City of God 1, Books 1-3

by Augustine of Hippo

Augustinus (354-430 CE), son of a pagan, Patricius of Tagaste in North Africa, and his Christian wife Monica, while studying in Africa to become a rhetorician, plunged into a turmoil of philosophical and psychological doubts in search of truth, joining for a time the Manichaean society. He became a teacher of grammar at Tagaste, and lived much under the influence of his mother and his friend Alypius. About 383 he went to Rome and soon after to Milan as a teacher of rhetoric, being now attracted by the philosophy of the Sceptics and of the Neo-Platonists. His studies of Paul's letters with Alypius and the preaching of Bishop Ambrose led in 386 to his rejection of all sensual habits and to his famous conversion from mixed beliefs to Christianity. He returned to Tagaste and there founded a religious community. In 395 or 396 he became Bishop of Hippo, and was henceforth engrossed with duties, writing and controversy. He died at Hippo during the successful siege by the Vandals.

From Augustine's large output the Loeb Classical Library offers that great autobiography the Confessions (in two volumes); On the City of God (seven volumes), which unfolds God's action in the progress of the world's history, and propounds the superiority of Christian beliefs over pagan in adversity; and a selection of Letters which are important for the study of ecclesiastical history and Augustine's relations with other theologians.

496 pages, cloth

Published January 1, 1957

About the author

Early church father and philosopher Saint Augustine served from 396 as the bishop of Hippo in present-day Algeria and through such writings as the autobiographical Confessions in 397 and the voluminous City of God from 413 to 426 profoundly influenced Christianity, argued against Manichaeism and Donatism, and helped to establish the doctrine of original sin.

An Augustinian follows the principles and doctrines of Saint Augustine.

People also know Aurelius Augustinus in English of Regius (Annaba). From the Africa province of the Roman Empire, people generally consider this Latin theologian of the greatest thinkers of all times. He very developed the west. According to Jerome, a contemporary, Augustine renewed "the ancient Faith."

The Neo-Platonism of Plotinus afterward heavily weighed his years. After conversion and his baptism in 387, Augustine developed his own approach to theology and accommodated a variety of methods and different perspectives. He believed in the indispensable grace to human freedom and framed the concept of just war. When the Western Roman Empire started to disintegrate from the material earth, Augustine developed the concept of the distinct Catholic spirituality in a book of the same name. He thought the medieval worldview. Augustine closely identified with the community that worshiped the Trinity. The Catholics and the Anglican communion revere this preeminent doctor. Many Protestants, especially Calvinists, consider his due teaching on salvation and divine grace of the theology of the Reformation. The Eastern Orthodox also consider him. He carries the additional title of blessed. The Orthodox call him "Blessed Augustine" or "Saint Augustine the Blessed."

Santo Agostinho

Reviews

[Stewart Lindstrom]

Chilling, eloquent, beautiful, and frankly terrifying, the first 3 books of St. Augustine's magnum opus provide a peek at one of the greatest fulcrum points in human history, the strange transition between paganism and Christianity becoming the official religion of Rome. Augustine begins by systematically dismantling Roman polytheism and then falls into a grisly account of the horrors Rome witnessed during the Punic Wars and the subsequent Civil Wars. This is not for the faint of heart.

St. Augustine must be re-read, I'm finding. It is only on this my second read of City of God that I'm managing to retain details.

[Sean Harding]

This is the sort of book you see clever and helpful quotes from when you are reading other books, bit when you read it yourself, you never see these quotes because the book itself is very difficult to read and just becomes a slog to get through.
Some good moments but very difficult.

[Austin Anthony]

Dense

[jon]

Quite the survey of Roman history from a Roman educated provincial orator and then (of that time) early Christian viewpoint (apology).

[Jacob Andrews]

Read/listened in Marcus Dods translation.