description: No book except the Bible itself had a greater influence on the Middle Ages than The City of God. As medieval Europe was the cradle of modern Western society, this work is vital for understanding our world &amp; how it came into being.  Augustine may be the most influential Christian thinker after Paul. This is his masterpiece, a vast synthesis of religious &amp; secular knowledge. It began as a reply to the charge that Christian other-worldliness 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 history in terms of the struggle between good &amp; evil: 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. The City of God contained 22 books, filling 3 regular-sized volumes. 	Augustine censures the pagans, who attributed the calamities of the world &amp; especially the sack of Rome by the Goths to the Christian religion &amp; its prohibition of the worship of the gods Review of the calamities suffered by the Romans before the time of Christ, showing that their gods had plunged them into corruption &amp; viceExternal calamities of Rome That empire was given to Rome not by the gods, but by the one true godOf fate, freewill, God's prescience &amp; of the source of the virtues of the ancient Romans Of Varro's 3fold division of theology, &amp; of the inability of the gods to contribute anything to the happiness of the future lifeOf the "select gods" of the civil theology, &amp; that eternal life is not obtained by worshipping them Some account of the Socratic &amp; Platonic philosophy &amp; a refutation of the doctrine of Apuleius that the demons should be worshipped as mediators between gods &amp; menOf those who allege a distinction among demons, some being good &amp; others evil Porphyry's doctrine of redemption Augustine passes to the 2nd part of the work, in which the origin, progress &amp; destinies of the earthly &amp; heavenly cities are discussedSpeculations regarding the creation of the world Of the creation of angels &amp; men, &amp; of the origin of evilThat death is penal &amp; had its origin in Adam's sin Of the punishment &amp; results of man's first sin, &amp; of the propagation of man w/out lust Progress of the earthly &amp; heavenly cities traced by the sacred history History of the city of God from Noah to the time of the kings of Israel History of the city of God from the times of the prophets to Christ Parallel history of the earthly &amp; heavenly cities from the time of Abraham to the end of the world Review of the philosophical opinions regarding the supreme good, &amp; a comparison of these opinions with the Christian belief regarding happiness Of the last judgment, &amp; the declarations regarding it in the Old &amp; New Testaments Of the eternal punishment of the wicked in hell &amp; of the various objections urged against it Of eternal happiness of the saints, the resurrection of the body &amp; the miracles of the early church
language: English
title: The City of God
titlecomplete: The City of God (Modern Library Classics)
genres: Faith, Religion, Catholic, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Classics, Theology, Christian, History, Christianity
ratings_count: 12382
publisher: Turtleback Books/Demco Media distribution