O King of the Nations (Ember Saturday)

O King of the Gentiles and the desire thereof, Thou cornerstone that makest both one, come and deliver mankind, whom Thou didst form out of clay (Agg. 2:8; Eph. 2:14, 20).

This evening I finished reading St. Augustine's City of God. Most of it was assigned reading for my ecclesiology class, but we had skipped over a number of chapters in order to get through the whole work in one semester. So, yesterday and today I went back through and read the remaining chapters.

I imagine this will be the last entry of the year on my Reading List, in which I've kept track of all the titles that I've read this year (at the suggestion of a certain Floridian brother-in-law). The work is far too wide ranging to allow for an adequate summary. Some of the highlights, though, are his discussion of evil as a privation of good in the context of the fall of the demons, in which he also teaches that the will's creation from nothing is that which gives it the possibility of sinning; his discussion of sacrifice as consisting not in destruction per se, but in love and self-gift (paper topic: see sidebar). His extensive discussions of Roman history and religious practises are also interesting, as is the attention he gives to the biblical geneologies in describing the historical development of the City of God.