Christian History Home > Issue 67 > A Tale of Two Cities
A Tale of Two Cities
It's a shame about Rome, but wait—there's more! What a fifth-century critic might have said.
Martin A. Marty | posted 7/01/2000 12:00AM
De Civitate Dei
Aurelius Augustinus
A.D. 426
This book on "the City of God" should find a ready readership despite its heft—1,500 pages. This is a book "for the ages," but never more relevant than now.
It is a wonder that bestselling author (Confessiones) Bishop Augustine found time to work on this monument, the latest of his nearly 1,000 titles. And he accomplished all this while conscientiously attending to pastoral duties in the busy African port city of Hippo, a place crowded with refugees since Rome was sacked in 410!
That trauma in Rome hit Augustine so hard that he's been working on his response for over 13 years. The result is both impassioned and literate. The author, well-schooled in rhetoric, cites the major Roman authors along with Christian Scriptures as he displays both the zeal of the convert and the evidence of long hours in the study.
These may be "post-pagan" times, but pagan authors got a second wind after inhaling the smoke of burning Rome. Christian residents of the Eternal ... To view this item, you must be a member of ChristianHistory.net.
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