Work · Hellenistic, Roman & Late Antique
The City of God (De civitate Dei)
World history as the struggle of two realms: the earthly and the heavenly city.
Introduction
Augustine wrote the 22 books between 413 and 426. The occasion was the sack of Rome by the Visigoths under Alaric in 410, which pagans blamed on the abandonment of the old gods. Books I–X refute this charge and criticise Roman religion and Platonist philosophy; Books XI–XXII tell the origin, course and end of the two cities. They are formed, Augustine writes, by two loves: love of self to the point of contempt for God, and love of God to the point of contempt for self. The two cities are mixed together in history and will only be separated at the Last Judgement. The work became a basic text of Christian philosophy of history and political thought.
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Connections
Criticizes
- On the Republicc. 51 BCE · Cicero
Taken up in
- The Book of the City of Ladies1405 · Christine de Pizan
- Meditations on First Philosophy1641 · René Descartes
More works by Augustine
- c. 400Confessions
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