Richardson—Augustine of Hippo qua Patriot, 
33 
lower, Petrarch. Notwithstanding, the seekers of the City of God 
may find spur and exemplar in these seekers of temporal welfare 
and human praise: ‘ ‘ Let us consider, ’ ’ urges the saint, ‘ ‘ how 
great things they despised, how great things they endured, what 
lusts they subdued for the sake of human glory, who merited that 
glory, as it were, in reward for such virtues; and let this be useful 
to us even in subduing pride, so that, as that city in which it has 
been promised to us to reign as far surpasses this one as heaven 
is distant from the earth . . . the citizens of so great a 
country may not seem to themselves to have done anything very 
great if, in order to obtain it, they have done some good works or 
endured some evils, when those men for this terrestrial country 
already obtained, did such great things, suffered such great 
things.”^ 
How better, then, might Augustine express his patriotic good 
will toward his earthly country than by exhorting it to become 
a member of his celestial country? One of the most eloquent 
passages of the entire Civitas Dei is precisely such an invitation: 
Nunc jam caelestem arripe, pro qua minimum lahorabis, et in ea 
veraciter semperque regnahis. Illic enim tibi non Vestalis focus^ 
non lapis Capitolinus, sed Deus unus et verus 
nec metas rerum nec tempora ponit, 
Imperium sine fine dabit,^ 
An identical thought is voiced in one of the sermons: Manet civitas 
quae nos carnaliter genuit, Deo graiias. [No cold patriotism!] 
TJtinam et spiritualiter generetur, et nobiscum trunseat ad aeter- 
nitatem.^ 
Augustine took a lively interest in the fortunes of the state. 
The sermons and correspondence, alike, of St. Augustine, evince 
an anxious interest in contemporary political conditions, and, 
notably, in the Visigothic invasion. The letter to Italica, of about 
’’Ibid., V, 17 (tr. Dods). At the end of the chapter Augustine finds a shadowy type 
of the Eternal Country in “asylum illud Romuleum, quo multitudinem, qua ilia civitas 
conderetur, quorumlibet delictorum congregavit inpunitas.” This is quite in the spirit 
of Dante’s De Monarchia. Of. also Epistula CXXXVIII, art. 17, in Patrologia Latina, 
XXXIII, 533, and Goldbacher, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, XLIV,. 
144-145. 
» De Civ. Dei, II, 29. Of. ibid., II, 19, 21 and IV, 3, 4. 
® Sermo CV, 7 in Pat. Lat., XXXVIII. The next sentence is: “Si non manet civitas 
quae nos carnaliter genuit, manet quae nos spiritualiter genuit” and the chapter con¬ 
cludes with a discussion of the prophecy: “Exsurget gens super gentem, et regnum super 
regnum.” 
