City of God: St. Augustine

City of God

Latin title De Civitate Dei. The most famous work of St. Augustine (written after the sack of Rome by the Visigoths ( 410 A. D.) in order to disprove the charges then being made that Christianity was to blame for the collapse of the Roman Empire. Augustine asserts that all history is a conflict between good, represented by the City of God (Civitas Dei), which includes all pious Christians--in other words, the Church which later became the Roman Catholic Church, and evil, represented by the Earthly City (Civitas Terrena), including pagans and unfaithful Christians, or the Roman Empire. This conflict is leading, through the will of God, which is supreme, to the Last Judgment, when the people in the City of God will win immortality, and the Earthly City will be destroyed; the Church, therefore, is more important than the state, since it is destined for triumph, and should be given support.

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