Audiobook · read by volunteers
City of God
Saint Augustine of Hippo
Read by Darren L. Slider · 69 chapters · 40 h 27
About the book
When the Goths under King Alaric stormed and sacked Rome in the year 410, many blamed the Christian religion for the disaster. Augustine of Hippo, bishop in North Africa, answered with one of the greatest works of late antiquity. The City of God replies to the pagans who accused the new faith, and sets out a grand vision of history in which two cities, one of earthly pride and one of heavenly love, run side by side. It is a book of theology, philosophy, politics and history, in which Augustine examines Roman religion, the nature of time, the problem of evil and the meaning of human life. This recording, in the translation by Marcus Dods, is read by one LibriVox volunteer in 69 parts over some forty hours. It is a vast book that rewards patient and selective listening.
Introduction
Saint Augustine of Hippo lived from 354 to 430. Born in North Africa, he studied rhetoric, taught in Carthage, Rome and Milan, and after a period of searching became a Christian. He was bishop of Hippo, in what is now Algeria, for the last thirty-five years of his life. His Confessions and The City of God are the two works that have been most widely read, and his thought shaped Western Christianity for centuries.
The City of God was written in response to the sack of Rome by the Goths under Alaric, which took place in 410 and shocked the ancient world. Many pagans, as Christians then called the worshippers of the old gods, blamed the new faith for the catastrophe, and Augustine took up the challenge, and the book, which occupied him for well over a decade, grew far beyond a simple reply. It is divided into twenty-two books, the first ten answering the pagan critics and the later ones tracing the history and destiny of the two cities.
The translation used here is by Marcus Dods, first published in the nineteenth century; the edition recorded is dated 1887. The recording is divided into 69 parts that follow the books and chapters of the original, and it lasts about forty and a half hours. It is read by a single LibriVox volunteer, a considerable undertaking.
Whether or not one shares Augustine’s faith, the work remains a major source for the history of ideas, and many of its questions, about the state, about justice and about history, are still of interest. It is a book for long listening, to be taken in small sections. It can be taken in portions of a chapter at a time, and the sections are clearly labelled by book and chapter, so that listeners can choose the topics that interest them.
Public domain
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text