“And men go abroad to admire the heights of mountains, the mighty waves of the sea, the broad tides of rivers, the compass of the ocean, and the circuits of the stars, yet pass over the mystery of themselves without a thought.”
— Augustine of Hippo, Confessions
Born in 354 CE in the North African city of Tagaste to a Christian mother and pagan father, Augustine began his career as a pagan teacher of rhetoric in, among other places, Carthage. In search of better students, Augustine traveled to Rome in 383, assuming considerable personal risk in doing so, but was disappointed to… [Read More]
For Augustine, the One was embodied by God, the unifying source of all being, order, and goodness in both the material and the spiritual world. The bridge between the two worlds, however, was not philosophic contemplation, as Plato and neoplatonism each suggested, but, rather, dutiful devotion to God. [Read More]
James Wetzel discusses Augustine’s famous distinction between the City of God and the City of Man.