The City of God, Volume I

What It's About

Augustine began writing this work in 413, three years after the Visigoths sacked Rome — an event that left the Roman world in shock and led some to argue that Rome had fallen because it had abandoned its old gods for Christianity. This volume contains the first thirteen of the work's twenty-two books. The first ten form a sustained rebuttal of that charge: Augustine argues that Rome suffered plenty of disasters long before Christianity arrived, and that its pagan gods never protected it from them either. From Book XI onward, he turns to his larger project, tracing the origins of what he calls the two cities — the earthly city, built on self-love, and the City of God, built on love of God — back to the creation of the world, the fall of the rebel angels, and the fall of man.

Key Concepts

The doctrine of the two cities is the book's organising idea: two communities, one devoted to earthly glory and one to God, whose members are intermingled in this world but destined for entirely different ends. Alongside this, Augustine mounts a systematic critique of Roman polytheism, arguing that the pagan gods were morally inconsistent and powerless to secure either worldly happiness or Rome's safety. The volume closes with his account of Creation, the angels, and the Fall — laying the theological groundwork for the doctrine of original sin that runs through the rest of the work.

About the Author

Augustine of Hippo (354–430) was a bishop and theologian in Roman North Africa, born in Thagaste in the province of Numidia. Raised by a Christian mother and a pagan father, he spent years drawn to Manichaeism and Neoplatonism before his conversion to Christianity in 386. He became bishop of Hippo Regius in 396 and remained there until his death, during the Vandal siege of the city. He is regarded as one of the most influential of the Latin Church Fathers.

About This Edition

This is an 1871 translation by Marcus Dods.