Grief in exile and the City of God: Reading Ezekiel with Augustine

Abstract

There are many points of comparison between Ezekiel, writing in grief over the loss of his beloved Jerusalem and its temple, and Augustine, writing the City of God in grief over the devastation of his beloved Rome. This comparison gives us greater understanding of the heart, context, immediate audience and purpose of each writer. In addition, we discover that many idiosyncratic features of the book of Ezekiel may well be more fitting than we have realized for a grief-stricken community. Ezekiel, like Augustine, is not interested in merely comforting people in grief but in leading them forward, to take their eyes away from an earthly city to a future, eternal divine city.