The City of God (Selections)
Forthcoming The translation of this work is in preparation and will be published in the library.
Introduction
In AD 410 the Visigoths sacked Rome; the Eternal City fell to an enemy for the first time in eight hundred years, and the whole Mediterranean world was shaken. Pagans claimed it happened because the Romans had abandoned their ancient gods for Christ. Augustine answered with the twenty-two books of The City of God, written over thirteen years. Human history, he argues, is woven of two cities: the earthly city, built by 'love of self, even to contempt of God', and the city of God, built by 'love of God, even to contempt of self'. This volume translates the most important parts of a work that founded the Christian philosophy of history and shaped Western thinking on state and church, justice and peace for fifteen hundred years.