City of God

Augustine's answer to Rome's fall, used here to distinguish temporal Rome from spiritual Jerusalem and to place the church beyond ordinary power politics.

Catholic eschatology of the church/Jerusalem as the divine order replacing Rome-like worldly power.

Augustine’s framework that Jiang says makes the Catholic Church divine and outside history.

Term or model used in this packet's account of Paul, Christianity, Roman power, or church doctrine.

Jiang says Augustine's City of God responds to Rome's fall by distinguishing Rome as temporal power from Jerusalem as spiritual power, with the church positioned beyond ordinary political history.

Jiang treats the standard Christian image of heaven beside God singing in unison as recognizably Augustinian and explicitly links a student's answer to Augustine's City of God.

Jiang says Catholic eschatology wants the Anglo-American Empire destroyed like Rome so the City of God can be reestablished.

Jiang says Rome’s western fall is less meaningful than it appears because power had already shifted from empire to Church, and post-Roman warlords still considered themselves heirs of Rome.

To Romans, Paul's pitch is that Christianity divides Jews, pacifies their Messiah of war, and spiritually enslaves workers.

To Jewish leaders, the pitch is that Christianity universalizes Torah, elevates Jerusalem, and lets Jews work with Roman patriarchs.

Augustine's City of God is presented as the move that places the Catholic Church above the temporal Roman city.

Jiang says official Catholic teaching treats the Church as the millennium or messianic age and emphasizes personal salvation under Church guidance rather than a literal political end-times program.