St. Augustine: Roman patriot?

Samuel Dill, though a Christian, admits that there is some truth in the ancient Pagan charge that Christianity, especially in the highly ascetic form which it assumed in the latter Roman Empire, sabotaged Roman civilization. He cites, for example (Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire, p. 10), St. Paulinus's letter to a Roman soldier, encouraging him to give up the service of the beleaguered Empire in favour of that of God. "In this epistle the ascetic ideal is expounded with a breadth and absence of qualification which shock and amaze the modern reader . . . . Christian obedience is boldly represented as incompatible with the duties of citizenship and the relations of family life. The love of father or mother, of wife or child, the desire for riches or honour, devotion to one's country, are all so many barriers to keep the soul from Christ . . . . The soldier is a mere shedder of blood, doomed to eternal torment . . . . If [asceticism] was the highest form of Christian life, as its devotees proclaimed it to be, then Christianity was the foe, not only of the old religion, but of the social and political order which Rome had given to the world."

St. Augustine, perhaps the most influential Father of the Western Church, was greatly concerned to rebut the pagan charge that Christianity had led to the downfall of Rome. Unlike Paulinus, Augustine denies that the Gospel is opposed to war waged justly and mercifully. Roman cultural decay predated the coming of Christ; Christian virtue provided a way out from decadent Roman vice. Christianity protected Rome even in defeat, since the barbarian conqueror of the city of Rome was a Christian and "respected the altars of the Christian basilicas" (p. 55).

Yet, Dill points out, Augustine did not satisfactorily reconcile Christianity with Roman patriotism. Augustine, "a true Roman at heart", is proud of Rome's past and her great achievement, the welding of the West into a single people. At the same time—much like Simone Weil—he views Roman history largely as one of crime, of brigandage writ large. The Roman gods were real, but they were demons.

How could a true Christian be proud of such a past? Rome may have been chosen by God for Empire, but to admire her for this, one would have had to admit at least some goodness in her motives: one does not admire a criminal for accidentally bringing about some benefit completely opposed to his intention. (Believing in the existence of Rome's "demons", one would have had to admit that they were not entirely evil. This would presumably have meant an approach to paganism. Apparently, only once the pagan gods have died can a Christian consistently admit some goodness in pagan culture.)