The City of God

With Book 19, Augustine leaves off his historical analysis and returns to philosophical and theological topics. He takes up the question of good and evil again, now asking how one might define the supreme good of humanity. This line of inquiry will, he hopes, add to the contrasts between the earthly city and the city of God: “My purpose is to make clear the great difference between their hollow realities and our hope” (843).

Augustine reengages with the writings of Varro, who argued that since humanity is both soul and body, the supreme good will be that which brings happiness to both elements, and that virtue has the best claim to that function. Augustine does not dispute the high place of virtue, but disagrees with Varro’s underlying premise that the supreme good is something that can be attained in this life: “[E]ternal life is the Supreme Good, and eternal death the Supreme Evil [...] to achieve the one and escape the other, we must live rightly” (852, emphasis added). Virtue, then, has its place, but is not itself the supreme good.

Augustine then takes his argument on a different track, using the