Selected Works of Augustine of Hippo Volume III

Volume III presents Augustine's key work: "De Civitate Dei" or The City of God. Composed of 22 books, The City of God is the most extraordinary work ever written to synthesize the entirety of universal and divine history, the struggle that took place from the 1st to the 5th century between the agonizing ancient world and nascent Christianity.

Augustine wrote The City of God as a reply to the criticisms made against Christianity by wealthy and cultured pagans after the fall of Rome to the Visigoths (year 410), which forced them to flee and go into exile in North Africa. And he does so by describing the contrast between two types of men and societies: the City of God and the City of Man. In his own words: "Two loves founded two cities: the love of self, even to the contempt of God, the earthly; and the love of God, even to the contempt of self, the heavenly. The former glories in itself; the latter glories in the Lord." On this basis, the topics addressed are inexhaustible: starting from the origin and nature of God; the problem of good and evil, sin and guilt, death, law and justice, time and space, Providence, destiny and history, and an extensive list. The Italian writer Giovanni Papini [1881-1956] called The City of God a "book-forest," that is, a tree of generous shade and abundant fruits, where each person, according to their particular interest, can derive lessons in history, philosophy, anthropology, biblical exegesis, prophecy, demonology, psychology, law, and social criticism. It resembles a living organism because it lives and grows with the centuries, driving, illuminating, and acting within culture. The transcendent value of The City of God stems from it being the only work that analyzes the problems of the relationship between Christianity and secular society; and it proposes a new form of civil society based on promoting the values of humanity by living in accordance with Christian doctrine. A topic of the utmost relevance today.