Talk:The City of God

message: The City of God is one on Augustine's most significant works (together with certainly The Confessions and On Christian Doctrine, and perhaps On The Trinity)and is far more important than this article suggests. It includes major doctrinal discussions such as Original Sin, the Christian view of The Supreme Good, the Nature of Angels, amongst others. Since Augustine was undoubtedly the most important Christian apologist and philosopher until at least Thomas Aquinas, the significance of his principle works on the doctrines of the Church should be clearer. Agilberttx (talk) 19:34, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed.  WP:BB.  We'll all look forward to your edits. Llamabr (talk) 00:14, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

text: Agreed.  This article is truly terrible.  Example: the final paragraph of the opening section which alleges that Augustinian dualism is entirely a result of Manicheanism, and then cites the entry for Manicheanism in the Free Dictionary.  That violates, surely, Wikipedia standards "no original research."  This article desperately needs attention from an expert, still, six years after this section "Weak Article" was edited.  Moving this section to the top.  Matthew Baldwin (talk) 13:50, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Weak Article 

message: -- sometimes titled The City of God Against the Pagans  Sometimes, indeed! If anyone can find an edition with such a title on the titlepage, by all means return it to the entry, with its reference. Whoever wrote this stub has never handled a copy of this book. Wetman 08:55, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  Mine does. Penguin Classics Edition.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.43.227.18 (talk) 06:27, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

text: Maybe the author of the stub used the Cambridge University Press   edition (ISBN-10: 0521468434 | ISBN-13: 9780521468435). Burschik 09:47, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Against the Pagans

message: The proper name is without the "The" -- it is a Latin text, the is not used. And, the majority of articles link to it without the the. Stbalbach 01:29, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It isn't a Latin text, it's an English title; the English title is always given with the article, thus Wikipedia policy is to use the article. Mel Etitis  (Μελ Ετητης) 09:11, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: I should add that the fact that articles have links without the article isn't significant (their authors would usually link to the version of the title that existed) — a point borne out by the fact that most of them had incorrect links to Augustine (either Augustine ot St Augustine).  Some used the articleless link but piped to the version with an article.  Others were in fact trying to link to a novel by Doctorow called "City of God" (or to an episode of Buck Rogers); I've changed all these, I think. Mel Etitis  (Μελ Ετητης) 09:26, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The English title is not always precendent, see Magna Carta versus "The Great Charter" for example, it's based on popularity. I based my reasoning on the article not being used for latin names, as in "The Magna Carta" (a mixture of english and latin which is improper since Latin has no "the"), but now that I think of it, a pure English translation of De Civitate Dei would have the article, and the English version is how it is most well known. I agree with the rename. Stbalbach 14:48, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text:  I'm not sure where you got the idea that the English title is always given with the article.  I did a search on amazon.com and while there are copies of the book with the article it seems the majority are without it.  I think we should move this page to City of God.--Lairor 22:58, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article rename with no discussion 

message: "the separation of Church and State that characterized Western European politics through the Middle Ages and beyond."
I can't for the life of me see the sense of that statement. How so?
:The Catholic Church and monarchs were in constant power conflicts throughout the Middle Ages. Unlike for example in the East where the Church and the state government were one and the same thing. Stbalbach 15:47, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Query 

message: #The use 4-dashes at the top of the article is non-standard. It's just not done. See any other article for example.
#The "looking upward to heaven" motif is common knowledge to anyone who has studied Late Antiquity. See academic source on Christian Art or the works of Peter Brown.
#The word "Despite" is loaded with meaning, it implies a value judgement. "Although" is more neutral.
--Stbalbach 00:11, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edits 

message: User:143.109.58.84 has written information about the movie City of God in the article. I have reverted it and copied the text to Talk:City of God (movie). JoaoRicardotalk  05:37, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edit about the film 

message: I removed the link to New Advent for a few reasons.  Most importantly it is the same translation as the other link.  It also has adds on New Advent and isn't well footnoted like the other edition is.  It's just a duplicate but not as good.  I commented it out since I know that New Advent is reliable in not being offline... I'm not sure about the other source.  If it goes offline then the New Advent source becomes important again. gren グレン ? 04:18, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links 

message: I found this discussion from a 'Requests for comment' subpage.  If you intend to consolidate multiple lines of discussion at another place than this, I would suggest removing or changing the entry on that page.
Regards, User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 23:43, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reference to this discussion from [[Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Style issues]] 

message: His theology supported and even helped to define the separation of Church and State that characterized part of the Western European politics through the Middle Ages and beyond. One notable exception were the Papal States in Italy, today downsized to the State of Vatican, ruled directly by the Holy See of the Roman Catholic Church. Moreover, throughout the Middle Age the Pope claimed the right to depose the Catholic kings of Western Europe and tried fruitlessly to exercise it, such as was the case with Henry VIII of England and Henry III of Navarre"Delineation of Roman Catholicism: Drawn from the authentic and acknowledged standards of the Church of Rome", by Charles Elliott, 1877 edition, pages 165 and 166.
Excuse me if I feel a tad skeptical that any of the Church Fathers genuinely advocated the separation of Church and State. My reading of this passage is that it's one POV followed by an equal and opposite POV. FilipeS (talk) 15:49, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Feel free to explain why. There's no immediate reason why it should be so, the addition of free-spirited thinkers to the roster veritably constituting, if nothing else, a boost to credibility, do you not think?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.215.235.141 (talk) 22:32, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

text: Yeah, there is no source for the first sentence, which is certainly the most important of the piece. Remove it? Carl.bunderson (talk) 20:03, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

text: Yeah, let's. The person who added it was...interesting; it was adversus hereticos. Carl.bunderson (talk) 20:16, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

text: Did it. Carl.bunderson (talk) 21:26, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Separation of Church and State

message: The way this article reads, you'd think James O'Donnell had written it...  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.242.227.32 (talk) 18:56, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Ever Lurking O'Donnell 

message: I moved The City of God to The City of God (book) and made City of God the disambig page. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 06:41, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: move?

message: Anthony, it seems to me that there was some degree of agreement that its called "City of God" more than "The City of God"; no-one really supported maintaining the "the". Compare a google scholar search for ""city of god" augustine" (10900) vs ""the city of god" augustine" (6780). Any chance you'd move this to City of God (book)? carl.bunderson (talk) (contributions) 16:17, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Move

message: :It was in this atmosphere that Augustine set out to provide a consolation of Christianity, writing that, even if the earthly rule of the empire was imperilled, it was the City of God that would ultimately triumph — symbolically, Augustine's eyes were fixed on heaven, a theme repeated in many Christian works of Late Antiquity.
One may not believe in heaven one's self, but I think it's pretty clear that Augustine believed that heaven was rather more a mere symbol. I'm removing this word and properly spelling "imperilled."
Also, the article could well use an outline or overview of the contents of the various books of the work. JKeck (talk) 13:45, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Symbolically"? Outline Needed 

message: We had bizarre comments about Augustine writing "right after" the Edict of Milan and the First Council of Nicaea, both a long lifetime in Augustine's past. And we had some quotations from a number of literary figures who were quoted or referred to in De Civitata Dei. None made the article any better and I have removed them all.  Richard Keatinge (talk) 09:54, 10 June 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bizarre and ill-referenced comments under Importance to Historiography, now removed 

message: I got rid of the paragraph on Manichaeaism in the background section of this article. The claims that the paragraph makes seem to be based off original research: it is certainly not explicitly stated in the text, there are no citations to scholarly research that support this idea, the idea is not universally supported, and its truth is debatable. The fact that the work contrasts good and evil (and even if we consider that Augustine was previously believed in Manichaeaism) does not imply that the work was influenced by Manichaeaism, which makes much stronger claims about good and evil. This does not mean, of course, that the paragraph is false; however, citation is needed, and as it stands, the paragraph is misleading. 65.112.10.51 (talk) 15:23, 8 September 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Manichaeaism 

message: My translation is Tkacz/Kries, but isn't listed here? 98.197.147.187 (talk) 05:14, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Translation not listed??