A Tale of Two Cities

It is often theorized, and perhaps not without a healthy measure of truth, that the life and mentality of the Middle Ages, in Western Civilization, was directed and informed significantly by the writings of St Augustine of Hippo, who lived only a few centuries after Christ. In particular, his book entitled "The City of God", was a very powerful influence in shaping the Middle Ages, in the enormous void left behind beyond the dissolution of the Roman Empire. (One must keep in mind that EVERY empire and political construct, no matter how wonderfully blueprinted, will tend towards dissolution in the end, while other fleeting forms will take shape to rise and fall...all of recorded history bears this out). Augustine wrote this book largely as an "apologia" or defense of the Church, which was being accused by many as being the reason for the fall of Rome....the Christian religion, according to the mind of these "accusers" became an insult to the gods of Rome, with resultant sentence being passed by these gods leading to the death of the empire. Augustine spent himself explaining that the demise of Rome was caused by the inordinate pride of the empire through its imprudent expansionistic leanings beyond its means, and also, more directly by the moral cultural decay which, according to Augustine, was an offence to the true God of heaven and earth. In the second half of this unbelievably influential writing, Augustine speaks of two cities or "camps" coexisting in this world: The camp of those living the life "informed" by original sin...self centered, worldly, vicious, impious...and the camp, largely hidden and comparitively smaller, of the Redeemed, living the New Life of the Gifted Spirit of God. He goes on to foretell, according to his own research, what will be the final disposition of this coexistence.

The Middle Ages, in terms of Christian Philosophy and doctrine, safeguarded an otherworldly mentality....living as if in an alien place....not clinging to the world but looking beyond it in a spirit of piety, prayer and humble work. This was the abiding substrate of Christian Life in the Middle Ages. One problem which evolved, with good intention, was that this faith-based mentality became "imposed" and "legislated" in so many ways, under a leadership which more often failed to live out its spiritual ideals. Despite the "truth content" of the age, original sin yet raised its ugly head in countless ways, especially in the leadership. Nevertheless, the ideals proposed by Augustine are still tenaciously safeguarded by "charismatic" peoples within various cultures, in particular, those influenced by the traditions of the monastic, agrarian and contemplative life.

It cannot be spotlighted enough, just how much our Western Culture has changed in the past 500 years, and in particular in the past 150 years. It boggles the mind! Are we being tested in relation to the world and its seductions, as St. Paul, Augustine and many others have stressed? If so, faith then calls us to a narrow path indeed, relative to the general trends. It is as if God were asking us "will you love Me, or will you choose the passing world"? Which "city" or "camp" do we choose to have our citizenship in?