The City of God
Augustine’s work in twenty-two books, begun after the Goths sacked Rome in 410, answering the charge that Christianity had ruined the empire and setting out the history of two cities, the earthly and the heavenly, from creation to the last judgment.
Read the text at newadvent.org ↗The same translation with one page per chapter (CCEL) ↗Latin text (The Latin Library) ↗
Augustine began the City of God about 413 and issued it in parts over some thirteen years. He explains its occasion himself: after Alaric’s Goths took Rome in 410, worshippers of the old gods blamed the disaster on the Christian religion. Books 1–10 reply that the gods had protected Rome neither in this life nor for the next. Books 11–22 describe the origin, the course and the appointed ends of two cities, which Augustine defines by what their citizens love (14.28).
It is a work of argument, not a chronicle. For the reaction to the sack of Rome and for the debate between Christians and pagans in the early fifth century Augustine is a contemporary witness. For the earlier history of Rome and of Israel he depends on the Bible and on writers such as Varro, Sallust and Livy, and he uses them to make a case. Above all it is evidence for what Augustine himself taught about creation, sin, history and the church.
Cited in
- undated
- undated
- about 1000 BC, traditional date
- c. 382–405, estimated date
- AD 390, estimated date
- August AD 410, firm date