KaiPreuß The Emperor’sTwo Cities: Augustine’sImage of the Good Christian Ruler in De civitate Dei 5.24 When talking about Augustine’simageofthe good Christian ruler,weshould not air- ilyassume thatthe nature of our subject is understood. While the concept of an imageseems to implyadescriptive approach towards reality,the good – if not the Christian – ruler points to anormative perspective on the political phenomenonof the ruler.The imagebecomes the reflection of areality hoped for rather than one at hand. Even so, it is not quiteclear whether it is the ruler thatissupposedtobe good or if it is the Christian – if one should even make such adistinction.Questions like these arise in view of atext widelytaken as Augustine’smost prominent imageof agood Christian ruler,chapter twenty-four in the fifth book of his De civitate Dei. What we can find here is acharacterisation – not quite extensive,but very influen- tial¹ – of what an ideal ruler should be like, what he should do and, of course, what he should refrain from. Because of this, it is sometimes referred to as amirror for princes.Inthe German translation by Wilhelm Thimme, “Fürstenspiegel” has even been chosen as the chapter’sheading.² While this is an anachronistic denotation for antique literatureingeneral,³ there are several reasons to make at least cautious use of the term, particularlywhen it comes to this chapter of Augustine’s De civitate Dei. Although the metaphor of the mirror⁴ is widelyused in Augustine’swritingsand even in his correspondence with political agents,⁵ he himself did not call his descrip- NotablyintheHighMiddle Ages, see Hadot,Pierre: RAC8(1972)555–632, s.v. “Fürstenspiegel”, 618. Cf. Aurelius Augustinus,Vom Gottesstaat (De civitateDei). Vollständige Ausgabeineinem Band. Buch 1–10.Buch 11–22.Trans.byWilhelm Thimme. Introduction and Commentary by Carl Andresen, Munich, 2007.For the expression in general, see Hadot (cf. fn. 1) and Philipp, Michael/Stammen, Theo:Historisches Wörterbuch der Rhetorik 3(1992) 495–507, s.v. “Fürstenspiegel”,aswellas Anton, Hans: LexMa 4(1999) 1040 –1058, s.v. “Fürstenspiegel”.For the term and its use for antiquity, see Schulte,ManuelJ.: SpeculumRegis.Studien zur Fürstenspiegel-Literatur in der griechisch-römi- schen Antike, Münster/Hamburg/London, 2001,9–18. The expression first appears in the twelfth century (Godfrey of Viterbo), cf. Hadot (cf. fn. 1) 556.For want of an alternative,itisused nevertheless by Schulte (cf. fn. 2) whoclaims: “Die Antikekennt die Textgattungdes ‘Fürstenspiegels’ nicht als eigenständige literarische Erscheinung.” (17). On which,see Jónsson,Einar Már:LeMiroir.Naissanced’un genrelittéraire, Paris,1995. ForAu- gustine, see especially107– 123and his assertion on 133: “Saint Augustin fut le dernierécrivainanti- que àdévelopper d’une facon originale le symbolismecatoptrique.” Forhis influenceonlater thought (via Gregory the Great), see ibid., 149f.and Anton(cf. fn. 2),1040f. See also van Geest, Paul: Sed ea quae obscura sund praetermitto(Spec 108). Augustine’sSelection of Scriptural Quota- OpenAccess. ©2021 Kai Preuß, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative CommonsAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110725612-005 88 KaiPreuß tion of avirtuous ruler a “mirror” of anykind. One of the reasons for us to use the term cautiouslyhas to do with the addressee, or rather his absence. Whereas Seneca, who famouslyuses the imageofthe mirror in his De clementia,had youngNeroin mind as the very precise addressee of his admonitions,⁶ Augustine’stext lacks any hint of apossiblerecipient and does not seem to be addressed to anyperson in a ruling position. Being an apologetic compendium, packed with anti-pagan ammuni- tion as wellasrich dogmatic thought especiallyinthe second part,the twenty-two books of De civitateDei aim at Christians and non-Christians alike shaken by the events of August 410, when aGothic Army, led by Alaric, took the city of Rome for the first time in centuries and sacked it for three days.⁷ While pagans claimedthis catastrophe was due to Christianity’ssuppression of the ancient cult thathad pro- tected the Empire since time immemorial, Christians, pampered by the triumphs of the Church under the earlyTheodosian dynasty,wereunsettledastowhy their al- mighty Lordhad forsakenthem in times of need, not even sparinghis most commit- ted devotees,such as sacredvirgins and nuns.⁸ The formerhad to be rejected, the tions in his Speculum as Proofofhis DesiretoEffect aConfrontation, in: Augustinianum LVII, 2(2017) 493–513 with further literature. The imageofthe mirrorcan be found in aletterwritten by Augustine to the comes Bonifatius, where it is clearlyused in the sense of moral admonishment,albeit Augustine seems to denyit (Aug., epist.189.8 (transl. Baxter): “This letter, then, mayrather serveasamirrortoyou, in which youcan behold what manner of man youare,rather than as alesson to youwhatmanner of man youought to be.” (ita ut haec epistula magis tibi sit speculum, ubi, qualis sis,uideas, quam ubi discas, qualis esse debeas). All Latin quotations from Augustine aretakenfromthe latesteditions as avail- able in the CAG(either CSEL or CCSL). Sen., clem. proem. 1.1(transl. Basore): “Ihaveundertaken, NeroCaesar,towriteonthe subject of mercy, in order to serveinawaythe purpose of amirror,and thus reveal youtoyourself as one des- tined to attain to the greatest of all pleasures.” (Scriberedeclementia, NeroCaesar,institui, ut quodam modo speculi vice fungerer et te tibi ostenderem perventurum ad voluptatem maximam omnium). No- tably, it is Seneca himself whoserves as amirror, not his text.The writingitself is merely adisplayof its author’scharacter that is to be imitated, or mirrored, by the recipient.Inthis way, Seneca’smirror is not onlybound to aspecific addressee, but to aspecific author as well. As can be seen in fn. 5, Augustine’scomparable use of the metaphor alludes to the letter,i.e., the text itself. Cf. Aug., civ. proem. and 1.1and Aug.,retract.2.69.1. Forageneral introductionintothe work and its composition,see Brown, Peter: Augustine of Hippo. Abiography(Forty-Fifth Anniversary Edition), Berkeley and Los Angeles, 2000,297– 311;see also Horn, Christoph: Einleitung. In: idem (ed.): Augus- tinus.Decivitatedei (Klassiker auslegen), Berlin, 1997, 1 – 24,van Oort,Johannes:Deciuitatedei (Über die Gottesstadt). In: Drecoll (ed.): Augustin Handbuch, Tübingen, 2007 and O’Daly: The City of God: A Reader’sGuide, Oxford, 1999.That Augustine reacted to morethan contemporary events,was already pointedout by F. EdwardCranz: “The De CivitateDei, though the sack of Rome in 410A.D.was its immediateoccasion, is fundamentallyasolution to the older problem of the relation of Rome and Christianity. Augustine’sansweristhat Roman Empireand Christian ecclesia arenot essentiallycon- nected.” (Cranz, F. Edward: De civitate Dei XV,2,and Augustine’sIdea of the Christian Society.In: Spec, 1950 (25/2),215–225, here220). Cf. Aug., civ. 1.16. The Emperor’sTwo Cities 89 latter reassured. As we will see later, Augustine’sdiscussion of the ruler and his vir- tues must be seen in this context. The emperor Honorius,the most probable imperial addressee, is unlikelytobe among the anticipated readership, although Augustine surelywould not mind him readinghis works.Since Augustine’simageofthe good ruler does not aim at an ac- tual or designated ruler,itlacks one of the main characteristics that distinguish a mirror from amore general discussion about virtue or rulership.⁹ There is little, if any, connection to the contemporary political landscapeinAugustine’spolitical thought. Though this be neglect,yet there is method in’t. Augustine’stext shows aparticulardeviation from another salient feature of mir- rors in antiquity and later times, the mirroringcorrespondence between heavenly and earthlyrulership.¹⁰ This has to do with his focus on the person of the ruler and his personal virtues more thanonanabstract concept of rulership itself. Al- though Augustine’stext mayvery well be entitled amirror for princesout of habit,the examination of the title’sinaccurateness leads right to the heart of the pe- culiarities of Augustine’simageofanideal Christian. In what follows, Iwill argue, that rather than depicting aChristian ideal of rulership, Augustine looks at the ruler from the perspective of his strongly individualised, religiouslygrounded eth- ics.¹¹ If what we find in De civitateDei is to be called amirror,itisamirror for Chris- tians who are rulers, rather than aguide for Christian rulership.Asaconsequence, Augustine’simageofthe Christian ruler sets itself apart from the metaphysical struc- ture of contemporary political theology¹² and presents itself as apredominantlypas- toral document; we shall see, however,that it never disclaims its deeplyingrained premodern view on the relation between politics and religion, making him adisput- able forefather of modern erasecularity.¹³ Schulte (cf. fn. 2).257.See Tornau, Christian: Zwischen Rhetorik und Philosophie. Augustins Argu- mentationstechnik in De civitateDei und ihr bildungsgeschichtlicher Hintergrund, Berlin/New York, 2006,328,with fn. 827: “Die Bezeichnung ‘Fürstenspiegel’ ist wegen des panegyrischen Tonfalls tref- fend, wenn auch etwas irreführend, weil Augustinus hier keine pädagogischen Vorschriften gibt,son- dern nach dem Glück des christlichen Herrschers innerhalb eines authentischenuirtus-felicitas-Zu- sammenhangs fragt.” Schulte (cf. fn. 2) 255f. Similarly, Robert Dodaroplaces emphasis on