 

Bibleartists.wordpress.com

Among other things, Christianity introduced table-flipping boxing.

However, Augustine notes a sort of irony in those who assert this theory. He notes, perhaps correctly (I’ll leave you to decide), that these Romans “would not be able to utter a word against the City if, when fleeing from the sword of their enemy, they had not found, in the City’s holy places, the safety on which they now congratulate themselves” (pg 6). In other words, the entire reason for their survival is the very thing in which they claim caused the Sack.   

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As I type this post, I have not read any other portion of the reading – I have only read the Introduction and Book I. Therefore, I see this introduction for the City of God as a small taste of things to come. Augustine here tells us that the divine City – which, I believe, can represent anything from Heaven to the Church itself – trumps the temporal City of Man. The Visigoths would not have “[shown] mercy beyond the customs of war” if it weren’t for their “honor of the name of Christ” (pg 7). To Augustine, the fact that the Visigoths had spared those who hid in the churches shows a more powerful force at work, which proves superiority to most other instances of war. Had Christianity not been there, all of Rome would have been dead. 
  
As you may have noticed, the medieval historian inside me is ecstatic. You can always count on me to be excited about the most challenging reading in class. Definitely expect more posts to follow soon!

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[1] http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3001127.htm

[2] http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/romebattles/p/battleallia.htm

[3] http://history-world.org/christianity.htm