It's a great privilege to be here and talk about a text I love and a text that has, I think, had enormous ramifications throughout Western history.

We frequently think of, when we think of the city of God, if we think of it all, we tend to focus on one slice.

The book 19 is the one that gets taught

in political theory programs.

We get a very thin slice of Augustin's city of God,

which tends to be read within a modern context

so that the city of God has something to tell us about the relationship

between church and state is usually how we think about the city of God.

Anybody who's read the whole of the city of God knows that that is really just a very small

slice of the city of God and that it's a systematic work that medieval's

poured over, and indeed Thomas Aquinas poured over the city of God. He poured over, for example,

his most significant investigations in the city of God were on Augustus' treatment of emotions

and developed the most significant account

of the passions in the 13th century

on the basis of book 14 of the city of God.

So it provided an important text for the 13th century

with a very different lens than we see the city of God today.

For us, it has a very particular context within the modern liberal order.

For the 13th century, it had a wide array of uses.

They looked to it for how the bishop was understood, what counted as a good bishop.

They looked at, looked to it for how do you engage the platonists.

They look to the city of God to how you make arguments towards the final good and the supreme good.

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