Augustine's City of God: A Critical Guide

Cambridge Critical Guides

by James Wetzel (Editor)

Augustine's City of God has profoundly influenced the course of Western political philosophy, but there are few guides to its labyrinthine argumentation that hold together the delicate interplay of religion and philosophy in Augustine's thought. The essays in this volume offer a rich examination of those themes, using the central, contested distinction between a heavenly city on earthly pilgrimage and an earthly city bound for perdition to elaborate aspects of Augustine's political and moral vision. Topics discussed include Augustine's notion of the secular, his critique of pagan virtue, his departure from classical eudaimonism, his mythology of sin, his dystopian politics, his surprising attention to female bodies, his moral psychology, his valorisation of love, his critique of empire and his conception of a Christian philosophy. Together the essays advance our understanding of Augustine's most influential work and provide a rich overview of Augustinian political theology and its philosophical implications.

Genres: Philosophy

280 pages, Paperback

First published October 4, 2012

About the author

James Wetzel is the Augustinian Chair in the Thought of St. Augustine of the
Philosophy Department at Villanova University.

His Areas of focus are Augustine and Platonism, moral psychology, metaphysics of evil, mysticism and mythology.
His areas of interest are post-Hellenic philosophy (Rome and its discontents), modern philosophy and the cogito (the Cartesian turn), post-Cartesianism and philosophy's end (Wittgenstein).

His work has received funding from the Charlotte W. Newcombe Foundation.

Reviews

[Daniel Schotman]

Not so much a reader's guide or introduction but more an elaboration on a dozen of thematic subjects that situate greatly in the vast book that the City Of God is very similar to the approach set out in the excellent Cambridge Companion series. So for an introduction I would look elsewhere. This is more a book that you read after you completed the City Of God.