SAINT AUGUSTINE

THE CITY OF GOD

BOOKS I–VII

Translated by

DEMETRIUS B. ZEMA, S.J.

and

GERALD G. WALSH, S.J.

With an introduction by

ETIENNE GILSON

The Catholic University of America Press

Washington D. C.

ISBN-13: 978-0-8132-1554-9 (pbk)

Copyright 1950 by

THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA PRESS, INC.

All rights reserved

Reprinted, 1962, 1984, 1990

First paperback reprint 2008

THE FATHERS OF THE CHURCH

A NEW TRANSLATION

EDITORIAL BOARD

Hermigild Dressler, O.F.M.

The Catholic University of America Press

Editorial Director

FORMER EDITORIAL DIRECTORS

Ludwig Schopp, Roy J. Deferrari, Bernard M. Peebles

Richard Talaska

Editorial Assistant

WRITINGS OF SAINT AUGUSTINE

VOLUME 6

CONTENTS

FOREWORD, by Etienne Gilson

The Problem of a Universal Society

The City of God and Universal Society

Christian Wisdom and a World Society

THE CITY OF GOD

Book I

Book II

Book III

Book IV

Book V

Book VI

Book VII

APPENDIX: A Letter of St. Augustine Concerning the City of God

FOREWORD

by

ETIENNE GILSON

Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies

(Toronto)

FOREWORD

The city of god (De civitate Dei) is not only one of St. Augustine’s masterpieces, but ranks, along with the Confessions, among the classics of all literature. It is hardly possible to analyze the contents of this vast work, which, in spite of its overall plan, is marked by so many digressions. The purpose of this Introduction is to focus the reader’s attention on Augustine’s main theme, and to emphasize its historical importance. In his notion of a universal religious society is to be sought the origin of that ideal of a world society which is haunting the minds of so many today.

Augustine, it is true, did not pose exactly the same problem; that is why we should not read the City of God in the hope of finding therein the solution. Nevertheless, the problem posed and resolved by Augustine is certainly the origin of ours, and, if we are failing to resolve our problem, it is probably because we are forgetting that its solution presupposes a solution of the problem resolved by Augustine.

Our contemporaries aspire after a complete unity of all peoples: one world. They are quite right. The universal society which they are endeavoring to organize aims at being a political and temporal society. In this regard they are again right. Perhaps their most serious mistake is in imagining that a universal and purely natural society of men is possible without a universal religious society, which would unite men in the acceptance of the same supernatural truth and in the love of the same supernatural good.