The City of God, Volume I

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo, 354-430

Contributor:

Dods, Marcus, 1834-1909

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource : multiple file formats

Place of Publication:

Salt Lake City, UT : Project Gutenberg,

Summary:

"The City of God, Volume I" by Bishop of Hippo Saint Augustine is a theological treatise written in the early 5th century. This work is an apology for Christianity following the fall of Rome, addressing the criticisms levied against Christians by pagans who attributed the calamities of the world to their religion. Augustine aims to defend the Christian faith and argue that true prosperity and virtue come from Christ, not from the worship of the Roman gods. The opening of "The City of God" details Augustine's response to pagan accusations that the sack of Rome by the Goths was a result of the Christian prohibition of idol worship. Augustine contends that the calamities experienced by Rome and its populace can be attributed instead to moral corruption and the failings of the pagan gods, drawing on historical examples to bolster his argument. He notes that many who have mocked Christians owe their very lives to the sanctuaries of Christianity during the siege, suggesting that those who survived did so not due to pagan deities but because of divine mercy. The tone of Augustine's writing is both defensive and instructional, setting the stage for a rigorous philosophical and theological discourse throughout the rest of the volume. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Credits:

Produced by Douglas L. Alley, III, Charlene Taylor, Joe C and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)

Notes:

Reading ease score: 53.2 (10th to 12th grade). Somewhat difficult to read.

Wikipedia page about this book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_of_God

Release date is 2014-04-08