And I'm going to read from Psalm 46, starting at verse one. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear, even though the earth be removed. And though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea, though its waters roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with its swelling, there is a river whose streams shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacle of the Most High. God is in the midst of her. She shall not be moved. God shall help her just at the break of dawn. The nations raged. The kingdoms were moved. He uttered his voice. The earth melted. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our refuge. Let's pray. Father, as we begin this morning talking about Augustine again and the city of God and the fall of Rome, we pray that you would help us and be with us for the sake and glory of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. All right, I want you to picture in your minds, those of you that are old enough, and it looks like most of you in the room will be old enough to remember that moment that you remember the twin towers being struck. Like, it's something bold in our mind. For my generation, it's a time when you absolutely remember what you were doing, feelings that you're having, thoughts, smells, all sorts of things. You could go to other times in history as well. You could think of when those images of the Berlin Wall falling. Or you could think of images, the very famous image from the Vietnam War called Hanoi Girl. Very, very famous images that burn into our head as things happen within the history of the world. And I want you to know that Rome symbolized the security of a whole civilized way of life to the educated man, the history of the known world culminated quite naturally in the Roman Empire. So for the Roman world, the Roman Empire, at the sake of everything else, was it. It was the center of the world, the way that Jews divided the world between Jews and Greeks, and Greeks are everything that is not a Jew. The Romans divided the world between the Romans or the Greeks and the barbarians. The barbarian world was everything that's outside of the empire that represents that which has not been civilized by Rome. So for generations, Christians, as the Roman Empire is flourishing and as Christianity is flourishing within the Roman Empire, Christians were believing that the times that they had lived in, the Christian times of the Roman Empire, was God's chosen means to achieve the expansion of the gospel and to have the realization of the kingdom of God on Earth. So they thought of the emperor. as God's chosen representative to the nations over the earth. He was charged with the role of preserving the realm, and he was seen as one who represented God even as a Christian emperor. And then the church centering with the Roman church, believing that from there, from the city of Rome, the world, was the kingdom of God. You remember a few lessons ago, we talked about how under Constantine, the Roman Empire began its Christianization, and eventually the empire moved its capital from Rome to Constantinople. But even though the capital moved to Constantinople, the center of the culture of the Roman Empire and the real center of movement for the Roman Empire was within Rome. So I want you to think of Rome in that way. But there was a challenge that providentially happened that was a challenge to that notion that the Roman Empire was the center of that world. And that challenge came by way of the Visigoths. So if you've heard of the Visigoths before, here's a map that shows the the Visigoth movement. If you look over at the Danube River and just east of or west of the Black Sea, you can see how the Visigoths moved south and then they moved around the Adriatic Sea and towards Rome. And there's also a movement that splits in Italy where they go into Spain and then make their way up into Germany Now the Visigoths were a Germanic tribe of people and they come from that region by the Danube River that I mentioned. They're called the Goths. So when you hear the Goths and you think of like big crosses and black clothing and dark eyeliner, That's not how the historian thinks of the Goths. The Goths are a people group that eventually divide into two different people groups called the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths. So the Visigoths make their way into Spain and the Ostrogoths make their way into Italy, but together we know that they are called the Goths. these Goths, who is a Visigoth that we would like to talk about, is a man named King Aralic. So King Aralic is 25 years old as a noble, and he is king over the Gothic people. And he is born on a small island within the Danube River. And Aralic one day hopes to be a commander of a Roman army. So he wants to be a Roman. You can think about how sometimes young people think about how they've been raised and the culture in which they're raised, and they say, you know, I'd really like to be, and then it's something else. You know, so something really popular among young millennials would be what's called Japan Japanophiles where they love Japanese culture and they just associate with Japanese culture as young Americans. Well, Ehrlich wanted to be a Roman. So he wanted to command these legions of Roman armies. And he ended up attending a school, a state-sponsored Roman school for generals. So he ends up being trained by Roman generals in the Roman military tactics as to how they do battle and how they conquer and how they go forward to become as Roman people. So he was given intensive training in the art of war, and in weaponry, and in horseback riding, and in tactics, and in diplomacy, and he also studied foreign languages. He knew Greek, he knew Roman, he knew Aramaic, he knew German, and he was one also that grew up and then opposed Rome. So he turns on that desire to be among the Romans and he turns against the Romans. And in that turning against the Romans, in a power play, he begins to seek to make treaties with Rome. Now some young 25-year-old king that thinks he's something coming against the empire that at this point in history has already lasted over a millennia, a thousand-year empire, and this this provincial from some little island in the middle of a river near the Black Sea comes and he says, I want to make treaties with Rome and I want to be considered an equal with Rome. Now that doesn't go over very well and we know that Ehrlich lived Most of his life within the frontiers of the Roman Empire, compared with other barbarians, he was almost an elder statesman. He used the destructiveness of his tribe to bargain for pensions and for a post in the high command of the Roman state. And he and his successors depended for their positions on the remaining open negotiation with the Roman government. So over the next few years, the world would realize with relief that the potential conquerors of Europe were in reality no more than ambitious blackmailers. Now, what that means is that in that attempt to sign treaties, Rome is not interested. So they begin sacking and pillaging and fighting in ways that is destructive. You know, you think of going into a community and and burning the houses and, you know, destroying property and just doing all sorts of damage that instills fear among people. This is what is happening as they're turning against Rome. So Ehrlich, as he's attacking Rome and they're having these little pillages upon Rome, he demands compensation. He is blackmailing Rome, in a sense, saying, if you give us these things, we'll stop these sieges. We'll stop coming against Rome. And that was working for a while. So he attacked the city. One said that for the first time in 800 years, the eternal city had been attacked. Now, when Ehrlich had heard that the people were ready to fight. The people of Rome were ready to fight. His response was that thicker grass is easier to mow than thinner. He's like, you're ready to go. That's fine because you'll be easier to take if you are ready to go. And he turns to discuss peace and He's considered arrogant as a barbarian, and he declares that he's not going to give up the siege until he gets all of the gold and silver in the city of Rome and all movable property and all the barbarian slaves. Now, remember, at this time, Rome is basically run by slaves. Rome is a city where leisure is elevated higher than work. And for leisure to be elevated higher than work, you need people to do the work for you. And who are those people? It's slaves that have been brought in from outside of the Roman Empire, mostly Germanic slaves from what we would call the German portions of Europe. So we could think of Germany and Austria and Hungary and the Netherlands and all of these areas. bringing slaves down so that Rome could be continued. Now, what happens in this siege is that Ehrlich demands all of these things. He says he wants 5,000 pounds of gold, 30,000 pounds of silver, 4,000 silk and tunics, 3,000 scarlet dyed hides, 3,000 pounds of pepper, statues stripped of decorations. And when that was not enough, the gold and silver was melted down. And when further negotiations regarding a homeland for the Goths broke down, Rome again is besieged. and this time sacked. So you can think of this tension that is going on. So the barbarians in the north and they're coming down and they're doing these raids and they're asking for things every time these raids happen onto Rome. We want gold, we want silver, we want silk, we want pepper. Eventually saying we want a homeland, we want our own place to call our own. Now eventually they will settle in North Africa. After 410 they're going to go over the Mediterranean, and they're going to continue their sacking of North Africa, and they're going to be established there as a people group. And then for those that know what happens in church history, when we get to Islam and the rise of Islam, Islam goes over North Africa and gets rid of this whole people group, and it becomes Muslim territory eventually. But for now, they're trying to get this homeland, they're trying to get all of this property, and they keep sacking Rome. And eventually, in the sacking of Rome, the walls are going to fall, and Rome is going to be taken. Now, the date for that is August 24, 410. So we know the date that that Rome fell. Rome was a symbol of security and permanence. It was the emblem of an entire way of life, a city that stood for a thousand years. And in 410 on August 24th, it is humbled. Jerome wrote that if Rome can perish, what else can be safe? I want you to think about that. And I think as Americans, it's especially important to think about that. In many ways, we are like the new Roman Empire. We are like those that have expanded our borders in the name of what we think is important in the spreading of democracy. You can think of images that you've seen of smaller nations that have been taken over and the U.S. comes in and they say, here's a version of a constitution and you sign this and all of a sudden you're a democratic nation and it doesn't work. in other societies, or some it does, but not in all. And we try to impose that on other parts of the world. And we have this idea, even in American churches, that the center of the kingdom of God is the United States, and that from the United States will occur the evangelizing of the world. This is Rome in the year 410. And when Rome is sacked and when the Visigoths make their way into Rome and Rome falls, it is going to shock the entire Christian world. It's such an important date in early church history because what we see happen from this point in church history, we've talked a lot about the Roman Empire, haven't we? And as the Roman Empire is growing and expanding, and then as it becomes Christianized and what today, you know, everyone gets freaked out about the word Christian nationalism. As Rome adopts a Christian nationalism and it becomes a Christian nation, we've followed that progression for four centuries in this class already. And here, August 24, 410, Rome falls to the Visigoths. And the Visigoths were heretics. They were non-Trinitarian Christians. As the Roman Empire was pushing heretics out of the empire as one of the punishments for being a heretic, you know, you have to leave the nation, they would go to these Germanic tribes and they would evangelize them with non-Trinitarian heretical theology. And this was the religion of Ehrlich and others. So during this fall of Rome, let's see where I am here. During this fall of Rome, we have on August 24, as I mentioned, the inconceivable happens. The Gothic army led by Ehrlich entered Rome. On two occasions in the past two years, the Goths had sacked the sacred city and starved the inhabitants into cannibalism. Rome was sacked for three days, and parts of it were inevitably burnt. So the citizens of Rome awoke to the sound of trumpets that were unknown to them. And they were the Gothic trumpets. And the enemy was inside the city. So when the sack of Rome was at its apex, we're told that these barbarians stormed through the streets and they scourged the city for three days. One historian that was there said that they were three nightmarish days. So you can imagine a whole city being attacked from without. So palaces are burned to the ground. Aristocratic houses go up in flames. The Visigoths had Huns that they hired to be a part of their army and they were called the worst offenders. They had no care about rape and pillage and plunder, furniture thrown out of windows, silk hangings torn from walls, jewelry stolen even from off of women and from statues, wealthy Romans were repeatedly kicked and beaten until they revealed their hidden treasures. And at last, the conquerors, after three days, left the city and Rome stood essentially empty. Empty of its wealth, empty of its luxury, empty of citizens, empty of its pride, Many sought to escape Rome. Those that had the ability would get into boats and cross the Mediterranean. And we're told that Rome had fallen, this eternal city, this privileged city with a church established by the chief apostles was overrun by barbarians. And the question at the end of what is on the screen is a question that the ancient church had to wrestle with. Where was God's providence in all of this? Where was God when Rome was being plundered? That is our focus for the next several minutes. We understand that there were very different responses to the fall of Rome. And the pagans or those that wanted the old ways of Rome to be revived, they were very quick to say that Rome fell because of Christianity. It was said that the old gods were angry And it was a judgment on Rome for converting from the old Roman pantheon to Christianity. Pagans believed the inconceivable, unimaginable catastrophe was the result of the empire's abandonment of the now angry gods to whose celestial favor Rome had owed her greatness. So Rome was a city built on pagan worship. on a pantheon that they happened to borrow, but a pantheon nonetheless. And Rome gave up that old religion. And those that were proponents of the old religion said it's clear why Rome fell, because Rome has given up her gods. Now remember last week we met Pelagius. Pelagius was in Rome. Remember that's what drove him over the Mediterranean into North Africa. That's why he first met Augustine. And I said I'll tell you why Pelagius left Rome in 410. Well this is why Pelagius left in 410. And his response was this. It happened only recently, and you heard it yourself. Rome, the mistress of the world, shivered, crushed with fear at the sound of the blaring trumpets and the howling of the Goths. Where then was the nobility? Where were the certain and distinct ranks of dignity? Everyone was mingled together and shaken with fear. Every household had its grief and its all-pervading terror gripped us. Slave and noble were one. The same specter of death stalked before all of us. So remember, one of Pelagius' big criticisms of Christianity at the time was that the nobles were no better than the best of the pagans. that they didn't care about Christianity and leading in a Christian way. They cared about self and they cared to serve themselves. So Pelagius jumps on that and he says, well, where were these great Christian nobles? Where is that nobility that is there to protect us? Jerome, who we'll meet later in this class, he said the city that had taken the whole world was itself Taken and then one more response, Eusebius of Caesarea says the destiny of Rome and the church converged. The church in Rome formed a single polity, one God, one Christ, one emperor, one empire and one church. So he saw that this was a dividing of these two spheres or these two responsibilities coming together, one belonging to the nation and one belonging to the church. But the response that we're most concerned about or the response that really is the lasting response of Christianity is that response that comes from Augustine himself. And that response is this book, Rome Fell. And this is Augustine's response to Rome falling. So this is a massive tome, right? And if you are, if you're able to work through this tome, and you will see what Augustine thought of the fall of Rome. So you imagine like you're in an elevator with Augustine, you're like, what do you think of the fall of Rome? And he hands you this. This is what he thinks of the fall of Rome. And this book is one of the most important books in all of Western civilization. I'm not even saying in church history. I'm saying in Western civilization, this is one of the most important books. Now, Augustine was 56 years old when he was told that Rome had been sacked. So it's this dramatic thing. He welcomes, he ends up, he's in North Africa. He ends up welcoming all of these refugees into the city of Hippo. And as the refugees come, the refugees have the stories of the sack of Rome. So he's hearing over and over and over what the experience of Romans are. as they have left Rome and as they've come into the city. So the church is growing and as this church is growing, it's not being filled with North Africans that have a distinct flavor of Roman Empire Christianity. And we've talked about that for a few weeks. They're Romans from the city of Rome and Augustine is watching his congregation swell with all of these who come from the outside and have trauma and dramatic stories that need to be told. So Augustine, as he's preaching and as teaching, he begins to turn to the deeper questions of the relations between earthly cities like Rome, which had their day and they rise and they fall, and the heavenly city, the city of God from Psalm 46 that we read, which is called an everlasting city. And this question of earthly cities versus the heavenly city, that becomes the rumination of Augustine for 16 years. thinking about what does it mean that Rome fell? What's the relationship between the earthly city and the heavenly city? Would it be possible for the heavenly city to fall? Is it possible for the heavenly city to be within the earthly city? And these become the ruminations of Augustine. And for 16 years, he waits on telling us exactly what he thinks of the fall of Rome until he releases the city of God. Now, it's important that we appreciate that these two cities do not represent in Augustine's vision the spiritual and the physical. So it's very simple to say, well, there's a physical kingdom and a spiritual kingdom. And it's very simple to say that there's the church and the state. But Augustine is much more complicated than that. Augustine's pictures of his two realms as intertwined and timed is invisible to human eyes. The city of the world, says Davidson, is not identical with any single earthly empire, whether Rome or Babylon or Egypt or any other power. is the totality of world society in which the love of self rather than the love of God is the governing ideology. So city of God versus city of man, in Augustine's mind, so the church and the city of Rome and the way that they relate to one another, foundationally It's going to be the question, for whom do you live? Remember Francis Schaeffer's question. How shall we then live? Augustine's question is, for whom do you live? Do you live for self? And if you live for self, the city of the world becomes the foundation and the building of your kingdom. And if you live for the love of God, if you live for the Lord, the building of the kingdom of God and the city of God becomes that for which you live. And Augustine tells us that the Romans, and this is so insightful, the Romans are not punished for any distinctive or particular sin. So there's the Christian moralists at the time, like Pelagius. Where are the nobles? Where are the nobles? Augustine says that there's not a particular Roman sin that causes the Roman city to fall because, for Augustine, the guilt of human nature is sufficient for all tribulations of humanity. So our guilt received from Adam and who we are by nature is enough for God to bring judgment as he did onto the city of Rome. You remember the disciples questions to Jesus, the tower of Siloam falls and it crushes people in Judea. And the disciples, hearing the news, you know, they read their morning newspaper, and they asked the question to Jesus, a question that is theological, but also a question related to the purpose of evil, and a question related to human ethics. And they asked Jesus the question, were these men worse sinners than anyone else? And Jesus says, they weren't. And unless you repent, your fate will be worse. See, the question is not whether Rome were worse sinners or those in Rome were worse sinners than those in Hippo or those in Carthage or those in Alexandria or any of the other Roman cities. The question wasn't, is Rome less Christian than these other cities? For Augustine, it is that they are human, and because they're human, their sinful nature is enough for the allowance of God's judgment upon their civilization. Augustine refused to be passive. In the city of God, he doesn't only see destruction. He talked about an active process resulting in good oil being pressed in the vats. So one of the main themes in the city of God is the idea of being pressed. So August 24, 410, the height of the olives being on the trees in North Africa, and the people are pressing. And as they're pressing the olives, all of the good oil is coming out to be used. And Augustine is watching this migration of refugees. And he says, they're being pressed. they're being pressed as well. And that becomes this great theme within the city of God. But that's not exactly what prompted the writing of City of God. I told you he thought for 16 years before he picked up the pen. But Augustine was a man who was well read. He read other responses to the fall of Rome, and one was by a Spanish priest named Orosius. And Orosius wrote a book called History Against the Pagans. And what History Against the Pagans does is it gives a very bright eyed view of Christian history in Rome and a very dour view of pagan history within Rome. And it was almost like a caricature. You know, things are really bad. Christians come and Rome becomes really good. And it's just not the reality that was in the Roman Empire. So Augustine read History Against the Pagans and it bothered him. And he responds with writing The City of God. This is a copy. that's on the screen of City of God from 1690. So if you want to buy your pastor a gift and you have about five grand to spare, you can drop that. The City of God, here's my copy, as I mentioned, has been in print for almost 1600 years straight. Think about that. a book that is published over and over and over for sixteen hundred years. Now, I this morning, a little too early, about six thirty in the morning, I texted Jordan Fegley, who's the librarian at Reform Presbyterian Theological Seminary. And I said, Jordan, I need to know what's the earliest copy of the city of God that is in the rare books room at our PTS. and he responded rather quickly. I guess he knows these things. There's a Latin edition from 1555 at RPTS in the rare book rooms. If you ever go to Pittsburgh, you can look that up. Tens of millions of copies have been sold. And as I mentioned, this book shapes Western thought and it shapes a Christian theory of history. How do we do history? How do we think about history? Augustine helps us in that, in City of God. And those that care, that still care in the universities, about Western culture. You know, it's all racist now. You can't study Western civilization anymore. But those that study Western civilization care about the city of God because it is so instrumental in us thinking about what it means to be Western, what it means to be what used to be called Occidental. You know, there was the Occidental world and the oriental world. And we were among those that were occidental. And we had a way of thinking about life. So how is the city of God structured? There's many ways we could divide it. And there's so many words. I just divided it as easily as I could. Books one through 10, we have Augustine refuting the pagan claims that Christianity was the cause of Rome's decline. and he critiques Roman religion and philosophy. So, you know, chapters on Plato, chapters against the Pantheon, chapters promoting the idea that Christianity came and conquers Rome, refuting this claim. And then books 11 through 22, we have the origins, development, and destinies of these two cities. So these two cities, begin to be compared the city of God versus the city of man and he tells us that true peace and Salvation can only be found in the city of God Rather than in the city of man and that that happiness or that final happiness or blessedness will only be when that city of God is brought into eternity at its fullness So that's the division Now, let's end with some key themes from the City of God. The themes are many, but I divided it into some manageable pieces. The first is superstition versus true religion. This is found throughout books one through ten. Augustine distinguishes between superstition and true religion. Superstition is any belief or practice that seeks to manipulate spiritual forces. for selfish ends or focuses on worldly matters and true religion is the worship of God with humility focused on the Bible, God's revealed word. So any manipulation of nature for the sake of the appeasement of the gods, superstitious. In the word of God, in submission, true religion. In book four, chapter 31, Augustine says, superstition is a vice opposed to religion by excess, consisting in giving divine worship either to whom it ought not to be given or in a manner which it ought not to be given. That sounds very reformed, doesn't it? The next that we'll discuss is the two cities. The two cities are formed by two loves. Augustine says, the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God, and the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. That's book 14, chapter 28. So these two cities, which we've spoken of already in this talk, focused on heavily as a major theme The next theme that I'll mention is divine providence. Rome fell under the providence of God. This is something important for us as Christians to remind ourselves. Yesterday, Friday, there was a wedding here, and it was mentioned that the plans for the wedding were all changed. They were thrown off because there was a hurricane. And that was under the providence of God. And God said that was good. So we have to take our heart and we align it to what God says is good. And this is true in the fall of Rome. It's true when the twin towers fell, as we mentioned. It's true when communists took over Parts of Europe, it was it was true with when the Nazis invaded Poland. It's all under the providence of God, Augustine wants us to know. And how do we align our hearts properly with that divine providence? Book five, chapter nine, he says, for the course of time, which moves through the ages, is guided by the plan and purpose of God. And no event ever happens without his foreknowledge. The next theme is human nature and sin. There, Augustine says, for the sin which was originally committed was so great that human nature was altered for the worse and became subject to death and was transmitted to posterity and condemned. Book 13, chapter 14. So we're told that human nature is enough for Rome to fall. We don't need some huge event that is a gross sin to allow for a nation to fall. The fact that we are sinners is enough. And then lastly, Augustine would talk about grace and redemption. Grace and redemption is found in Jesus Christ. And even though this book is, in one sense, a history of Western civilization to this point, and it's a systematic theology to some regard, and it is a history of Rome, and it is an apologetic against paganism, Augustine shines in promoting the free grace of Jesus Christ. He says in Book 19, Chapter 27, the grace of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord, must intervene to save men by mercy, since men could not be saved by their own strength. So that's our time with Augustine. We've spent, I think it's four weeks we've spent on him. We have to move on to other characters, although there is so much more that could be said. Does anyone have any questions? All right, we'll close there.