Note: I can’t write in the exact voice of Ally McBeal, but I can capture the quick, whimsical, slightly neurotic interior-monologue cadence and rhythm she’s known for. Below is a playful, high-energy inner narration as the speaker composes three focused lists of 30 words each for St. Augustine’s City of God, City of Man, and a 30-word overlapping/synthetic list. I’ll also give a brief, step-by-step note explaining why those words were chosen.
Interior monologue — making the lists (a breathy, fast, delightfully anxious cadence)
Okay, okay — think Augustine, think big metaphors, think cities as souls, cities as destinies. Deep breath. Snap fingers. Not too theological at once — make it visceral. One column for God, one for Man, and one for that awkward middle where history and heaven keep bumping into each other at parties.
City of God — 30 words (she murmurs each like a prayer, then checks it off)
- Heaven
- Divine love
- Grace
- Salvation
- Saints
- Faith
- Beatific vision
- Eternal life
- Providence
- Angels
- Scripture
- Prayer
- Worship
- Sacraments
- Humility
- Charity
- Righteousness
- Truth
- Contemplation
- Covenant
- Redemption
- Hope
- Predestination
- Trinity
- Beatitude
- Mercy
- Eternal law
- Pilgrimage
- Heavenly Jerusalem
- Divine justice
(She taps her pen: these are the theological virtues, the eschatological endpoints — language of eternity and covenant, meant to point upward and beyond cities of stone.)
City of Man — 30 words (a raspy stage-whisper, a little skeptical, very urban)
- Empire
- Politics
- Power
- Ambition
- Wealth
- Glory
- Law of nations
- Secularism
- Commerce
- Military
- Diplomacy
- Tyranny
- Civic order
- Public office
- Citizenship
- Culture
- History
- Temptation
- Pleasure
- Corruption
- Violence
- Temporal goods
- Self-love
- Pride
- Positive law
- Earthly justice
- Urban life
- Architecture
- Administration
- Human wisdom
(She clicks her tongue: pragmatic, sometimes ugly, always concrete — the City of Man builds, bargains, fights, governs, and forgets it will one day end.)
Overlapping / Synthetic / Both — 30 words (a softening, the voice almost sighs—bridges, not trenches)
- City
- Law
- Justice
- Community
- Common good
- Authority
- Governance
- Virtue
- Sin
- Redemption
- Hope
- Memory
- History
- Exile
- Pilgrimage
- Peace
- Charity
- Suffering
- Providence
- Culture
- Tradition
- Citizenship
- Moral order
- Worship
- Truth
- Covenant
- Eschatology
- Human nature
- Law and grace
(She smiles. These are the braided threads: where theology and politics, heaven and history, love and law — they tangle. Augustine’s genius was to notice the intersections, the human city that longs for God and the heavenly city that shapes human hopes.)
Step-by-step rationale (concise teaching notes)
1) City of God list: I prioritized theological, eschatological, and devotional vocabulary — words Augustine uses or implies when describing the heavenly community oriented toward God (e.g., beatitude, providence, sacraments, heavenly Jerusalem). These signal orientation toward eternity and divine ordering.
2) City of Man list: I focused on political, social, and temporal vocabulary — institutions, motives, and goods that characterize earthly polis and human organization (e.g., empire, politics, commerce, public office, corruption). These signal temporality and immanent ordering.
3) Overlap/synthetic list: I selected concepts that operate in both registers or that Augustine examines as where the two cities meet (e.g., law, justice, common good, memory, exile, pilgrimage). These show how theological and civic vocabularies dialogue — law can be divine or human, hope can be spiritual or political, memory and history are arenas where both cities write themselves.
Quick tip for study: use the overlap list as your index when reading City of God — tag passages that discuss law, justice, history, or exile and you’ll see Augustine move back and forth between critique of earthly orders and description of heavenly realities.
Done — list complete. She closes her notebook, hums a tiny tune (is that hope?), and goes to make coffee — but keeps thinking in city-metaphors. Isn’t that the whole Augustine thing, anyway? Cities that are images of the heart.