St. Augustine wrote thus to his friend Volusian, the uncle of St. Melania, a Roman nobleman of high reputation, who was then, as he continued for many years [Pg xxxiv] to be, a heathen. But we must also take note that he wrote at a point of time scarcely less remarkable than that of the vision interpreted by Daniel. The old world with its sequence of world-empires was passing away. And
so soon as it passed another travail of extraordinary severity was preparing for the Church, such a travail as even the eagle eye of the
Bishop of Hippo could not discern as he stood before the beginning of its accomplishment. When he wrote there was a Catholic Church, the fulfilment of a long train of prophecies in that "connection of ages" which he has so wonderfully drawn out, but there was not yet a Christendom. Nor could he the least foresee what was to take place before that Christendom could be formed. Only, as he spoke, the iron of Roman discipline--the inflexible Romulean mind--which had held together the miry clay of so many various and divergent nationalities, European, Asiatic, African, so that "the kingdom took its origin from the iron," was losing its tenacity. That vast structure of Roman power, the breaking up of which had been feared in the wars and insurrections arising upon the death of Nero, and extinction of the family of Augustus, was in truth dissolving.[4] The western and eastern limbs of the statue were parting away from each [Pg xxxv] other, and the toes were crumbling. But though Augustine heard the sound of the advancing tide, he saw not yet the full flood of the deluge from the north; and still less could he foresee the counter desolation from the south; Teuton flood and Arab desolation which in their joint effect would blast utterly the Roman Peace, and break the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold in pieces together, until they became like the chaff of the summer's threshing-floor.
As little could he anticipate another sight, the further fulfilment of the vision, when the provinces, those crumbling toes of the
statue, which lay before him in an impending dissolution, were to be formed into great independent kingdoms, having for the com-
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mon foundation of their power "the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us." Then in that "connection of ages" which should be drawn out after the time of Augustine in even greater distinctness than before him, and with greater claim upon the believing mind, which "yearns after eternity," a grander fulfilment of the vision would be disclosed. The royalties set up by barbarian chiefs of tribes among incoherent populations of victors and vanquished were to educate mature nations with individual character in the one Christian faith, and shine as distinct stars set in the crown of the Successor to Peter's pastorship. For as the Word made flesh created Christian monarchies and Christian nations in their several being, so the charge of the Word to a disciple by the lake of Gennesareth, "Feed My Sheep," created the great unity of Christendom which bound them [Pg xxxvi] together. In Constantine one empire had acknowledged the reign of Christ, and bent the neck of heathen domination to raise the cross upon a heathen crown. But then a group of nations should base the fabric of their laws, and the whole civilisation which redeemed them from barbarism, upon the truth that God assumed flesh for man's sake, and should acknowledge in Peter's Successor the Vicar of that God, who by and in that pastoral rule of Peter made them members of one Body, and in so making them "took the Gentiles for His inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for His possession."
This was a second and further fulfilment of the vision, which as yet Augustine saw not, nor even anticipated; but after thus writing he set himself in the last years of his life to a great task, even that of comparing together from their origin to their end the course of the two societies, not national, but world-wide, which run out through human history, intermingled together, and claiming possession of the same man. First, the natural society of the human race played upon by all the passions and infirmities which are the effect
of man's original Fall; and secondly, that other society chosen by God from the beginning in view of His Son's Incarnation, for the purpose of repairing and counterworking that Fall. It was the capture of Rome by Alaric, and the deep despondency which thence arose in the minds of many, both Christian and heathen, that moved him originally to this design, of which the first tracing is seen in the letter to Volusian just quoted. He sought to meet [Pg xxxvii] conclusions unfavourable to the Christian faith, which were drawn by weak, or narrow, or unbelieving minds from the fall of the imperial city. His plan accordingly led him to take a complete view of
all human history; and the result has been that one of the last representatives of the old world, and certainly the greatest of all as thinker, philosopher, and theologian, the most universal genius of the patristic ages, whether among Greeks or Latins, has left us a Philosophy of History, the first in time, and as yet unequalled in ability; for it supplies a key to the acts of man and the providence of God in that masterly comparison between the City of God and the City of the devil in their origin, their course, and their end.
The leading thought of this great work gives me a final text bearing on the subject of this volume.
"Thus, then, two Cities have been created by two loves: the earthly, by that love of self which reaches even to the contempt of God; the heavenly, by the love of God which reaches even to the contempt of self. The first has its boast in self; the second in its Lord. For the first seeks its glory from men; whereas to the second, God, the witness of conscience, is the greatest glory. The first in that glory which it has made for itself exalts its own head; the second says to its God, 'Thou art my glory and the lifter up of my head.'
In the first the lust of domination sways both its rulers and the nations which it subjugates. In the second a mutual service of charity
is exercised by rulers who consult the good of subjects, and by subjects who [Pg xxxviii] practise obedience to rulers. The first loves in its own potentates its own excellence; the second says to the God of its choice, 'I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength.' And thus in the first its own wise men, living after human fashion, pursue the goods of their body or their mind, or both at once, or they who might have known God, have not 'glorified him as God nor given thanks, but became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened; professing themselves to be wise,' that is, extolling themselves in their own wisdom through the pride that mastered them, 'they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of a corruptible man, and of birds, and of four-footed beasts, and of creeping things;' for they either led their peoples or followed them in the adoration of
such-like images; and 'worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever.' But in the second there is no wisdom of man save piety, by which the true God is rightly worshipped, awaiting its reward in the society of saints, not men only, but angels, that God may be all in all."[5]
I put together these three facts of human history, the vision of the King of Babylon interpreted by Daniel six hundred years before Christ, the summary of its fulfilment down to his own age written by St Augustine four hundred years after the coming of Christ, and his delineation, a few years later, of the Two Cities,