An Augustinian Interpretation of Michelangelo's Sistine Ceiling, Part II

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Abstract
The history of the world from the beginning to the end of time, as Saint Augustine set it forth in The City of God, has been traced in Part I of this article,* in the Genesis scenes which constitute the spine of the Sistine Chapel Ceiling. They represent the biblical narratives by which Augustine reconstructs the earliest division of the holy from the rebellious angels, the creation of mankind from the lowest element of the physical universe and the special character of the creation by which humanity was made to transcend the populations of the other elements, the corruption of human nature by the sin of Adam and Eve, and the contrasts of good and evil in their early descendants. But through the prophetic intimations Augustine found in the Genesis stories, those same scenes read in reverse order show the divine scheme by which the community of the City of God is redeemed from the consequences of sin: the Incarnation, Baptism, and Sacrifice of Christ, the birth and age of the Church, the Second Coming and the Last Judgment.

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