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12 - Book 19

The Ends of the Two Cities: Augustine’s Appeal for Peace

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2021

Fr. David Vincent Meconi, S.J.
Affiliation:
Saint Louis University, Missouri
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Summary

In Book 19, Augustine concentrates on leading two audiences, both beset by different forms of violence, unrest, and insecurity within and without, to accept God’s offer of the peace that endures in heaven’s everlasting life as the supreme good. Primarily, this appeal for peace has a protreptic quality to attract a non-Christian audience. Especially for their sake Augustine uses, in addition to the divine authority of Scripture, the reason of philosophical argument in Book 19. Secondarily, the appeal has a didactic exhortation for a Christian audience to seek more ardently the peace of the heavenly Jerusalem. Even the pilgrim Church has “sheer misery compared to the happiness we call ultimate” (ciu. Dei 19.10; Babcock, 2.364; CCSL 48.674). Augustine makes his appeal for peace by humbling the peace of what each of the two audiences experiences. All people experience in this life on earth, in different ways, not only a broken society, but also a broken heart. But without recognizing that experience in humility, why would readers yearn for heaven’s peace? To all, Augustine makes an appeal for what he calls pax plenissima atque certissima (ciu. Dei 19.10; CCSL 48.674).

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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References

Further Reading

Kent, B. (2012). Reinventing Augustine’s Ethics: The Afterlife of City of God. In Wetzel, J., ed., Augustine’s City of God: A Critical Guide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 225244.Google Scholar
Meconi, D. V. (2013). The One Christ: St. Augustine’s Theology of Deification. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Donovan, O. (1982). Usus et Fruitio in Augustine, De Doctrina Christiana 1. Journal of Theological Studies, 33, 361397.Google Scholar
Scully, E. (2016). Jerusalem’s Lost Etymology: How Augustine Changed Latin Eschatology. Vigiliae Christianae, 70(1), 130.Google Scholar

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