The City of God · Chapter
Whether we ought to love the love itself with which we love our existence and our knowledge of it, that so we may more nearly resemble the image of the divine Trinity explained
Augustine explores the love with which we love our existence and knowledge, arguing that this love itself is loved, especially in justly loved persons.
What happens
Augustine explores the love with which we love our existence and knowledge, arguing that this love itself is loved, especially in justly loved persons. He distinguishes between good love (leading to living well) and evil love (leading to evil), and draws analogies from beasts, trees, stones, and other creatures to illustrate how all things have a kind of attraction toward their proper order. He concludes by reflecting on humanity as created in the image of the Trinity, and turns to speak of the holy angels in the eternal city of God.
Themes in this chapter
True Worship and the One God
Augustine emphasizes loving the love that leads to God, aligning with true worship of the Creator whose love is eternal and true.
Sin, Grace, and Redemption
The chapter discusses the coexistence of good and evil love in man, and the need for healing and transmutation into good, echoing themes of sin and redemption.
Morality and Virtue vs. Pagan Corruption
Augustine distinguishes between justly loving love itself (virtue) and loving what ought not to be loved (corruption), reinforcing moral order.
Characters to notice
- Augustine
Author and narrator, reflecting on love, existence, and the image of the Trinity in humanity.
- Holy Scripture
Referenced implicitly through the parable of the younger son (the gospel) as an example of returning to God.
Key passages
“For the specific gravity of bodies is, as it were, their love, whether they are carried downwards by their weight, or upwards by their levity. For the body is borne by its gravity, as the spirit by love, whithersoever it is borne.”
The natural tendency of physical objects to move up or down is like love; just as a body is moved by its weight, the spirit is moved by love toward its destination.
Augustine uses a physical analogy to explain spiritual love as a natural force directing beings toward their proper end.
“But we are men, created in the image of our Creator, whose eternity is true, and whose truth is eternal, whose love is eternal and true, and who Himself is the eternal, true, and adorable Trinity, without confusion, without separation;”
Humans are made in the image of God, who is eternal truth and true love, a Trinity that is undivided and worthy of worship.
Augustine connects the human capacity for love, existence, and knowledge to the divine Trinity, emphasizing the image of God in humanity.
“let us, like that younger son of the gospel, come to ourselves, and arise and return to Him from whom by our sin we had departed.”
Like the prodigal son in the Gospel, we should come to our senses, get up, and go back to God, from whom we strayed through sin.
Augustine invokes the parable of the prodigal son as a model for repentance and return to God.