Quotation
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“Two loves have made two cities: love of self to the contempt of God, and love of God to the contempt of self.”
Augustine of Hippo · Christian Platonism · Medieval · c. 413–426
What does it mean?
The usual reading takes the two cities as two loyalties running through history, formed by what is loved most, not as a map of two neighbourhoods. Love of self unto contempt of God defines the earthly city. Love of God unto contempt of self defines the heavenly one. A rival reading hears a politics that cannot value ordinary civic good, because contempt of self sounds like a ban on justice between neighbours; The chapter is a summary inside a long argument with pagan Rome about what a commonwealth really worships.
Did Augustine of Hippo really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. A standard English of City of God, book fourteen, chapter 28. Chadwick translated the Confessions, not this work. Henry Bettenson and R. W. Dyson are the usual modern English guides. The Latin is secure. This wording is a translation.
Where it comes from
City of God XIV.28
Approximate date: c. 413–426.
How to use it
A residents' campaign in Tower Hamlets can pursue clean stairwells and fair rents, goods Augustine would not have to call contempt of God, and still be asked which love is actually steering it when the campaign starts to treat opponents as nothing. The sentence is a test of ultimate loyalty, not a ban on fixing the lift. Using it to sneer at every local effort misses the cities he is distinguishing.
A mindset reading
The contempt clauses are severe, and they are easy to weaponise against any self-respect or any public work. He is naming a rank order of loves, not issuing a mood of self-hatred as a civic programme. A city, in this book, is a people bound by what it loves; The question is which love is last when they conflict, not whether a street is worth sweeping.
Understand the philosophy
The City of God distinguishes the earthly city from the city of God across sacred history, against the charge that Christianity weakened Rome. The key term is love, the weight that makes a people, earlier in the Confessions called a matter of ordered and disordered desire. Here the two loves are stated at full contrast in book fourteen. Bettenson's English, or Dyson's, is the translation to consult; The line is not from the Confessions.
- love
- society
- ethics
FAQ
What does it mean?
The usual reading takes the two cities as two loyalties running through history, formed by what is loved most, not as a map of two neighbourhoods. Love of self unto contempt of God defines the earthly city. Love of God unto contempt of self defines the heavenly one. A rival reading hears a politics that cannot value ordinary civic good, because contempt of self sounds like a ban on justice between neighbours; The chapter is a summary inside a long argument with pagan Rome about what a commonwealth really worships.
Did Augustine of Hippo really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. A standard English of City of God, book fourteen, chapter 28. Chadwick translated the Confessions, not this work. Henry Bettenson and R. W. Dyson are the usual modern English guides. The Latin is secure. This wording is a translation.
Which work is it in?
City of God XIV.28 Approximate date: c. 413–426.