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I didn't read this from beginning to end, but I was intrigued by the sharp distinctions Augustine makes between the body and the will, and his insistence on culpability for actions lying in the will. Concurrently, he also seems to provide some disturbing theological foundations for Calvinism. I have to applaud him on tackling the issue of how human free will can coexist with an omniscient God, but I nevertheless find his implication that souls are either hellbound are heavebound from the first moment of their existence -- while logical -- a little disturbing.
This is undoubtedly one of the most pious works ever written. Augustine. I simply do not understand how someone could become so literally religious that he/she could devote so much energy to self piety and introspection. I'm not sure that most people could approach the lifestyle of St. May we shouldn't even try. This book is an important read for everyone.
Augustine was how relevant he is, even after 1600 years. Only the particulars of all these situations have changed--in the broadstrokes, Christianity is still fighting many of the same battles in which Augustine saw combat. What astounded me about reading St. It took me about five months of off-and-on reading to slog through City of God--it was time well-spent. The most helpful notes were those describing puns or other untranslatable portions of the book.Like I said, City of God is very heavy reading and a great deal of work to get through, but the reward should outweigh the time it takes to read the book. Sound familiar.
And Christians themselves, under pressure and guilt from what seemed to be the entire known world, expressed doubts about their faith.
The vast majority of what he discusses throughout this monumental book still matters--only the particulars have changed.
Henry Bettenson's translation is smooth, fast-moving, and heavily footnoted.
Here is one of the rare 1000-page books that not only deserved its length, but could have been longer.
This edition from Penguin Classics (I fully realize that Amazon will post this review on the Modern Library edition and other places that it doesn't belong) is very good.
In his day, pagans blamed Christians for wars and the collapse of civilization.
Rationalists and materialists denied the supernatural, insisting that all religions were the same, and mocked those that believed in it.
While I found the footnotes very helpful--especially in the hundreds of places in which Augustine quotes from scripture and other authors, like Virgil and Plotinus--some of them struck me as unnecessary, particularly those criticizing Augustine's etymologies and those pointing out which gods or goddesses are or are not found outside Augustine's work.
Highly recommended.
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. The only drawback is the lack of titles for each "book" in the table of contents. 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. Instead they are just numbered; I, II, III, IV, and so on. There are also hyperlinked "footnotes," which I did not notice in other editions.I apologize to Kindle non-owners, but Amazon has not yet presented away to comment specifically on electronic editions, and many public domain books--classics--are not yet properly formatted for the Kindle (which despite a few hitches is a five star device).
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.
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