City of God (Penguin Classics) (7 page)

B
OOK XV
. Early man. Abel, Cain and the patriarchs. Who were the ‘giants’? Beginning of two cities. Noah and the ark.

B
OOK XVI
. Noah to Judah. How do we explain human monsters? There are no antipodes.

B
OOK XVII
. A detailed account of the preparation for Christ by prophecies throughout Scripture.

B
OOK XVIII
. The earthly city and the city of God down to Christ. There are two sorts of men in the Church, the predestined and the others who will be condemned. There are others besides Jews in the City of God. Job is a supreme example.

B
OOK XIX
. What is man’s supreme Good? Peace. Everything is directed towards peace, even war.

B
OOK XX
. The last judgement. Law and order. Scipio’s republic again.

B
OOK XXI.
HOW is eternal punishment possible? Pain of soul or body? Does temporal punishment exist after death for some?

B
OOK XXII
. The creation and resurrection. Miracles still occur in the Christian Church. The Vision of God.

T
HE
bibliography of Augustine is immense and there are at least three periodicals, among them the
Revue des études augustiniennes
, devoted exclusively to his work. Augustine has never been served or understood by historians better than during the past fifty years. For all save the dedicated specialist the bibliography in Peter Brown’s book (below) will be sufficient for biographical and general material, and for Augustine’s theology and thought the notes in Gilson’s work (below) may be consulted.

B
IOGRAPHY.
The contemporary Life by Augustine’s disciple Possidius has great value, and is available in English, translated from the edition of H. T. Weisskotten (1919), but for all strictly biographical material the work
Augustine of Hippo
, by Peter Brown (1967) is in a class by itself, including, as a bonus, chronological tables of Augustine’s works and lists of English translations.

T
HOUGHT.
Here a useful work is that of E. Gilson,
Introduction à l‘étude de S. Augustin
(3rd edition, 1949), of which a shortened version can be found in Gilson’s
History of Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages
(1955), which contains biographical notes. For a ‘total’ view of Augustine the classic article by E. Portalié in the
Dictionnaire de théologie catholique
(1903), translated as A
Guide to the Thought of St Augustine
(1960), still retains its high value. In all the above, and in many other works, the
City of God
receives some treatment. For Plotinus the best short account is that by A. H. Armstrong in
The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy
(1967). S. MacKenna’s translation of the
Enneads
(3rd edition, 1970, with introduction by P. Henry) is a classic.

(a short selection from an immense literature)

1. On the
General Background

G. Boissier, La
fin du paganisme
, Paris, 1891

C. N. Cochrane,
Christianity and Classical Culture
, Oxford, 1940

S. Dill,
Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire
, London, 1899

E. R. Dodds,
Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety
, Oxford, 1965

P. de Labriolle,
La réaction paienne
, 10th edition, Paris, 1950

A. Momigliano (ed.),
The Conflict between Paganism and Christianity in the Fourth Century
, London, 1963

A. D. Nock,
Conversion. The Old and the New in Religion from Alexander the Great to Augustine of Hippo
, Oxford, 1933

2.
On Augustine’s Life and Thought

R. Battenhouse (ed.),
A Companion to the Study of St. Augustine
, New York, 1955 (contains a short essay on the
City of God
by E. R. Hardy)

G. Bonner,
St Augustine of Hippo. Life and Controversies
, London, 1963

J. Burnaby,
Amor Dei
, London, 1938

P. Courcelle,
Les Lettres grecques en Occident de Macrobe à Cassiodore
, Paris, 1958;
Recherches sur les ‘Confessions’ de S. Augustin
, Paris, 1950

R. A. Markus,
Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St Augustine
, London, 1970

H. Marrou,
Augustin et la fin de la culture antique
, Paris, 1938

R. O’Connell,
St Augustine’s Confessions
, Harvard, 1969

J. J. O’Meara,
The Young Augustine, London
, 1954, 1980

E. Teselle,
Augustine the Theologian
, New York, 1970

F. van der Meer,
Augustine the Bishop
, London and New York, 1961

3.
On the City of God

R. H. Barrow,
Introduction to St Augustine, The City of God
, London, 1950 (selections in Latin and English, with an analysis and a running commentary)

N. H. Baynes, The Political Ideas
of St Augustine’s De Civitate Dei
, London, 1936

Bibliothèque Augustinienne, vols 33–37,
La Cité de Dieu
, Paris, 1959–60 (the most useful modern edition)

S. Burleigh,
The City of God. A Study of St Augustine’s Philosophy
, London, 1950

H. A. Deane,
The Political and Social Ideas of St Augustine
, London and New York, 1963

J. N. Figgis,
The Political Aspects of St Augustine’s City of God
, London (reprinted 1963)

J. C. Guy,
Unité et structure logique de la ‘Cité de Dieu’ de Saint Augustin
, Paris, 1961

H. I. Marrou,
Théologie de l’histoire
, Paris, 1968

J. J. O’Meara,
Charter of Christendom
, London, 1967

J. E. C. Welldon,
S. Aurelii Augustini… De Civitate Dei
…, 2 vols London, 1924 (the only annotated edition in English with full notes and a useful introduction and appendices)

T
HE
text I have used is the Teubner text of Bernard Dombart and Alphonse Kalb (fourth edition 1928–9) reprinted, with some correction, in the
series Corpus Christianoratn
(Turnhout, 1955). In a very few places I have adopted a variant reading; but I have not thought it necessary to mark these places.

H.B.

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