The City of God against the Pagans

This is the first new rendition for a generation of The City of God, the first major intellectual achievement of Latin Christianity and one of the classic texts of Western civilisation. Robert Dyson has produced a complete, accurate, authoritative, and fluent translation of De civitate dei, edited together with full biographical notes, a concise introduction, bibliography, and chronology of Augustine’s life. The result is one of the most important single contributions to the Cambridge Texts series yet published, of interest to students of ecclesiastical history, the history of political thought, theology, philosophy, and late antiquity.

• A massive, and massively important, contribution to Western civilisation • Wholly new, accurate, complete, scholarly translation • Excellent ancillary material, including biographies of relevant persons, chronology, and student bibliography

Preface; Introduction; A chronology of Augustine’s life; Bibliographical note; The City of God against the Pagans; Biographical notes; Index.

‘Dyson’s wonderfully lucid, carefully literal and historically sensitive translation … makes this the edition that most readers will now choose to consult … We must be grateful for this excellent new translation.’ The Times Higher Education Supplement

‘It reads remarkably well; it is elegant, generally succeeds in reproducing the rhetorical colouring Augustine frequently gives his argument, and, is remarkably faithful to the text. A short but helpful introduction … provides the necessary information about the context of the work, and summarises the main points of Augustine’s political thought. The book is handsome and well produced.’ Journal of Ecclesiastical History