The City of God
The title of Augustine’s massive tome is itself a metaphor; or, more precisely, half a metaphor. The City of God derives from a juxtaposition with the City of the World. Both are metaphorical cities that merely mean a collective of like-mind people sharing a basic and fundamentally opposed philosophy of life. The City of the World is a metaphor for those who believe in earthy pleasures and pursuits. Against this, Augustine sets the determination of the City of God as the collection of people who put love and faith in God ahead of love and faith in themselves.
“the universe is beautified even by sinners, though, considered by themselves, their deformity is a sad blemish.”
Although he divides the world metaphorically into two distinct cities, Augustine here points out not for the only time that there is just one universe and that universe is of God’s making. The assertion is a statement not unlike “hate the sin, love the sinner” because it suggests that even those sin (the deformity) is ugly, every human is beautiful because every human was made in God’s likeness.
Rational Animal
This is one of the most famous metaphors from Augustine’s text and applies to that creature endowed by God with body and soul. The Rational Animal is a metaphor for man.
“vanishes like a vapor”
The history of the world is a history lesson designed to reveal the worthlessness of living in the City of the World. Putting faith in earthly pursuits and desires shows that even those who have risen to the level of king and emperor wind up exactly the same as each and every one of the citizens over whom they ruled. The life of man is the metaphorical vapor here; each vanishes and will not find glory in an afterlife unless they become a citizen of the City of God.
Cain and Abel
Ultimately, the metaphorical City of the World and City of God is embedded within a more complex Biblical metaphor. At one point Augustine writes “it is recorded of Cain that he built a city, but Abel, being a sojourner, built none.” This implicates the population of City of the World as the descendants of Cain—who committed mankind’s first murder according to the Bible—while it is Abel’s descendants who populate the City of God.
