Predictive History - The Story of "Civilization", "Secret History", "Game Theory" and more - Civilization #27 - Augustine's Empire of God

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

Civilization #27 - Augustine's Empire of God

Good morning. So we are doing Augustine today. And even though Augustine is not as famous as some other thinkers we've looked at this semester, he's actually very important because he's actually the intellectual architect of the Catholic Church. And in this world, the Catholic Church is the largest organization. It has 1.5 billion members and it's been around for almost 2,000 years. So, and Augustine really is the individual who conceptualized the idea of the Catholic Church. So first to understand what the Catholic Church is and why it's endured for so long, I want to introduce a new idea to you called The End of History. This is a concept that was introduced by an understanding of the concept

introduced by an American State Department official named Francis Fukuyama at the end of the Cold War, when the Berlin Wall fell. And his argument is that history has been a struggle of ideology. We've had paganism, we've had communism, we've had socialism, we've had democracy. And through this dialectic, through this constant struggle of ideas, we have now reached the end of history where liberal consumer democracy is the best idea. Not only is it the best idea, but it's the perfect idea that will allow us to endure for the rest of history. Therefore, it is the end of history. Now of course we know this idea is wrong. What's in, what's interesting for us is this has been a recurring theme in human history, where every

major political leader who's come to power has announced that this is the end of history that all of history has led to this point where I am now ruler and from now on we can enjoy paradise on earth okay so let's look at some examples that we looked at the semester first example is King David right remember that we discussed that when King David came in the power he sponsored the writing of a Bible as an apology to explain why he's king And we also looked at the story constructed by the Yahwehs, how Yahweh, the god, he builds the world because he's a poet, because he's lonely. And his history is a journey of Yahweh trying to find a good friend that could accompany him for eternity.

And it turns out eventually he finds David. And so when he finds David, he anoints the house of David as the permanent rulers of our world. Okay, so that's the Bible. But then you have Augustus, who sponsored the writing of the Inniad. And remember the Inniad, it's really the journey of the Trojan hero Innius as he leaves Troy, and he is destined by the gods to found the city of Rome and the Roman Empire. And why does he do this? Because eventually, Rome will become the greatest empire on earth.

With Augustus as the first emperor. And so that's the end of history. Once the Roman Empire is constructed, then peace, eternal peace, is now on earth. Okay? And then you had Hossentine, who was emperor after he fought a brutal civil. a war to reunite the Roman Empire. And once he rebuilt the Roman Empire, he converted to Christianity.

And he organized in 325, the Council of Nasea, where they agreed to introduce the idea of the godhead. Remember we discussed last class, how the idea of the godhead, it marks a major intellectual revolution in humanistory. It's the beginning of monotheism. It's the idea. that God is both everything and nothing,

which is also the idea of empire. There's also a major civil war after Carcinian dies. Another Roman emperor, Philo Dossackus, comes with a throne, and in 380, he issues something called the Edict of Thessalonica, which established Christianity as the official religion. the Roman Empire and when he does that they begin to root out paganism and other religions and at this point you can also think this is the end of history we've discovered Christianity which will make paradise on earth the problem though

of course is that in 410 Rome is sacked and this is a problem this creates something call a crisis of faith. Why? Because a lot of people believe that Rome was sacked by the barbarians, by the Visigoths, precisely because Rome converted to Christianity, before Rome was a pagan society. And they believed that by converting to Christianity, two things happened. The first thing happened was the old gods, Jupiter, and the the others became furious at the Romans and were determined to punish the Romans by sending the barbarians okay also they believe that Christianity it's a religion of slaves it teaches us to be merciful and kind and compassionate but

that's not the way the world works okay so now you have a crisis of faith and the very authority of the Catholic Church is challenged and so at this point Augustine, who is a bishop of the Catholic Church in Northern Africa, he comes up with this theory that establishes the Catholic Church as beyond the world. So other individuals have introduced the idea of end of history. But what Oxyton does is he takes the Catholic Church out of history. Out of history. What does that mean?

It means that history is really about mortals battling. for power but the Catholic Church it is a representative of God on earth therefore it will remove itself from history you guys can battle it out but we will always be the representative of God on earth okay and to establish this he writes a book called City of God he and he talks about two cities you have Rome which is the earthly city it's a city of power and greed and the South And then you have a city called Jerusalem, which is the spiritual city. It is the city of God, of spirit, of self-lessness, of paradise.

And the Catholic Church will always be centered in Jerusalem. And if you follow the Catholic Church, if you're obedient to God, then your spirit can also enter Jerusalem. Otherwise, you'll always be trapped in Rome. Okay? What he also does, that's very important, is by establishing this theory, he solves a major problem for political leaders. Remember, before David, Augustine, Constantine, whenever they came in the power, they face three major problems. The first is legitimacy. Why are you the king? The second is cultural cohesion.

How do you unite the people behind a common ideology? The third problem was cultural differentiation. Why are you different from other people? And what the Catholic Church under Augustine proposes is, we'll solve all three problems for you. We, the Catholic Church, will give you legitimacy because you are the representative of God on Earth. That's why even though in the following few centuries, there will always be power shifts, the Catholic Church will always be at the center of these power shifts, because they are the

ones who are able to provide authority and legitimacy whoever comes into power, like for example Charlemagne. Okay? So that's what Augustine is proposing. So today what I want to look at are some of Augustine's writings to see what is the ideology or doctrine that underlies the Catholic Church. This is important for us because it is Augustine's ideology that will drive European history for the next thousand years.

In fact, I will make the argument to you today that it is his ideology that will mark the coming of the dark ages in Europe. years when society lacked social innovation and you weren't allowed to criticize authority okay so that's the argument to you today oh oh thank you okay all right yeah sorry this is why I don't use computers okay yeah it's it's fine okay all right so we are gonna look at two major works of Augustine the first is confessions and Confessions is very famous. It's something that most people have heard of. And it's really the biography, autobiography of Augustine. And in fact, it's considered really the first

authentic autobiography in the world. And in the story, he talks about his life, where he grows up with a pagan father and a Christian mother named Monica. And in the beginning, he is a very disobedient young man he refuses to follow the wishes of his mother and refuses Christianity and he goes on a long journey of youthful sin okay he has a mistress who he doesn't marry he explores heresies like neoplatonism and manicism but then one day he has a what we call it Damascus moment, right? God speaks to him and says, Augustine, open the Bible. He opens the Bible and this starts his religious journey. And in age 42, Augustine becomes the Bishop of Hippo and from then he begins to construct the ideology that will underpin the Catholic Church.

Okay? Now, for whatever reason, historians think this memoir is authentic or he's telling the truth and the one thing that you will learn in life is whenever a politician or a powerful individual writes a memoir it's complete BS okay there's something authentic or true about it so we're going to read a bit of confessions and this is really the most famous part of the confessions it's really Augustine's rewriting of the story of the garden of Eden. Okay? So this is what he says when he's a young man or a young boy. I wanted to carry out an act of theft and did so driven by no kind of need other than my inner lack of any sense of or feeling for

justice. Okay. So one thing that he's that he points out over and over again is we are born in sin. We are all sin. We are evil people. Okay. And that's why. the Catholic Church is important because only the Catholic Church can steer us into goodness if left our own devices we can only commit sin and this starts from the womb okay we are born in sin we are born of sin I saw something which I had in plenty of much better quality my desire was not to enjoy not what I sought by stealing but merely the excitement of thieving and the doing of what was wrong okay why do we sin because we enjoy sinning because that is our nature when we steal it is not because we're hungry

or because we need something it's because we enjoy stealing okay it's pure pleasure there's a peer tree near our vineyard laden with fruit though attractive in either color nor taste okay so again this is the retelling of the garden of Eden where there's a tree of knowledge, right? Well, here there's a peer tree. Okay? To shake the fruit off the tree and carry off the peers, I and a gang of naughty adolescents set off late at night after we had continued our game in the streets. We carried off a huge load of peers, okay? So they stole a huge

load of peers from someone. He doesn't tell us who, but it's someone, okay? And then they didn't eat any of the peers. They just gave it to pigs. They just did this because they enjoyed sinning. Now, okay, let me make a few comments. First of all, we would think it's just boys having fun, right? They don't mean any harm by this.

They're just playing, they're just being curious, just exploring, which is part of human nature, right? When all this thing is saying is, that's exactly the problem. Curiosity can only lead to evil. Exploration can only lead to sin. That's why we commit sin, because we think curiosity is a good thing when, in fact, it's an evil thing that can only harm others. Okay? And the other thing is, this is clearly a retelling of the Garden of Eden story, right?

Where Adam and Eve, they eat that. fruit and here what Augustine is saying is first of all Adam is are stealing okay that is not stealing is not a word used in the Bible okay but Augustine is saying they are stealing that's the first thing second thing is Augustine is saying that the stealing was intentional they knew what what they were doing was wrong but they did it because it felt good Okay, so this is a radical, re-conceptualization of the idea of original sin.

Remember, Paul introduced the idea of original sin to us, where why did Jesus have to come to redeem us because we disobey God in the Garden of Eden? It was a mistake, and Jesus had to pay ransom for that mistake. Okay, that was Paul's argument. What obviously is saying is something radically different, He's saying that, first of all, we didn't make a mistake. We are the mistake.

We are the ones born to sin. Therefore, we will always disobeyed. And then what else he, what else, but what else he's saying is this, and this is really important. This happens in about 350, right? This is about 300 years after Jesus sacrifices himself for us, and he's still sinning. So he is negating the sacrifice of Jesus. Just because Jesus' sacrifice himself does not mean we've stopped sitting. In fact, we continue to sin.

Okay? So this is a radical recapitization of the Christian faith. We are born sinners and we will always sin unless we are taught to obey God. That is our fundamental mission on earth to obey God. Okay. Okay. So let's go to the city of God now. And again, the city of God becomes the central blueprint for the building of the Catholic Church. And one thing that he talks a lot about in the city of God is the idea of rape. And so what's happening throughout this time, and what was very common is if a woman were raped out of wedlock, or if a woman were raped by

her husband, what they will often do is kill themselves. Why? Because the Christian faith taught them that chastity was very important. And if you're the empire, this is a problem for you, right? Because you can't have women killing themselves because of rape. Rape happens all the time. If women kill themselves, eventually you're going to have a population implosion. Okay?

So actually, what Augustine will do is spend a lot of time explaining why rape is why rape is not a bad thing okay so to do so he talks about Lucretia Lucretia remember who Lucretia is Lucretia we discussed Lucretia when we discuss Lucretia when we discussed the history of the Roman Republic at first Rome was a monarchy and the king The king's son, he was a sinful person, and he liked to rape other woman. He liked to rape woman. And Lucretia was famous in Rome for her chastity, for her virtue.

So he thought it would be fun to rape her. After she was raped, she called her husband and her husband's best friend named Lucius Junius Boutis together. And she made them swear that they will avenge her daughter. dishonoring and they did and to make sure that she they would follow out on this she took out a knife and she stabbed herself in the heart killing herself and this marks the beginning of the Roman Republic so in the eyes of Romans her death her suicide is what gave birth to the Roman Republic so she's honored and considered a hero by the women people and what Augustine will say is no she's not

a hero because she killed herself not for the good of Rome but for her own vanity for own pride for the fact that she lost faith she was embarrassed she didn't have the glory of being considered the most chaste and virtuous woman in Rome and that's why she killed herself and this is pride this is arrogance this is ego which goes against the will of God. So let's look at very quickly what he's saying. What he's saying? Her killing herself or suicide,

because although not adulterous, she had suffered and adulterous embraces, was due to the weakness of shame. Okay? The weakness of shame. She died because she felt ashamed, not to the high value she set on chastity. She was ashamed of another's foul deed

committed on her even though not with her as a Roman woman excessively eager for honor okay pride that's what killed her her pride sorry let me um my hate computers okay but Christian woman do not kill himself if you are a true Christian you do not you would never kill yourself why because murder is a worse crime than rape also rape is something that happens in the mind. It's not real. Christian women do not kill themselves. They have the glory of chastity within them, the testimony of their conscience. They have this in the sight of God. If you were raped, but you need to consent to it, don't worry because God knows and so God will forgive. But if you kill yourself, that's committing wrong.

against God okay so this argument I mean it's really gaslighting okay and he does us a lot in his in his thing in it in his logic okay he's really gaslighting he's making certain points about the nature of humans okay first of all we each and every one of us is God's property we are not free of ourselves we are God's property therefore when we kill ourselves we are defending God, okay? That's the first thing. Second thing that he's saying is we can do no good because we are burdened by our pride and our sin. If we choose to act, we can only do wrong. Okay? So what he's saying is this. If you are walking in the forest and you see

a young boy drowning in the lake, don't jump in the lake to say that. him because one you might die and two everything is controlled by God therefore everything has an intention so you jump and save the boy you might be interfering in God's plan therefore the only solution to salvation how do you make yourself good in the eyes of God don't do anything God knows everything God has a plan just obey the will of God and the will of God means doing nothing and in fact doing nothing is the best thing you can do because if you are born of sin and you're only capable of sin when you do nothing you are doing good in the world okay so

again this is gaslighting but this becomes the doctrine of the Catholic Church and it begins what we call the Dark Ages because it forced people and most people want salvation most people want to be good in the eyes of God it forces people to be passive and obedient and unable to question and explore okay so any questions so far before move on okay let's look another line from the city of God does when men lives by the standard of man and not by the standard of God he is like the devil all right think about this when you choose to follow your nature you are like the devil it's only by negating yourself there's only by denying yourself

can you be good all right if you trust your instincts if you trust your intuition if you use your imagination you are like the devil okay this is exactly what he's saying with this sentence the thing that he does is he's very repetitive so he'll keep on going like this for a very long time all right I mean this is all just repetition even an angel should not have lived by the angel standard but by God's so it's to stand firm in the truth and speak the truth that comes from God's truth not the lie that derives from his own falsehood okay even angels must live by God standard so only God has the power to choose we can choose but we can only do evil so we should not choose okay so this is a so this is a so

So the thing about Augustine that's very important for us to understand is he studied rhetoric. And so he's very good at gaslighting. Okay, so twisting things in order to force your compliance. All right, so he says, when men lives with a standard of truth, he lives not by his own standard, but by God. He's just repeating himself. Same sentence, but he just repeats over and over. Okay. So why is he doing this?

why is he doing this and any thoughts what is city of God the city of God we yeah yeah that's a great question that that's exactly it

who is his audience exactly his audience is clearly not for us or ordinary people because at this time most people don't read and write right so his audience is actually for the priesthood okay

his audience are for the those individuals who are about to be anointed by the Catholic Church to preach to the layman. And as a priest, you are forced to encounter a lot of theological issues, right? And so what Augustine is doing when writing citizenship God and confessions is creating a rhetorical manual for the priest to basically gaslight their constituencies. Does that make sense? Okay. So think of this in many ways as the equivalent of the Confucian classics in China right so when when you apply to become a bureaucrat in China you have to take the confusion examinations right

and how do you pass examinations by memorizing this crap all right and if you look at it if you think about it rhetorically you think of the underlying theories it's really the same thing the emperor is always right just do what the emperor wants So this is a this is in many ways it's all it is is a rhetorical manual that priests have to memorize if they are to become anointed by the church Right, and once you memorize this then whatever Problems that you may encounter you just recite from this manual

Right and the main argument is hey We're born of sin therefore you can do no good even by asking questions questions, you are exposed to the devil in yourself, right? Even by questioning the church. By asking me this question, you're showing the devil in you. And our responsibility, the only path of salvation in this world is by fighting the devil within us. Okay? So focus your attention on the devil within you.

Ignore the fact that the world is corrupt and evil. You know the fact that the land board is exploiting you. You know the fact that the Catholic Church is stealing from you. Ignore that. That doesn't matter. What matters is the internal world in you. Life is a conscious struggle against sin because the devil is in you. And you must purchase the devil if you are to find salvation in God.

So that's the logic of the argument. Any questions? Okay, are we clear about this? It's not a sophisticated argument, but it's a clever argument that becomes a basis for the dominance of Catholic Church during the Dark Ages and the Middle Ages. Now what he's going to do, and this is very important, is he's going to analyze the story of Adam and Eve. He's going to explore, why did this happen? Why did Adam and Eve in paradise? Why did they disobey God?

All right, so let's look at this logic. It was in secret that the first human beings began to be evil, and the result was that they slipped into open disobedience. What this is saying is, why do they disobey? Because Eve and Adam conspired in secret against God. Does that make sense? That's what he's saying here. It was in secret, okay? They conspired that the first human beings, Adam and Eve, began to be evil.

It was because they talked to each other that they conspired to disobey God. For they would not have arrived at the evil act if an evil will had not preceded it. Why did they do this evil act? Because they themselves were evil. All right? That's important to understand. They were not tricked by the serpent. They were not curious.

They were just evil. For pride is a sort of every kind of sin. And what is pride except for a perverse kind of exhortation? They want to become God. The serpent told them that if you ate the fruit, you become God. That's what tempted them, okay? The pride. For it is a perverse kind of exultation to abandon the basis on which the mind should be firmly fixed

and to become, as it were, based on oneself and so remain. What this is saying is, pride means we are leaving God and being being able to be able to be. becoming more of ourselves okay there's two ways you can go you can move towards god which means to obey God or you can move towards yourself okay which is to sin this happens when a man is too pleased with himself and the man is self-complacent when he deserts that changes good in which rather than him in himself he ought to have found his satisfaction pride okay pride makes us happy it makes us ambitious but it will blind us from God

This decision is voluntary for if the will had been unshaken its love of the higher change as good Which shed on it light to see and kindle in it fired to love it would not have been diverted from this love to follow its own pleasure Okay, we abandon God and the will would not have been so darkened and chilled in consequence as that the woman believed that the servant has spoken the truth The man to put his wife's will above God's commandment Okay, so here's the problem The man listened to the woman. Adam was tricked by Eve. All right. And suppose that this was a venial transcation when he refused to do his life's companion, even though the refusal entail

companionship in sin. Okay. So Adam was forced to make a decision. Eve had already eaten a fruit. So either Adam could follow God and disavow Eve or he could follow her in sin. He followed her in sin. And that's why we are doomed. Okay. So what doomed Adam? What doomed Adam? It was love. He loved Eve. And that's why he decided that, yes, I am, yes, Eve is doomed, but I love her, so I must do myself as well.

That's why Adam ate the fruit, because he could not stand to leave Eve. He was bonded by his love. So what is this telling us? This is telling us that there's only one true love, and that's the love of God, which is obedience to God. Every other love, a love for each other, is a falsehood. It is a lie. It can only lead us to sin and disaster. Now, let me ask you a question.

Who else at this? Love can only lead you to disaster. It is a disease. You must deny it. You must recognize it for the disease that it. is who else said this Virgil right Virgil Virgil in the Inniad remember talked about Ditto now Ditto fell in love with Innius and in his fell in love with Ditto but then the gods tell Innius obey us go to go to Italy so you may found Rome which is

your destiny and Ineus because he's a pious man abandoned his love and did his duty so he was honored by the gods but ditto became consumed by her love for Indians and so she committed suicide she destroyed herself love will destroy you love will blind you love is evil okay only obedience is good let's continue does the evil act the transcription of in the forbidden fruit was committed only when those who did it were already evil that bad fruit could only come from a bad tree Further, the badness of the tree came about contrary to nature

because about a fault in the will which against nature, it certainly could not have happened. But only in nature created out of nothing could have distorted by fault. Consequently, although the will derives its existence as a nature from its creation by God, it's falling away from its true being its creation out of nothing. So this race is a very important question for us. If it is true that we are born of sin,

it is also true that God created us, then is that a contradiction? God is perfect. Why would God create a flawed, sinful person? All right? And the answer is this, because God created us out of nothing. We are a creation out of nothing. In other words, we are a failed science experiment. We are an exercise experiment gone wrong.

God created Adam out of dust. And he created Eve out of Adam. The Adam's rib, basically. Right? So he's creating us out of nothing. And this was an experiment. And because we were created out of nothing, we were born of sin.

So the only path, the only way forward is forced to embrace God. to become more like God by obeying him and to deny who we are. Because if we would have become more of who we are, if we listen to ourselves, if we loved, if we thought, if we were curious, if we move into our nothingness. But the more we obey God, the more we move towards enlightenment and salvation. Okay, so that's the logic here.

So he concludes, that is why humility, okay? Humility just means self-denial, self-denial. negation, right? Complete obedience. Forget who you are, it doesn't matter. Just obey God, which is the Catholic Church, right? So God really means the Catholic Church. This is why humiliation is highly praised in the city of God, and especially enjoying on the city of God during the time of its pilgrimage in this world. And it receives particular emphasis in the character of Christ, the king of that city. We're also taught by the sacred scriptures that the fault of exaltation pride the contrary of humility exercise

supreme dominion in Christ's adversary then devil okay so he's creating the economy in the city of Rome in the city of earth pride triumphs because that's the seat of the devil in the city of God humility triumphs because that's the seat of Jesus this is surely the great difference that shunners the two cities on which we are speaking the one is community of the vault devout man the other company of the religious and each has its own angels attached to it in one city love of God has been given first place in the other love of self pride ego will this all this is in found in the city of Rome but in the city of God you don't that exists

is humility and love of God. Any question so far? Yeah. Oh, that's a great question. Okay, so Jesus is dead, and Jesus didn't really do anything because we're still born of sin. Right? So why did God send Jesus?

And the answer is to awaken us, to show us that this has been wrong, and we must correct ourselves, to lend us, to show us the light. But it is we who must walk towards the light. Does that make sense? All right. So we'll conclude with this passage.

And this is towards the end of the city of God. In the Helling city, then, there will be freedom of will. So this is really curious because for the entire book, he's been talking about how freedom of will is bad. Because he's born of sin. Right? It will be one and the same freedom in all, and indivisible in the separate individuals. It will be freed from all evil and filled with all good and joying unfailingly,

the delight of eternal joy, forgetting all offenses, forgetting all punishments. So what's the logic here? The logic is this. When we are on earth, we are by ourselves. We are separate from God. But instead of God, we will have achieved. reunion with God, we will return to God, we will be the same as God. God is in us and we are in God.

And therefore, we will be incapable of sin. And at that point, we will have complete freedom of will because our will is the same as God's. Okay? So I know that it's hard. Life sucks on earth. You're getting exploited by the landlord. You're getting raped by the landlord.

you're getting killed by your neighbors who knows okay life sucks but just focus on your internal salvation focus on obedience because when you do so you ascend to Jerusalem and at that point you will be one with God and all everything that you suffered on earth will be forgotten and it will just be endless paradise you are making a and sacrifice so that you may be saved. You're sacrificing yourself so that you may be saved. And this is a very powerful logic because this becomes the logic of many powerful movements

throughout human history, including that of communism. Think about the logic here. Communism, what is communism? Communism is we work really hard today to build a socialization, paradise once we build socialist paradise we have complete freedom of will we will be one and the same we will be indivisible from each other we will have complete freedom to do what we please we can as Mark says we can fish in the

afternoon and read in the evening and discuss politics with our friends whenever We will achieve paradise. So it's the power of the city of God. Not only does it provide a framework for the Catholic Church to assert domain over all of Europe, but it becomes the catalyst for revolutionary movements throughout human history, especially communism, but including other movements as well. Okay, all right? So any questions?

Okay, you want to know more about the biography of Augustine, okay? All right, okay, I'll do so, but this is the very ending of the city of God, okay? So let's just look at the ending together, and then I'll discuss the biography of Augustine. It will not forget its own liberation, nor be ungrateful to its liberator, okay? So we have escaped this world of evil and of sin, and we are with God, who are great liberator. It will remember even its past evils as far as intellectual knowledge is concerned, but it will utterly forget them as far as a sense experience is concerned. So what this means is, yes, we will remember the pain we suffered on earth, but the pain

will mean nothing. We will remember what we experience, but we will not remember the pain. It will be eternal paradise. No more pain, no more suffering, no more sin. For the highly trained physician is acquainted with almost all this. diseases as far as it can be known in theory while he's ignorant of most of them in respect of personal experience since he has not suffered from them okay we will become godlike in our understanding we understand why we suffered and then we will

understand suffering means nothing because we are now united with God okay does that make sense so that's the logic of the sea of God in Augustine. All right, so now you want to know who this guy is. All right. So there's a lot of controversy over who he is. In his biography, and again, remember, if a biography is written by a politician, it's going to be BS, all right?

Just so you know. He tells us that he comes from a pretty normal family. His father's a pagan. His mother, Monica, is a devout Christian. And then through his own hard work, he started to study rhetoric in university. He became a professor of rhetoric. And then when he was converted, when he saw the light, when God spoke to him, when he had his Damascus moment, he started to sit the Bible rigorously. And then he was spotted by his talent by the church.

and at 42, he was appointed to become the bishop of Hippo, which is in northern Africa. And he was in that position until his death. One thing that Augustine is known for is the fact that he's prolific, right? Prolific. Which meant that he wrote a lot of books. It's possible he wrote 100,000 pages. And his two most famous are confessions in the city of God. Okay?

So, most people, most scholars, take his story for what it is, okay? They believe him. But one thing that you learned in this class is to always be skeptical of power. Okay? So if at age 42, he's appointed the head of the church in this region, what does it tell us? It tells us that he comes from an extremely powerful family. Right? Because one thing that you learned in this class is the way that Catholic Church grew, the way that Christianity grew is by marry itself to power.

Christianity had a very strict hierarchy, and that enabled it to be co-opted by the power elite. Okay? So this tells us the fact that he was appointed bishop that he comes from an extremely powerful family. It's possible his father was a governor, a Roman governor, was possible a general, okay? But this is not a typical normal middle-class family. It can't be. Does that make sense? That's the first thing. Second thing is, he was prolific, which meant he wrote a lot.

Now, in our class, there was also another individual who was extremely prolific. And who was that person? Meaning that he wrote a lot, like way too much. This person is Aristotle, right? The thing that we said about Aristotle is he was a censor, a propagandist. for the Macedonian Empire. He was trying to justify the supremacy of Greek civilization. And so when he wrote, he probably didn't write anything by himself,

but he had a team of students around him who wrote everything for him. So you can surmars to say about Augustine. As bishop, he had hundreds of scribes, hundreds of priests, who basically took his theories and turned them into books. And that's how he was able to be so prolific. So think of him as a professor, basically. A university professor, a science professor, who's in charge of a lab. He doesn't actually do his own work.

He has assistance for that, but he's the one directing the research and the writing. You can also see him as a propagandist. Does that make sense? But he's clearly a genius. There's no denying he is a genius. Okay, any more questions? Okay, so even though this is all genius,

it's only because they're an empire and they can gaslight their people. So the logic is basically like this. The logic is I push you down and you turn around and says, hey,

why did you push me down? And I say to you, I didn't push you down, you slipped There's a difference. I can do that because I'm powerful and you're not. So this is really the logic of empire. Augustine is really using the logic of empire. He's trying to force people to be obedient, right? Because obedient leads to salvation.

Hey, you can disobey me. You can fool around, but this means you'll burn in hell for all the eternity. Do you really want to take that chance? Most people don't, okay? So most people, during, most at this time, choose to become passive in order to avoid sin. And this will mark the beginning of the dark ages in Europe. Okay, but there are many people who choose to rebel.

There are many who believe that exploration, curiosity, intuition, imagination is fundamental to being human. If you refuse to let me be human, then I will go somewhere else. So where do they go? Well, they go east. Okay? They'll go east. There are two places.

The first is the Sassanian Persian Empire. But another place they'll go that's very interesting is Arabia. Why do they go to Arabia? Because Arabia is basically like a lawless desert. There's no real authority in the desert. And there are lots of Jewish people and Christians who escape to Arabia in order to practice their faith. One thing that you learn in class, that you will learn in this class, or that you have learned in this class, is that people think of faith very seriously.

I'd rather die than not practice my faith. So all these people are going to the desert and not practice their faith. Why is this important? Because from Arabia will come a new religion called Islam. All right? So these are the people who will give birth to a revolutionary new religion called Islam that will challenge the authority of of the Catholic Church and of Augustine. Okay? And this is what we will discuss next class.