“Original sin, an act of spiritual apostasy from the contemplative vision and love of God, severed the union with God that depended on the subjection of Adam’s will to the will of God. Since God is Truth, Adam’s apostasy from Him was a fall into falsehood, unreality. Since God is unity, Adam’s fall was a collapse into division and disharmony. All mankind fell from God in Adam. And just as Adam’s soul was divided against itself by sin, so all men were divided against one another by selfishness. The envy of Cain, which would have been impossible in Eden, bred murder in a world where each self-centered individual had become his own little god, his own judge and standard of good and evil, falsity and truth.”
“The difference between the two cities is the difference between two loves. Those who are united in the City of God are united by the love of God and of one another in God. Those who belong to the other city are indeed not united in any real sense: but it can be said that they have one thing in common besides their opposition to God: each one of them is intent in the love of himself above all else.”
“These two cities were made by two loves: the earthly city by the love of self unto the contempt of God, and the heavenly city by the love of God unto the contempt of self.” ~ Saint Augustine“The earthly city glories in its own power, the heavenly in the power of God.”
“The love which unites the citizens of the heavenly city is disinterested love, or charity. The other city is built on selfish love, or cupidity. Now there are two reasons why only one of these loves – charity – can serve as the foundation for a happy and peaceful commonwealth.”
“The first reason is metaphysical: charity is a love that leads the will to the possession of true values because it sees all things in their right order. It sees creatures for what they are, means to the possession of God. It uses them only as means and thus arrives successfully at the end, which is God. But cupidity is doomed from the start to frustration because it is based on a false system of values. It takes created things for ends in themselves, which they are not. The will that seeks rest in creatures for their own sake stops on the way to its true end, terminates in a value which does not exist, and thus frustrates all its deepest capacities for happiness and peace.”
“The second reason is psychological and moral. Those who love God love a supreme and infinite good that cannot be eliminated by being shared. Those who place their hopes on the possession of created and limited goods are doomed to conflict with one another and to everlasting fear of losing whatever they may have gained. Hence the city that is united in charity will be the only one to possess true peace, because it is the only one that conforms to the true order of things, the order established by God. The city that is united merely by an alliance of temporal interests cannot promise itself more than a temporary cessation from hostilities and its order will never be anything but makeshift.” ~ Thomas Merton
*The City of God by Saint Augustine Translated by Marcus Dods, D.D. with an introduction by Thomas Merton pages xiv to xvi
1993 Modern Library Edition
Introduction copyright 1950,1978 by Random House, Inc.
ISBN 0-679-60087-6
