The City of God by Augustine - 0 - Introduction
Introduction
Quote
📝 There has, quite literally, been no century of the sixteen centuries since the conversion of Augustine in which he has not been a major intellectual, spiritual, and cultural force. For more than a millennia and a half, continuity with the thought of Augustine has been one of the most persistent themes of Western intellectual history.
Notes
🔥 Augustine was born as a Roman citizen in a town called Tagaste in North Africa in 354 AD. He fell in love with philosophy early in his life and became a teacher.
🔥 Later on he was attracted to Christianity and left his teaching position for a life of contemplation. He became a priest, and then a bishop, at Hippo, in Algeria. He wrote his spiritual biography, Confessions, as well as other writings during this time.
🔥 He wrote The City of God in 426 AD, 3 years after the fall of Rome. He began the work to argue against the theory that Rome fell because of Christianity, but it expanded to a much wider scope: "a cosmic interpretation of history in terms of the struggle between good and evil."
🔥 His works not only survived for over a thousand years since, but it also has shaped the foundation of the whole of Western thought.