"Two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God." This statement encompasses the two cities in Saint Augustine of Hippo's The City of God. The two loves are founded in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve replace the selfless love of God with the love of self by eating from the tree of knowledge disobeying God. "For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." These loves are what creates, drives, and separates the two symbolic cities, the City of God and the City of Man.
The City of God is based on Christian values; people renounce the vices of indulging in unnecessary earthly pressures to be closer to God.
Louis Comfort Tiffany, Window of St. Augustine, in...
Saint Augustine of Hippo, a seminal thinker on the...
Tropical City Streets at NightThe city is centered on the teaching of the Church, focusing on the eternal love of God not the perceived reality of sinful moral men and women. The City of Man consists of people who have transgressed from the City of God, seeking pleasure over the love of God. This preverbal city is full of sinful people looking at life and the world around them for only its face value not the deeper meaning.
Since the original sin until the second coming of Christ good and evil will be together on earth. There is no way of distinguishing the City of God from the City of Man. The separation of these two societies in found only in the hearts and minds of the individual. It is the human condition that good and evil are intertwined in this world and the guide to goodness, the City of God...