En savoir plus
Zusatztext "The human mind can understand truth only by thinking! as is clear from Augustine." --Saint Thomas Aquinas Informationen zum Autor Saint Augustine was one of those towering figures who so dominated his age that the age itself bears his name. The Age of Augustine was a time of transition, and Augustine was a genius of such stature that, according to Christopher Dawson, "he was, to a far greater degree than any emperor or general or barbarian warlord, a maker of history and a builder of the bridge which was to lead him from the old world to the new." He was the ablest religious thinker and controversialist at a period when theological controversy reached a level of intellectual refinement never achieved before or since. He was a tireless preacher and he wrote 118 treatises, including the most famous spiritual autobiography of all time, The Confessions . Of all these works, the one most prized by Augustine was his City of God , a veritable encyclopedia of information on the lives, thoughts and aspirations of ancient and early Christian man. Marcus Dods (1834–1909) was the Principal of New College in Edinburgh University. He translated Augustine's writings between 1872 and 1876. The Trappist monk Thomas Merton (1915–1968) remains one of the great spiritual figures of our time. He expressed his inner contemplations through his extensive written works, including poetry, letters and journals. His writings commonly deal with issues of social justice and spirituality. Klappentext One of the great cornerstones in the history of Christian philosophy, The City of God provides an insightful interpretation of the development of modern Western society and the origin of most Western thought. Contrasting earthly and heavenly cities--representing the omnipresent struggle between good and evil--Augustine explores human history in its relation to all eternity. In Thomas Merton's words, "The City of God is the autobiography of the Church written by the most Catholic of her great saints." This Modern Library Paperback Classics edition is a complete and unabridged version of the Marcus Dods translation. Leseprobe Introduction by Thomas Merton Here is a book that was written over fifteen hundred years ago by a mystic in North Africa. Yet to those who have ears to hear, it has a great deal to say to many of us who are not mystics, today, in America. The City of God is a monumental theology of history. It grew out of St. Augustine's meditations on the fall of the Roman Empire. But his analysis is timeless and universal. That is to say, it is Catholic in the etymological sense of the word. It is also Catholic in the sense that St. Augustine's view of history is the view held by the Catholic Church, and by all Catholic tradition since the Apostles. It is a theology of history built on revelation, developed above all from the inspired pages of St. Paul's Epistles and St. John's Apocalypse. To those who do not know St. Augustine, the figure of the great Bishop of Hippo (the modern name of the city is Bona) may seem quite remote. And to one who attempts to make his first acquaintance with Augustine by starting to read The City of God from the beginning without a guide, the saint may remain an unappealing personality and his book may appear to be nothing more than a maze of curious, ancient fancies. St. Augustine began to write this book three years after Rome first collapsed and opened its gates to a barbarian invader. Alaric and his Goths sacked the city in 410. Rome had been the inviolate mistress of the world for a thousand years. The fall of the city that some had thought would stand forever demoralized what was left of the civilized world. Those who still took the pagan gods seriously--and it seems they were not a few--looked about them for a scapegoat upon which to lay the guilt for this catastroph...
