The City of God, Volume I
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text · 1 illegible passages, excluded from answers
- Extent:
- ~230,000 words · 1,078 passages
Cite this work
- APAAugustine. (n.d.). The City of God, Volume I. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/augustine/the-city-of-god-volume-i
- MLAAugustine. "The City of God, Volume I." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/augustine/the-city-of-god-volume-i.
- ChicagoAugustine. The City of God, Volume I. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/augustine/the-city-of-god-volume-i.
What it is about
The first half of the City of God: the refutation of the old gods and of the idea that abandoning them had ruined Rome.
Context and history
Augustine began it in 413, three years after the Goths sacked Rome. The charge going about was that the city had fallen because it had turned Christian, and the book was born to answer it; hence the first part is polemical and historical before it is theological. He worked at it for thirteen years and it ran to twenty-two books. The division into two volumes belongs to the edition.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
AUGUSTINE CENSURES THE PAGANS, WHO ATTRIBUTED THE CALAMITIES OF THE WORLD, AND ESPECIALLY THE RECENT SACK OF ROME BY THE GOTHS, TO THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, AND ITS PROHIBITION OF THE WORSHIP OF THE GODS. HE SPEAKS OF THE BLESSINGS AND ILLS OF LIFE, WHICH THEN, AS ALWAYS, HAPPENED TO GOOD AND BAD MEN ALIKE. FINALLY, HE REBUKES THE SHAMELESSNESS OF THOSE WHO CAST UP TO THE CHRISTIANS THAT THEIR WOMEN HAD BEEN VIOLATED BY THE SOLDIERS. PREFACE, EXPLAINING HIS DESIGN IN UNDERTAKING THIS WORK. The glorious city of God is my theme in this work, which you, my dearest son Marcellinus,[25] suggested, and which is due to you by my promise. I have undertaken its defence against those who prefer their own gods to the Founder of this city,--a city surpassingly glorious, whether we view it as it still lives by faith in this fleeting course of time, and sojourns as a stranger in the midst of the ungodly, or as it shall dwell in the fixed stability of its eternal seat, which it now with patience waits for, expecting until "righteousness shall return unto judgment,"[26] and it obtain, by virtue of its excellence, final victory and perfect peace. A great work this, and an arduous; but God is my helper. For I am aware what ability is requisite to persuade the proud how great is the virtue of humility, which raises us, not by a quite human arrogance, but by a divine grace, above all earthly dignities that totter on this shifting scene. For the King and Founder of this city of which we speak, has in Scripture uttered to His people a dictum of the divine law in these words: "God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble."[27] But this, which is God's prerogative, the inflated ambition of a proud spirit also affects, and dearly loves that this be numbered among its attributes, to "Show pity to the humbled soul, And crush the sons of pride."[28] And therefore, as the plan of this work we have undertaken requires, and as occasion offer
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