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Zusatztext "The human mind can understand truth only by thinking! as is clear from Augustine." – Saint Thomas Aquinas Informationen zum Autor Saint Augustine Klappentext No book except the Bible itself had a greater influence on the Middle Ages than City of God. Since medieval Europe was the cradle of today's Western civilization, this work by consequence is vital for understanding our world and how it came into being. Saint Augustine is often regardarded as the most influential Christian thinker after Saint Paul, and City of God is his materpiece, a cast synthesis of religious and secular knowledge. It began as a reply to the charge that Christian otherworldiness was causing the decline of the Roman Empire. Augustine produced a wealth of evidence to prove that paganism bore within itself the seeds of its own destruction. Then he proceeded to his larger theme, a cosmic interpretation of in terms of the struggle between good and evilL the City of God in conflict with the Earthly City or the City of the Devil. This, the first serious attempt at a philosophy of history, was to have incalculable influence in forming the Western mind on the relations of church and state, and on the Christian's place in the temporal order. The original City of God contained twenty-two books and filles three regular-sized volumes. This edition has been skillfully abridged for the intelligent general reader by Vernon J. Bourke, author of Augustine's Quest for Wisdom, making the heart of this monumental work available to a wide audience.Part One The Pagan Gods and Earthly Happiness Book I Christianity Did Not Cause the Fall of Rome Preface M y dear marcellinus:1 This work which I have begun makes good my promise to you. In it I am undertaking noth-ing less than the task of defending the glorious City of God against those who prefer their own gods to its Founder. I shall consider it both in its temporal stage here below (where it journeys as a pilgrim among sinners and lives by faith) and as solidly established in its eternal abode—that blessed goal for which we patiently hope ‘until justice 1 Marcellinus, fervent Christian and, until his death in Septem-ber, 413, close friend of St. Augustine, was appointed by the Emperor Honoring (395–423) as a Commissioner to deal with the dispute between Catholics and Donatists in North Africa. Eager for the conversion of the pagan but well-disposed imperial pro-consul, Volusianus, he sought the help of Augustine and was thus the occasion for the correspondence between the proconsul and the saint which still survives and throws much light on the begin-nings of the City of God. St. Augustine began in 412 ( and finished in 415) the first five Books which, as he tells us in his Retractations (chap. 69), were meant as a refutation of the pagan position that polytheism is necessary for social prosperity and that the prohibi-tion of pagan worship ‘is the source of many calamities.’ be turned into judgment,’2 but which, one day, is to be the reward of excellence in a final victory and a perfect peace. The task, I realize, is a high and hard one, but God will help me.3 I know, of course, what ingenuity and force of arguments are needed to convince proud men of the power of humility. Its loftiness is above the pinnacles of earthly greatness which are shaken by the shifting winds of time—not by reason of hu-man arrogance, but only by the grace of God. For, in Holy Scripture, the King and Founder of the City of which I have undertaken to speak revealed to His people the judgment of divine law: ‘God resisteth the proud and giveth grace to the humble.’4 Unfortunately the swollen spirit of human pride claims for itself this high prerogative, which belongs to God alone, and longs and loves to hear repeated in its own praise the line: ‘To be merciful to the conquered and beat the haughty down.’5 He...
