The City of God

Information about The City of God

“City of God” redirects here. For other uses, see City of God (disambiguation).
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The City of God, opening text, created c. 1470
The City of God (Latin: De Civitate Dei, also known as De Civitate Dei contra Paganos: The City of God against the Pagans) is a book written in Latin by Augustine of Hippo in the early 5th century, dealing with issues concerning God, martyrdom, Jews, and other Christian philosophies.

Augustine wrote the treatise to explain Christianity's relationship with competing religions and philosophies, and to the Roman government with which it was increasingly intertwined. It was written soon after Rome was sacked by the Visigoths in 410. This event left Romans in a deep state of shock, and many saw it as punishment for abandoning their pagan religion. It was in this atmosphere that Augustine set out to provide a consolation of Christianity, writing that it was the City of God that would ultimately triumph — symbolically, Augustine's eyes were fixed on heaven, a theme repeated in many Late Antiquity Christian art forms.

Despite Christianity's designation as the official religion of the empire, Augustine declared its message to be spiritual rather than political. Christianity, he argued, should be concerned with the mystical, heavenly City of Jerusalem (the New Jerusalem) rather than with Earthly politics. His theology supported and even helped to define the separation of Church and State that characterized Western European politics through the Middle Ages and beyond (unlike the Byzantine East where Earthly politics and spiritual affairs were one and the same institution).

The book presents human history as being a conflict between what Augustine calls the City of Man and the City of God (a conflict that is destined to end in victory of the latter). The City of God is marked by people who forgo earthly pleasure and dedicate themselves to the promotion of Christian values. The City of Man, on the other hand, consists of people who have strayed from the City of God. The two cities are not meant to represent any actual places or organizations, though Augustine clearly thought that the Christian Church was at the heart of the City of God.

While the book is framed by discussion of these themes, it is largely made up of various digressions on philosophical subjects and presentations of flaws in pagan religions upon which Augustine wished to comment.'''

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Text of The City of God
Texts about The City of God
City of God may refer to:
  • The City of God, a 5th century book by Augustine of Hippo.
  • City of God (novel), a 1997 novel by Paulo Lins.
  • Cidade de Deus ("City of God"), a slum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

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Latin}}} 
Official status
Official language of: Vatican City
Used for official purposes, but not spoken in everyday speech
Regulated by: Opus Fundatum Latinitas
Roman Catholic Church
Language codes
ISO 639-1: la
ISO 639-2: lat
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Latin}}} 
Official status
Official language of: Vatican City
Used for official purposes, but not spoken in everyday speech
Regulated by: Opus Fundatum Latinitas
Roman Catholic Church
Language codes
ISO 639-1: la
ISO 639-2: lat
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Aurelius Augustinus, Augustine of Hippo, or Saint Augustine (November 13, 354 – August 28, 430) was a philosopher and theologian, and was bishop of the North African city of Hippo Regius for the last third of his life.
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The 5th century is the period from 401 to 500 in accordance with the Julian calendar in Anno Domini, the year of our Lord.

Overview

The Western Roman Empire is ruled by a succession of weak emperors, and true power falls increasingly into the hands of powerful generals.
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God

General approaches
Agnosticism Atheism
Deism Dystheism
Henotheism Ignosticism
Monism Monotheism
Natural theology Nontheism
Pandeism Panentheism
Pantheism Polytheism
Theism Theology
Transtheism
Specific conceptions
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martyr (Greek μάρτυς "witness") initially signified a witness in the forensic sense, a person called to bear witness in legal proceedings. With this meaning it was used in the secular sphere as well as in both the Old Testament and the New Testament of
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Historical Jewish languages
Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino, others
Liturgical languages:
Hebrew and Aramaic
Predominant spoken languages:
The vernacular language of the home nation in the Diaspora, significantly including English, Hebrew, Yiddish, and
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Christianity

Foundations
Jesus Christ
Church Theology
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Dispensationalism
Apostles Kingdom Gospel
History of Christianity Timeline
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Books Canon Apocrypha
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Philosophy is the discipline concerned with questions of how one should live (ethics); what sorts of things exist and what are their essential natures (metaphysics); what counts as genuine knowledge (epistemology); and what are the correct principles of reasoning (logic).
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The Roman Empire is the name given to both the imperial domain developed by the city-state of Rome and also the corresponding phase of that civilization, characterized by an autocratic form of government. This article however is about the latter.
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Sack of Rome occurred on August 24, 410. The city was attacked by the Visigoths, led by Alaric I. The Roman capital had been moved to the Italian city of Ravenna by the young emperor Honorius, after the Visigoths entered Italy.
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The Visigoths (Western Goths) were one of two main branches of the Goths, an East Germanic tribe (the Ostrogoths being the other). Together these tribes were among the loosely-termed Germanic peoples who disturbed the late Roman Empire during the Migration Period.
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5th century · 6th century
380s 390s 400s 410s 420s 430s 440s
407 408 409 410 411 412 413
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Roman mythology, the mythological beliefs of the people of Ancient Rome, can be considered as having two parts. One part, largely later and literary, consists of whole-cloth borrowings from Greek mythology.
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Heaven may refer to the physical heavens, the sky or the seemingly endless expanse of the universe beyond. However, the term is often used to refer to a plane of existence (sometimes held to exist in our own universe) in religions and spiritual philosophies, typically described as
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Jerusalem (Hebrew: יְרוּשָׁלַיִם   (help info ) , Yerushaláyim; Arabic:
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New Jerusalem (also called the tabernacle of God, holy city, city of God, celestial city, and heavenly Jerusalem, as well as Jerusalem above and Zion
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The relationship between church and state during the medieval period went through a number of developments, roughly from the end of the Roman Empire through to the beginning of the Reformation.
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Middle Ages form the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three "ages": the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages and Modern Times.
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Byzantine Empire or Byzantium is the term conventionally used since the 19th century to describe the Greek-speaking Roman Empire of the Middle Ages, centered on its capital of Constantinople.
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History is the study of the past, focused on human activity and leading up to the present day.[1] More precisely, history is the continuous, systematic narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race [1]
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Conflict thesis is the theoretical premise of an intrinsic conflict between science and religion. The term was originally used in an historical context: its proponents claim the historical record is evidence of religion's perpetual opposition to science.
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Marcus Dods (April 11, 1834 - April 26, 1909) was a Scottish divine and biblical scholar. He was born at Belford, Northumberland, the youngest son of Rev. Marcus Dods, minister of the Scottish church of that town.
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The Latin Library is a website that collects public domain Latin texts. The texts have been drawn from different sources. Many were originally scanned and formatted from texts in the Public Domain.
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