City of God by St. Augustine
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.
No book except the Bible itself had a greater influence on the Middle Ages than "City of God." Since medieval Europe was the cradle of today's Western civilization, this work by consequence is vial for an understanding of our world and how it came into being.
St. Augustine is often regarded as the most ifluential Christian thinker after Stl. Paul, and this book is his masterpiece, a vast synthesis of religious and secular knowledge. It began as a reply to the charge that Christian otherworldliness was causing the decline of the Roman Empire.
Augustine produced a wealth of evidence to prove that paganism bore within itself the seeds of its own destruction.Then he proceeded to his larger theme, a cosmic interpretation of history in terms of the struggle between good and evil: the City of God in conflict with the Earthly City or the City of the Devil.
This, the first serious attempt at a philosophy of history, was to have incalculable influence in forming the Western mind on the relations of church and state, and on the Christian's place in the temporal order.
The original "City of God" contained 22 books and fills 3 regular-sized volumes. This edition has been skillfully abridged for the intelligent general reader by Bernon J. Bourke, author of Augustine's "Quest of Wisdom." The heart of this monumental work is now available to a much wider audience.
Paperback: 551 pages
