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Classics

The City of God

St. Augustine of Hippo

Augustine defends Christianity after the sack of Rome by tracing two cities through history: one ordered by self-love, the other by the love of God. The work examines empire, worship, and the hope of eternal peace.

Dods translation

Translated by Marcus Dods

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English of 1871; NPNF reprint.

Public domain. Modern study editions such as Dyson and Bettenson remain copyrighted.

About this book

The City of God is Augustine's long defense of Christianity after the sack of Rome in 410. Pagans blamed the new religion for the city's humiliation; Augustine answers by retelling Roman history, examining the old gods, and then tracing two societies through Scripture: the earthly city, ordered by self-love, and the city of God, ordered by the love of God. The twenty-two books move from controversy and Roman religion toward creation, the two cities' histories, and the last things. Scripture, philosophy, and civic memory stay in conversation rather than being separated into independent treatises.

The work shaped later Christian thinking about history, politics, and the hope of the resurrection. It is not a brief essay on church and state; its force comes from the patience with which Augustine tests claims about happiness, fate, demons, and empire against the biblical story. Readers often begin with the opening books' reply to Rome's critics, then find the later books' account of the two cities more constructive. Keep the whole arc in view: the early dismantling of pagan theology prepares the later claim that true peace is not secured by the gods of the earthly city. The chapter arguments in this English edition are a useful map through a very large book.

Author & background

Augustine (354–430) was bishop of Hippo in Roman North Africa when he wrote The City of God, working on it from about 413 to 426. The book belongs to his later public ministry rather than to the remembered youth of Confessions. He writes as a pastor responsible for a frightened Christian community, and as a former teacher of rhetoric answering educated pagan criticism. That combination gives the work both its range and its heat: Roman history, philosophy, and Scripture are brought to bear on a civic disaster whose meaning was being contested in his own lifetime.

Contents

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  1. City of God