Augustine's City of God
A Critical Guide

This volume addresses the complex and conflicted vision in Augustine's City of God, as a heavenly city on earthly pilgrimage.

James Wetzel (Edited by)

9781107463189, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 6 November 2014

280 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.38 kg

'It has to be said, I think, that the consequence of the fine web of detail in the essays means that this is not a book which is likely to serve any but the most able and ambitious of undergraduate students, or more probably a postgraduate class. But for such a group, this book vindicates Wetzel's assertion that Augustine's 'antithesis - two cities, two loves, two ends - can still challenge the parodies that we would make of them'.' Studies in Christian Ethics

Augustine's City of God has profoundly influenced the course of Western political philosophy, but there are few guides to its labyrinthine argumentation that hold together the delicate interplay of religion and philosophy in Augustine's thought. The essays in this volume offer a rich examination of those themes, using the central, contested distinction between a heavenly city on earthly pilgrimage and an earthly city bound for perdition to elaborate aspects of Augustine's political and moral vision. Topics discussed include Augustine's notion of the secular, his critique of pagan virtue, his departure from classical eudaimonism, his mythology of sin, his dystopian politics, his surprising attention to female bodies, his moral psychology, his valorisation of love, his critique of empire and his conception of a Christian philosophy. Together the essays advance our understanding of Augustine's most influential work and provide a rich overview of Augustinian political theology and its philosophical implications.

Introduction James Wetzel
1. The history of the book: Augustine's City of God and post-Roman cultural memory Mark Vessey
2. Secularity and the saeculum Paul J. Griffiths
3. Augustine's dystopia Peter Iver Kaufman
4. From rape to resurrection: sin, sexual difference, and politics Margaret R. Miles
5. Ideology and solidarity in Augustine's City of God John Cavadini
6. The theatre of the virtues: Augustine's critique of Pagan mimesis Jennifer Herdt
7. The psychology of compassion: Stoicism in City of God 9.5 Sarah Byers
8. Augustine's rejection of eudaimonism Nicholas Wolterstorff
9. Augustine on the origin of evil: myth and metaphysics James Wetzel
10. Hell and the dilemmas of intractable alienation John Bowlin
11. On the nature and worth of Christian philosophy: evidence from the City of God John Rist
12. Reinventing Augustine's ethics: the afterlife of City of God Bonnie Kent.

Subject Areas: Theology [HRLB], Christian theology [HRCM], Western philosophy: Ancient, to c 500 [HPCA], History of Western philosophy [HPC], Philosophy [HP]