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📖 The City of God, Volume I

Read Augustine's first thirteen books through Rome's crisis, the limits of empire, the problem of evil, and the two cities' journey through history.

4
lessons
~30 min
to learn
🏺 Philosophy
subject
Adults
level
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What you’ll learn

  1. Rome and the limits of empireExplain how Augustine answers the accusation that Christianity caused Rome's disasters.The opening books separate temporal suffering from lasting good and test the claim that Rome's gods protected the city.
  2. Roman virtue and political powerEvaluate Augustine's account of Roman virtue, religion, and empire.Augustine recognizes civic discipline while questioning the gods, glory, and power that Roman history celebrates.
  3. Philosophy and the city of GodDistinguish philosophical insight from the healing Augustine attributes to Christ.Varro, Platonism, mediation, and providence frame the limits of reason and empire.
  4. Creation and life in timeTrace how creation, evil, death, and love place the two cities in time.Books XI–XIII turn from Roman controversy to origins, privation, mortality, and pilgrimage.

Questions this course answers

What public accusation prompts the opening of The City of God?

Augustine responds to claims made after Rome's sack, especially the charge that Christian worship had weakened the city's protection.

What is Augustine's point about Christians who suffered in the sack of Rome?

He argues that good and bad people alike experience earthly losses, while the city of God seeks a different and lasting good.

How does Augustine describe the two cities?

The cities are moral and theological communities formed by ordered or disordered love, and their members can overlap in earthly society.

Why does Augustine revisit Roman history before Christianity?

Earlier calamities and moral failures weaken the argument that Christianity uniquely caused Rome's troubles.

What does Augustine argue about fate and moral responsibility?

He distinguishes divine foreknowledge from coercion and rejects astrology as an excuse for vice.

What is Augustine's criticism of pagan mediators and demons?

In Books VIII-X he argues that intellectual ascent and demonic mediation do not provide the healing he associates with Christ.

Based on a real book

This course is built from The City of God, Volume I by Augustine — the complete public-domain text, free to read and listen to on Wunder. The book itself is never rewritten or AI-edited; this course teaches its ideas.

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Related Philosophy courses

🏛️The Fall of Rome📖Confessions of Augustine📖Utilitarianism📖An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding📖A Treatise of Human Nature📚Common Sense: How to Exercise It🧭Discourse on Method🎭Faust, Part One

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