and Spengler ventured to postulate the decline of the West, the Bible, in a few dramatic lines, showed the grand perspective that permeates all of world history. Based on what the Bible says about these happenings, Aurelius Augustine, that great thinker of antiquity, opened up for us a new perspective regarding God’s plan for the human race in his book The City of God. Étienne Gilson, in his Introduction à l’étude de Saint Augustine, says: “Perhaps it was then for the first time that a human mind