Augustine: Political Writings

Description

This collection brings together thirty-five letters and sermons of Augustine, Bishop of Hippo from 396 to 430 AD, that deal with political matters. The letters and sermons are both practical and principled and treat many essential themes in Augustine's thought, including the responsibilities of citizenship, the relationship between the church and secular authority, religious coercion, and war and peace. These texts complement Augustine's classic The City of God against the Pagans (also available in the Cambridge Texts series), and give students direct insight into the political and social world of late antiquity with which Augustine was immediately involved. The slave trade, tax collection, clerical harassment and murder are amongst the topics with which he deals. The volume contains clear, accurate modern translations, together with a concise introduction and informative notes designed to aid the student encountering Augustine's life and thought for the first time.

a --E This is a valuable book, prepared by editors who clearly have a feel for their subject and Augustinea -- s language. They are to be congratulated on the high standard of their scholarship.a -- R. W. Dyson, University of Durham 'Atkins and Dodaro have done an outstanding job'. Journal of Ecclesiastical History a --E The translations are new and lucid, the texts crucial, judiciously chosen by editors with an extraordinarily wide knowledge both of the immense corpus and of the scholarship. We are well served by an introduction which deals with the genres into which the texts fall, their contexts and Augustinea -- s methods.a -- Journal of Ecclesiastical History