POLITICS AND FINITUDEthe created world. But that self-same temporality is created and sustained by a duration
that, ultimately, derives its qualities not from movement and change but from the pres-
ence in its midst of the city of God, however hidden, entangled in the embrace of the
other city, thecivitas terrena. This entanglement is responsible for thecivitas permixta
being a meresaeculum, sheer temporality and historicity. No one can tell how to measure
this temporality, however, or how to distinguish one city from another. Moreover, any
possible relationship between the two is bound to be of an unequal nature. The city of
God is intrinsically as timeless as God’s eternal love, a timelessness that is reflected inside
history itself. On the one hand, Cain is said to have founded a city. ‘‘Abel, on the other
hand, as a pilgrim, has not founded a city.For the City of the saints is up above, although
it produces citizens here below, and in their persons the City is on pilgrimage until the
time of its kingdom comes. At that time it will assemble all those citizens as they rise
again in their bodies; and then they will be given the promised kingdom, where with their
Prince, ‘the King of ages,’ they will reign, world without end.’’^18 At the same time, Cain’s
earthly city is not as clear-cut as the cruel and evil behavior of its founder would seem to
suggest, since at its best even that city, in its state of servitude and quest for freedom, can
be called a shadow of the eternal one: ‘‘a certain part of the earthly city is made an image
of the celestial city, not by signifying itself but by signifying the other city, and, therefore,
in servitude.’’^19 No wonder efforts have been made to fill up the space thus seemingly
created between a third city, in the guise of thesaeculum. This shadowland of factual life
is no substitute for a city, however. Nor is this shadow, in Platonic fashion, to be seen as
the reflection of an ideal state of affairs up there behind the screen. It is time that prevents
the city of God from materializing as a lesser copy of a fuller original: ‘‘For the develop-
ment of these two societies which form my subject lasts throughout this whole stretch of
time, or era, in which the dying yield place to the newly-born who succeed them.’’^20
History is presented not as ambiguous but as fathomless. No institutional extension, dura-
tion, or clarity exists where there is no guarantee of any clarity or durability of personal
or corporate identity. Augustine makes this abundantly clear in a passage in which time
is revealed to be utterly temporal (i.e., as not allowing for any extension), yet at the same
moment utterly entangled in the grip of eternity:
She [the city of God] must bear in mind that among these very enemies are hidden
her future citizens; and when confronted with them she must not think it a fruitless
task to bear with their hostility until she finds them confessing the faith. In the same
way, while the City of God is on pilgrimage in this world, she has in her midst some
who are united with her in participation, but will not join with her in the eternal
destiny of the saints. Some of these are hidden; some are well known, for they do not
hesitate to murmur against God, whose sacramental sign they bear, even in the com-
pany of his acknowledged enemies. At one time they join his enemies in filling the
theatres, at another they join us in filling the churches.^21PAGE 119119.................16224$ $CH3 10-13-06 12:34:22 PS