The Earthly City, Augustine asserts, was created “by love
of self extending even to contempt of God.”15 It consists of those who exalt
themselves and love dominion. Fractious though it is,16 it has a certain unity since
its members look for glory, revel in the strength of their rulers and subjugate
nations.17 Because each of the two cities includes all those who are alike in their
deepest loves, it follows that the members of the cities are dispersed in time and
space. Augustine traces the founding of the Earthly City to Cain, the son of
Adam and Eve who is said by the scriptures to have killed his brother Abel and
founded a city.18 The City of God, he says, includes the saints and the angels;19
only some of its citizens are in the world and they are spread throughout it.
Augustine speaks evocatively of them as being “on pilgrimage” in this life. He
spells out the implications of this poignant image using technical language he
introduced in his discussion of love. Members of the City of God, he says, merely
use the world while they are in it; they do not enjoy it.20
Augustine sometimes speaks as though the City of God is the Church.21 His
considered view, however, is that “many reprobate are mingled in the Church
with the good. Both are, as it were, collected in the net of the Gospel; and in this
world, as in a sea, both swim without separation, enclosed in the net until
brought ashore.”22 Thus members of the two cities exist side by side in the visible
Church.23 Every political society also includes citizens of each. Indeed Augustine
is emphatic that before the coming of Christ members of the City of God were
to be found even outside the society of Israel, as the example of Job makes