Augustine's City of God: A Reader's Guide

By Gerard O'Daly

Book Overview

The City of God is the most influential of Augustine's works which played a decisive role in the formation of the Christian West. It's scope embodies cosmology, psychology, political thought, anti-pagan polemic, Christian apologetic, theory of history, biblical interpretation and apocalyptic themes. This book is the first comprehensive modern guide to City of God in any language.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0198263546
• ISBN13: 9780198263548
• Release Date: June 1999
• Publisher: OUP Oxford
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.9" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

A Masterful Survey of Augustine's Magnum Opus

O Daly's masterful survey of Augustine's colossal work, the City of God, is in itself the foremost study of its kind, covering as it does the twenty-two books of the City of God, with a fine cornucopia of scholarly and insightful analyses, summaries and sweeping commentary. Principle themes to the City of God are highlighted and the profound wealth of philosophical, theological, historical, biblical and apocalyptic thought inherent to the text is elucidated and discussed in a terse, clear-cut fashion [also illuminated is the contextual setting and the cultural and literary stimuli which led to the City of God's composition]. Therefore, this reader's guide is not only the most scholarly treatment on the City of God available, but it is also the best and most accommodating means of approaching this most extraordinary text. In a word, Gerard O' Daly has given us the ultimate companion to Bishop Augustine's City of God; and this volume should be standard reading in institutions where the City of God is studied; also, it should go hand-in-hand with any full-scale research conducted upon the text. [See also O Daly's work, The Poetry of Boethius, which is an artful critique on the poetry found in Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy.]