Where to Buy
Affiliate links coming soon. Purchases will help support this project.
Read / Listen Free
The City of God
9Augustine of Hippo
Augustine's response to the sack of Rome — the book that taught Christendom how to think about empire, history, and the relationship between earthly and heavenly power.
GBM Assessment (Score: 9/10)
Augustine's City of God, written in the aftermath of the Visigothic sack of Rome in 410, is the foundation of Christian political theology. Its framework of two cities—the earthly city of human ambition and the heavenly city of divine grace—provided the conceptual architecture for medieval political thought and continues to inform Christian engagement with political life.
Augustine composed The City of God as a response to pagan claims that Rome's fall was caused by the abandonment of the old gods in favor of Christianity. The work's two-cities framework dominated medieval political thought and shaped Dante and Thomas Aquinas. It remains the foundational text of Christian political theology.
The Fall of Rome, c. 397-524 AD
The Roman Empire disintegrates. Visigoths sack Rome (410). Christianity becomes the dominant intellectual force. Augustine synthesizes Christian theology with classical philosophy, inventing autobiography. Germanic kingdoms replace Roman provinces. Boethius writes philosophy while awaiting execution. The classical world ends; the medieval world is born.
Awards & Adaptations
Foundation of Christian political theology.
Recommended Edition
M. Dods (1887)
