City of God, again

Man, I just can't get over Augustine. What a babe.

I just finished a paper on historian William Henry Chamberlain. Interesting enough. The really interesting part was talking about a quote I found:

"[The] most important [reason] of all, perhaps, is the inability of collective human intelligence and goodwill to cope with some of the problems which the modern age has posed. This, I believe, is the fundamental cause of the cyclical fall of civilizations throughout history after they have achieved a certain level of cultural and material accomplishment."[1]

So Chamberlain says the ultimate problem in the world is not loving our neighbors. So close. It reminds me of 1 John 4:7-8 "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and anyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love."

And then there's Augustine. City of God. The whole book's about how Rome fell because the Romans were immoral and sought other things than God (as Adam Pontapea sort of notes in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers). Loving neighbors is great, and being your brother's keeper is unbelievably important, but you're just not doing it if you're not doing it because you love God.

Man, Augustine. Just won't leave me alone.



[1] William H. Chamberlain, The World’s Iron Age, (New York: 1941), quoted in Grace Isabel Colbron, Review [Untitled], American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 2, No. 4 (Jul., 1943), 574.