True fathers

I have finally come to that part of the City of God where Augustine treats the life of the family within the city of God. Here he treats the responsibility of fathers in evangelism and discipline:

But those who are true fathers of their households desire and endeavor that all the members of their household, equally with their own children, should worship and win God, and should come to that heavenly home in which the duty of ruling men is no longer necessary, because the duty of caring for their everlasting happiness has also ceased; but until they reach that home, masters ought to feel their position of authority a greater burden than servants in their house. And if any member of the family interrupts the domestic peace by disobedience, he is corrected either by word or blow, or some other kind of just and legitimate punishment, such as society permits, that he may himself be the better for it, and be readjusted to the family harmony from which had dislocated himself. For as it is not benevolent to give a man help at the expense of some greater benefit he might receive, so it is not innocent to spare a man at the risk of his falling into graver sin. To be innocent, we must not only do harm to no man, but also restrain him from sin or punish his sin, so that either the man himself who is punished may profit by his experience, or others be warned by his example. (Augustine City of God p695)

The great responsibility of the father is to seek that his family may worship and win God (by grace through faith), and become citizens of the eternal city. It is to that end that he disciplines: to restrain those in his household from sin, to warn others by example, and to spare them from falling into graver sin. He rightly sees that disobedience 'dislocates' the offender from the harmony of the family and must be 'readjusted to the family' through appropriate correction. Discipline is not penal (although he does use the word punishment), but corrective and restorative "that the man himself who is punished may profit by his experience" not just as a citizen of this earthly city, but as a citizen of the eternal city.