In this passage, as a master of rhetoric, Augustine uses hyperbole to great effect. By adopting the voice of a typical Roman citizen, he skewers both the Roman deities and those who worship them. He also tellingly reveals one dark aspect of imperialism–the calloused disdain of the privileged for those beneath them. More broadly, here and throughout Book II, Augustine is examining the ways in which false worship distorts the worshipper. In Augustine’s logic worshippers become corrupt because the gods they worship are corrupt. Worship is formative and shapes the worshipper into the image of the thing worshipped.
As this passage shows, for Augustine what was ultimately disordered about Roman worship was that it was a means to an end. In other words, the worship was false not just because the gods themselves were false, but more importantly because the worship was offered as a way to secure some other thing, such as wealth, happiness, security, prosperity. The last line sums up this theology: “We should reckon the true gods to be those who see that the people get this happiness and then preserve it for them.” In other words, we will offer worship only to the extent that it benefits us. It is interesting on this count to see the ways in which Roman gods are in one sense simply personified versions of the thing desired–a god of war or reason, a goddess of love or wisdom. It is also interesting to note how many of the Greek and Roman myths narrate gods acting on their behalf to secure some thing desired.
This passage also reminds me of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, a book where the gods of the old world, the gods of mythology, roam the American landscape mostly as grifters and vagrants because they are no longer worshipped and are only vaguely remembered. They have been replaced by new gods, like television, media, celebrity, technology. And one of Gaiman’s points in writing, besides providing a vastly entertaining story and interesting world, is to show in which human worship is doled out in order to receive benefits. Old gods are traded for new gods when their are new benefits to be had.
Even if you aren’t religious in any way, I think it is instructive to take Augustine’s words and Gaiman’s story and think of how mercenary and fickle the human heart really is. Our affection is so fleeting. Our devotion so often given for selfish reasons. Why is that? Why do we have such a hard time remaining steadfast? It is also instructive to consider the inscrutable God of providence and Lord of history that Augustine commends and to wonder how it would shape and form us to worship Him.