The City of God · Chapter
Book XIV: The Sin of the First Man and the Two Cities explained
Augustine examines the sin of the first man as the origin of carnal life and disordered affections, arguing that shame accompanying lust is the just punishment for disobedience.
What happens
Augustine examines the sin of the first man as the origin of carnal life and disordered affections, arguing that shame accompanying lust is the just punishment for disobedience. He distinguishes the two cities—those living after the flesh versus those living after the spirit—and clarifies that 'living after the flesh' includes not only bodily indulgence but also vices of the inner man. He discusses the right use of emotions (love, desire, fear, grief, joy) in the righteous, showing that these affections are good when love is rightly ordered toward God.
Themes in this chapter
The Two Cities
Augustine distinguishes the earthly city (living after the flesh) from the heavenly city (living after the spirit), rooted in the sin of the first man.
Sin, Grace, and Redemption
The disobedience of the first man plunges all into the second death, but undeserved grace rescues some.
Morality and Virtue vs. Pagan Corruption
Rightly ordered love is the foundation of virtue; the Stoic view of apatheia is critiqued in favor of proper Christian emotions.
Characters to notice
- Augustine
Author and theologian, expounding on the sin of the first man, the nature of carnal life, and the two cities.
- Jesus Christ
Referenced in the context of the Word made flesh and in the dialogue with Peter about love.
- Peter
Mentioned in the exchange with Christ regarding love (dilectio/amor) and in the context of weeping.
- Paul
Cited as the apostle who desires to depart and be with Christ, and who experiences various emotions for the sake of others.
- Socrates
Mentioned in the context of Alcibiades weeping when Socrates demonstrated his misery due to folly.
- John
Referenced for the words 'If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.'
Key passages
“We have already stated in the preceding books that God, desiring not only that the human race might be able by their similarity of nature to associate with one another, but also that they might be bound together in harmony and peace by the ties of relationship, was pleased to derive all men from one individual, and created man with such a nature that the members of the race should not have died, had not the two first (of whom the one was created out of nothing, and the other out of him) merited this by their disobedience; for by them so great a sin was committed, that by it the human nature was altered for the worse, and was transmitted also to their posterity, liable to sin and subject to death.”
God created all humans from one man so they would be united in peace, and they would not have died if the first pair had not disobeyed. Their sin corrupted human nature, passing on sinfulness and mortality to all descendants.
Augustine summarizes the origin of original sin and its transmission to all humanity.
“The right will is, therefore, well-directed love, and the wrong will is ill-directed love. Love, then, yearning to have what is loved, is desire; and having and enjoying it, is joy; fleeing what is opposed to it, it is fear; and feeling what is opposed to it, when it has befallen it, it is sadness. Now these motions are evil if the love is evil; good if the love is good.”
A good will is love properly ordered, while a bad will is love misdirected. All emotions—desire, joy, fear, sadness—are expressions of love, and their moral quality depends on whether the love itself is good or evil.
Augustine defines the will in terms of love and explains that emotions are morally neutral until evaluated by the object of love.