Chapter I — On the beauty of the city of God

Glorious things are said of you, O city of God (Ps. 86); wherefore I too have longed, by meditating, to behold your beauty in some measure, as through a glass in a dark manner. And the first thing that presents itself for consideration is why the eternal happiness, which in the holy Scriptures is called the kingdom of God, should also be called the city of God; and the reason seems to me to be this: that just as it is called a kingdom on account of its vast extent, so it also deserves to be called a city on account of its beauty. For someone, upon hearing of a most wide and vast kingdom, might suspect that in it were many deserted and squalid places, passable only to wild beasts, uncultivated mountains, wooded valleys, inaccessible crags, and finally thickets, precipices, and other things of that kind. But since all this unhappiness must be far removed from the happiness of the blessed, the Holy Spirit therefore taught in His Scriptures that the kingdom of God is like a most beautiful and most ornate city; and that, although it stretches far and wide in every direction, the whole of it nevertheless shines and gleams as a most populous and opulent city is wont to do. For in cities, especially the greater ones, are seen most ornate temples, most splendid palaces, most delightful gardens, most spacious public squares, most crowded dwellings, fountains, columns, pyramids, obelisks, theaters, towers, and workshops of all things useful for human life. What a sight Italy would present if, the barren Apennines removed, the whole of it shone like Rome — not as it now is, but as it was under Augustus Caesar, who found it of brick and left it of marble! And how beautiful would all Syria once have been, had it been like Jerusalem shortly before it was overthrown by the Romans? For Josephus describes it in the sixth book of the Jewish War in such wise that the magnificence of that city is altogether a marvel (Bk. 6, ch. 6) — the city of which the Prophet not without cause sings: Glorious things are said of you, O city of God (Ps. 86); and yet it had not yet reached that eminence to which, after David and Solomon, Herod the Great raised it. How glorious, too, would Chaldea have been, and all Assyria and Mesopotamia — or rather the whole East — if the city of Babylon had embraced all that part of the world within its walls! For so do Pliny in Book 6 and Strabo in Book 16 write of it, that its magnitude and beauty seem incredible; whence the city of Babylon is numbered among the seven wonders of the world. What, then, will that heavenly city be, the Jerusalem on high, which occupies the whole kingdom of God — that is, which makes that kingdom, the greatest of all kingdoms, shine and gleam as though it were all one most beautiful and most ornate city, nowhere empty, nowhere unsightly, nowhere mean, nowhere uncultivated, nowhere wild? Surely the city on high is such that no one thinks of it seriously without at once burning with desire for so great a thing; and no one truly burns without at once leaving all things to seek it, and never resting until he finds it. Hear what the elder Tobias says of that city, exulting and singing in spirit: You shall shine with a glorious light, and all the ends of the earth shall worship you. The gates of Jerusalem shall be built of sapphire and emerald, and all the circuit of its walls of precious stones. All its streets shall be paved with white and clean stones, and through its lanes Alleluia shall be sung (Tob. 13). And in harmony with him St. John sings in the Apocalypse, saying: And the structure of its wall was of jasper stone; but the city itself was pure gold, like clear glass; and the foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with every precious stone; and each of the gates was of a single pearl; and the street of the city was pure gold (Rev. 21). Nor indeed will the heavenly Jerusalem be seen to be truly adorned with gold and precious stones such as are found on earth; but these things are said so that we may understand that the heavenly city excels the earthly as much as gold excels mud, and pearls excel stones, and the stars lamps, and the sun a torch, and heaven earth, and the immortal Maker, God, excels mortal architects. But since we shall speak a little below of the beauty of all the parts of the city of God, we shall add nothing further here.