Hey guys, and welcome back to my personal study of City of God! I let you guys down real hard last week, missing my self scheduled post time. It turns out, I bit off more than I could chew, and didn’t have enough steam built up to make it happen! This book is among an extensive list of readings I am engaged in, in addition to my job and managing my home. That being said, I’ve decided to limit myself to one post on this particular book each week for now, and I’ll work up as my attention span, well, expands. Enough gabbing, let’s get into point 14!
Point 14: The Divine Consolations of Captivity
There have always been, and will always be, Christians in captivity. If there is a time when no Christian in the world is imprisoned for his faith, then we have failed to evangelize the world well enough, or the mission is completed.
Augustine sees this captivity as simply another fact of life. He points to Daniel and the other prophets, delivered into captivity as punishment for the false behaviors of the tribes of Judah. And he draws attention to the fact that even in captivity, when all seems lost, that God was still with them.
He also points to Jonah, who when swallowed by a sea monster and sunk to the depths, could not escape from God’s presence.
He also highlights that even as Romans ridiculed the tale of Jonah, they also proliferated the tale of Arian of Methymna, who is thrown overboard and rides a dolphin back. Augustine claims that the story of Jonah is more incredible and more miraculous, because it is evidence of a greater power.
Point 15: Regulus, captivity endured for the sake of false religion.
Marcus Regulus is a prisoner of the Carthaginians in this particular history. He is the man Carthage sends back to Rome, to convince the people of Rome to release their prisoners in an exchange. The forced him to swear oaths to return back to Carthage should he fail.
Regulus failed, both spectacularly and quite intentionally. He did not think it was of advantage to Rome to exchange prisoners, and while he was not forced back to Carthage by his own people, he went willingly.
Augustine records that Regulus was shut up in a box, nails pointing in at him from all sides. He was kept standing, awake, until he finally died of exhaustion.
Augustine commends Regulus for his courage, but points out that people who criticize Christianity for hardship endured worshipped their deities for the sake of prosperity. Yet here is Regulus, tortured to death, in excruciating pain no doubt. Where was his prosperity? And what harsher punishment could they have meted out to an oath breaker?
Augustine states that Regulus, in spite of his veneration of the gods he served, demonstrates clearly that Roman gods were no help to their worshipers as far as temporal pleasure goes.
He continues, stating that if a single person can be punished in his piety, why not a complete community in its piety? And these same people who could suffer the unwarranted punishment of their gods would blame Christianity for the punishments they received.
The gods of Rome simply could not be worshipped for temporal rewards, because they could not be guaranteed, no matter how pious the worshippers. He ends by stating that the same people who criticize imprisoned Christians for their piety, would do well to look at those amongst their own ranks that suffer the same fate.
And if you still hold that worship of these gods is valid, then you cannot justifiably ridicule the Christian for their same behaviors.
Thoughts on the Text
I found point 14 to be relatively lacking in argumentative value, but point 15 greatly made up for it. This is definitely an example of hypocrisy in the case of Rome that can hardly be denied, in addition to holding up the virtues of a Roman citizen as something to be admired.
Something I have noted is that Roman virtues have not been attacked at this point, but has been lifted up as something to honor to an extent.
And that’s it for the day. I will be posting again next week, and I plan to write two or three of these per week just to keep a backlog of anything should happen that requires me to take a break. Thank you for reading!
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