Gerard ODaly - Augustines City of God A Readers Guide

The aims of this revised second edition are similar to those of its predecessor. The City of God is arguably the most influential of Augustines works, and todays readers need a comprehensive modern guide to it. My book aims to provide a detailed yet accessible interpretation of Augustines vast and complex masterpiece. It is intended to be read alongside any version of the City of God. I have written it bearing in mind that most of Augustines readers are not specialists, but that he is consulted by students of late antiquity, historians, theologians, philosophers, medievalists, Renaissance scholars, interpreters of art and iconography, and many more. Therefore all the Latin cited is translated, and essential information about the principal features of Augustines thought is given, with copious references to more detailed studies. The City of God has a wide-ranging scope, embracing cosmology, psychology, political thought, polemic, Christian apologetic, theory of history, biblical interpretation, and apocalyptic themes. To understand this work is to appreciate the ways in which Augustines ideas are interrelated, and there is no clearer evidence of the formative role that he has played in the history of the Christian West.

are on influences and sources, and the place of the work in Augustines writings. Translations are my own, unless otherwise indicated. In biblical citations from Augustine and other Patristic authors I translate their version of the text: where appropriate, I adopt the Revised Standard Version.

In the twenty years since I completed the first edition much has happened in Augustine studies and in research on late antiquity generally, and I have attempted to take into account this abundance of newer work throughout, while retaining the books focus on Augustine as writer and thinker in the Latin tradition, active in a period of rapid Christinianization in a Roman Empire that was to be transformed in the generation that followed his. Augustine was a man in, and for, a changing world. My text and notes have been revised throughout: the most extensive changes are in .

Some newer work stands out because of its contribution to our better understanding of City of God and its contexts. Isabelle Bochets Le firmament de lEcriture (2004) conveys in precise detail the way in which Augustines philosophical method transmutes into a scriptural hermeneutics that culminates in City of God. Robert Dodaros Christ and the Just Society in the Thought of Augustine (2004) demonstrates the model role that the figure of Christ plays in Augustines recasting of Ciceros concept of the statesman, and the stong anti-Pelagian colouring of City. Christian Tornaus Zwischen Rhetorik und Philosophie (2006) brings out the role that Augustines rhetorical training plays in his techniques of persuasion in the work. Several contributions by Sarah Byers have sharpened our understanding of the importance of Stoicism in Augustines philosophy of action and his account of the emotions. The Augustinus-Lexikon, has, with the completion of volume 4, reached Sacrificium, providing a range of authoritative articles that are in themselves guides to further study. Besides these, there has been an abundance of relevant innovative research, from which I have learnt and to which I refer throughout. Given the wide-ranging reception of City from its first appearance onwards and the excellent work, much of it recent, devoted to this, I have confined myself to a brief bibliographical guide to relevant publications in Appendix .

I owe a special debt to Karen Raith at OUP, who encouraged me to take on this revised edition and gave expert advice on the preparation of the project. The anonymous referees invited by the Press made several practical suggestions which I have adopted. The inclusion of suggested further reading in the individual chapters and of the summary of the works content is due to them. At OUP also my thanks are due to my diligent editor, Christina Fleischer, and to Tom Perridge for his genial support over the years. Martin Noble has been a meticulous and thoughtful copy-editor. At SPi Global Markcus Sandanraj and Kabilan expertly oversaw the books production.

An earlier version of parts of formed part of the Leon and Thea Krner Lecture at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver in September 1997.

Grateful acknowledgement for permission to produce, in adapted form, copyright material is due to the publisher of the Augustinus-Lexikon, Schwabe & Co. of Basle, and to Levante Editori of Bari.

Like its immediate predecessors, this book was written in the gentle ambience of the Charente. Over the years Pasha, Kurush, and Mamoun have enriched our lives, providing eentertainment, inspiration, and true companionship. My wife Ursulato whom I had promised that the first edition of the book would be my last on Augustinethough unimpressed by my sophistic argument that this edition is not so much a new book as a transformed version of the original, has nevertheless given throughout the affectionate and critical support that only she could give, and for which I am immensely grateful. I dedicate it to her.

G.J.P.OD.