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Home Books : The City of God

The City of God


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 : The City of God







Binding: Hardcover
EAN: 9780394603971
ISBN: 0394603974
Label: Modern Library
Manufacturer: Modern Library
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 892
Publication Date: May 12, 1977
Publisher: Modern Library
Release Date: May 12, 1977
Studio: Modern Library




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Editorial Review:

Amazon.com Review:
Augustine's City of God, a monumental work of religious lore, philosophy, and history, was written as a kind of literary tombstone for Roman culture. After the sack of Rome, Augustine wrote this book to anatomize the corruption of Romans' pursuit of earthly pleasures: "grasping for praise, open-handed with their money; honest in the pursuit of wealth, they wanted to hoard glory." Augustine contrasts his condemnation of Rome with an exaltation of Christian culture. The glory that Rome failed to attain will only be realized by citizens of the City of God, the Heavenly Jerusalem foreseen in Revelation. Because City of God was written for men of classical learning--custodians of the culture Augustine sought to condemn--it is thick with Ciceronian circumlocutions, and makes many stark contrasts between "Your Virgil" and "Our Scriptures." Even if Augustine's prose strikes modern ears as a bit bombastic, and if his polarized Christian/pagan world is more binary than the one we live in today, his arguments against utopianism and his defense of the richness of Christian culture remain useful and strong. City of God is, as its final words proclaim itself to be, "a giant of a book." --Michael Joseph Gross

Product Description:
St. Augustine's masterpiece is an interpretation of history in terms of the struggle between good and evil: the City of God in conflict with the City of the Devil. Abridged for the modern reader.


From the Trade Paperback edition.



Customer Reviews
Average Rating:  out of 5 stars

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Tough going, but worth it
It took me about five months of off-and-on reading to slog through City of God--it was time well-spent. Here is one of the rare 1000-page books that not only deserved its length, but could have been longer.

What astounded me about reading St. Augustine was how relevant he is, even after 1600 years. The vast majority of what he discusses throughout this monumental book still matters--only the particulars have changed. In his day, pagans blamed Christians for wars and the collapse of ... Read More



Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - The Best Kindle Edition of This Work
For those without a Kindle this review will have little to offer except to say that this edition comes with a preface by Thomas Merton which for me was a welcome surprise. I usually don't bother with introductions.

Kindle users, I looked at every Kindle edition of this work and this is without question the best formatted version. The only drawback is the lack of titles for each "book" in the table of contents. Instead they are just numbered; I, II, III, IV, and so on. There are ... Read More



Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - Unworthy printing of a most worthy version
This is not the most attractive edition of St. Augustine's monumental City of God but it is worth getting anyway for the introduction by Etienne Gilson. The translation is quite good and, though it is somewhat abridged, this doesn't pose too great a problem as Bourke has inserted into the text a brief description of the material that he cut out so you can go to an unabridged edition if you choose.



Rating: 5 out of 5 stars - City of God
This is an apologetic text in defence of the Chritian faith. In this book, Augustine persuasively informed his audience (readers) regarding the history of creation from the fall of humanity to their redemption provided they recognized him as God of their lives. This is possible only as they abandon all forms of idolatries lest they experience a catatrosphe similar to what led to the fall of Rome. Augustine's concept of the two cities are in contrast to each other, viz, the city of God versus the ... Read More



Rating: 2 out of 5 stars - Some things are better read about than read
I read this for a book group I was in, and was rather peeved at being forced to blow so much time on what is essentially useful only to the Classical historian or Scholasticism buff. Realistically, Augustine is just a particularly eloquent proponent of a religious argument we all get in Sunday School at age 10: The things of this world are transitory and passing, but the things of the next world are eternal and more valuable. You can almost hear the monotonous cadence. If what you want is to add ... Read More




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