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9. Augustine
True Wisdom
1. The Wisdom of God
Christ is the wisdom of God.
With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of hiswill according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment, to bring unity to all things inheaven and on earth under Christ 
(Ephesians 1.8-10)
this mystery, which for ages past was kept hidden in God, who created all things. 10 His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdomof God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, 11 according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord 
(Eph 3.9-11)
This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together withIsrael, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise inChrist Jesus.
(Ephesians 3.6).
 ‘Jesus lives forever. His priesthood is permanent. He is able to savecompletely those who come to God through him because he is always aliveto intercede for them’ 
(Hebrews 7.24-7).
Only because the Christ on the ground, the visible Church, is Christ, and isthe fact that God has confronted all humankind with, is there any effectiveinterruption and transformation of man by God and any real knowledge of God.
No Elitism
From Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, it is clear that some Christians in Corinthbelieve that the resurrection of Christ has elevated them up into a newspiritual realm in which they exist above those around them. They havemoved from lower material and bodily world, perhaps through theintermediate psychical world, into an upper spiritual world. They believe thatthey are an elite, a ‘spiritual people’ (3.1), ‘mature’ (2.6, 14.20) and ‘strong’(10.12), that already possesses ‘all spiritual gifts’ (1 Corinthians 1.5-7) andcan regard all others as mere bodies.Saint Paul assures them that resurrection does not separate us from thelower orders, or from the materiality of our own bodies, for the resurrection of Jesus re-unites these three worlds, abolishing the division into these threeseparate domains. The apostle tells them that the resurrection is not yet their possession but they may receive it now only in the form of the cross, and of 
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the ongoing passion of the Christian life. If they consider themselves of the bealready filled, rich and at home in the kingdom (4.8) they are mistaken, for inthe true wisdom found in the Church of Christ, the wise, the rich and thepowerful wait for those who are apparently foolish, without education, poor and powerless.Gentiles want mastery: Greeks look for knowledge, Romans for power.
Those who are regarded as rulers of the gentiles lord it over them and their high officials exercise authority over them. But it is not so with you. Instead whoever wants to because great among you must be slave of all. For eventhe Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life asa ransom for many’ 
(Mark 10.42-5).
The world-fearing escapism of the Gnosticism of the surrounding culture isnot the Wisdom of God. Christ is the Logos in which creation participates: allparts of creation, the bottom as much as the top, will be filled with thatwisdom and so redeemed. The incarnation, passion, and cross of Christ arethe wisdom of God. Union with Christ takes us through identification the lower as much as the higher parts of creation, and involve as much humiliation aselevation.
2. Christians After Rome
The Collapse of Empire and the Charge of Failure of failure of pietas
Augustine (354-430) was bishop of Hippo, near Carthage, in Latin-speakingnorth Africa, from which he was in close touch with Rome. He wrote a widerange of teaching material, biblical commentaries, introductions to Christiandoctrine along with discussions of crises in the government of the Church andthe wider political crisis of Rome. Like every other pastor, Augustine simplypassed on what he has received. He teaches all that he has learned from hisown teachers, among them the other Church Fathers whose work we alsohave. We are able to comment on how well Augustine has learned hislessons, and how well he is able to pass on the practices and instincts thatallow for the exercise of a Christian mind that will allow subsequentgenerations of the Church to do the same. Two works in particular have had asignificance,
The Confessions
and
The City of God 
.Some events are immediately understood to have huge implications. One of these is the sack of Rome. It was understood at the time to be the fall of whathad seemed to be the world’s greatest and most invincible empire. But Rome,unable to raise its own troops to man his armies, had been employing wholeGerman tribes as mercenaries. In 140 one of these armies, under Alaric theGoth, marched into Rome and sacked it. Whenwomen were raped, some of the Christians among them, afraid that their purity was lost, had even taken
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their own lives (
City of God 
1.16-23). Christians in Rome wrote to Augustinefor his advice as pastor.Some blamed the weakening and fall of Rome on the abandonment of Rome’s gods by the Christians. Christians do not show the elementaryrespect and pietas towards the ancestors, and they promote the unmanlyvirtue of weakness. Varro was one of the small number of nostalgically paganscholars who had been making this charge. Augustine points out that theRoman republic fell and turned into the empire even before the Christiansarrived. In the City of God Augustine discusses the rise and fall of Rome, andpoints out that all political empires rise and fall, and that none of them isforever, however much they aspire to eternity. Christians do not identify thekingdom of God with any particular regime or form of political life.
The Church amongst the Nations
Augustine argues that the Church is a people in a public and political sense.The Church is the exemplary nation, the model for all other nations. A nationis held together by a particular form of life and self-government. The Churchis the only successful representation of what a nation can be. The Church is aself-controlled people, able to be so because it participates in the self-controlof Christ. It masters the passions and demonstrates all the attributes of theman who is well-ordered and therefore ordered towards all other men. Withinthe household of the Church all the passions and partiality of man is pacifiedand reconciled. This discipline comes from outside us, from Christ, but in theSpirit it also grows up within us and becomes intrinsic to us. Then we areproperly self-ruled and self-governed people. Christians bring their Christ-given practices of self-government to which society they live amongst.Augustine sets out to deconstruct the theological-political ideology of Romeand he does so by comparing Rome and the Church. He starts from theassumption that we all seek the recognition of our peers and so we competewith one another for glory. Rome stands for earthly and short-lived glory,while the Church stands for permanent glory. By competing for glory Romansbuilt this vast empire but it was also the very same forces that tipped thatempire over into decline. Rome is not eternal, and it is not the will of God for man, so it is not eternal. Augustine taught that we must not equate presentpolitical arrangements with the will of God. We must not be appalled at the fallof Rome to the barbarians. We should not take Rome or any other politicalarrangements as the unchanging will of God, for nothing on earth isimmutable.Roman history had been one of continual conflict and war. States without justice are just gangs of thugs. Even the virtuous republic was based on loveof glory rather than justice, since Romans loved glory more than virtue. Sinceit was never just, their city did not provide the well-being of all, it was never areal commonwealth. Its various classes were always at war with one another.
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