Book contents
- Politics and the Earthly City in Augustine’s City of God
- Politics and the Earthly City in Augustine’s City of God
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The Parodic City
- 2 The Sack of Roma Aeterna
- 3 Exposing the Worldly Worldviews of Empires, Patriots, and Philosophers
- 4 Roman History Retold
- 5 The Sacramental Worldview and Its Antisacramental Distortion
- 6 The Status of Politics
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
5 - The Sacramental Worldview and Its Antisacramental Distortion
Exploring Augustine’s Theory of Signs and Its Implications for the Two Cities Doctrine
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2020
- Politics and the Earthly City in Augustine’s City of God
- Politics and the Earthly City in Augustine’s City of God
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 The Parodic City
- 2 The Sack of Roma Aeterna
- 3 Exposing the Worldly Worldviews of Empires, Patriots, and Philosophers
- 4 Roman History Retold
- 5 The Sacramental Worldview and Its Antisacramental Distortion
- 6 The Status of Politics
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In order to demonstrate that amor sui is not the solitary feature of Augustine’s view of politics, it is necessary to further develop our understanding of the sacramental vision to which City of God leads. Accordingly, in Chapter 5, I embark on an analysis of this vision, approaching it by way of the sign theory laid out in De Doctrina Christiana. Exploring the sacramental worldview undergirding this theory, I find that Augustine considers the reality of created things to be endowed with a given meaning that points to their Creator -- a meaning that the earthly city replaces with its own antisacramental meaning. Returning to City of God, I find the battle between the sacramental and the antisacramental worldview to be at the root of Augustine’s psychagogic strategy; looking at key passages from the second half of the work, it becomes clear that the telos of the text is a sacramental vision in which we can see two opposing economies at work in the world, one a parody of the other. With this in mind, I conclude that City of God is designed to help us see through the false claims of the earthly city and ultimately to resist them.
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- Politics and the Earthly City in Augustine's City of God , pp. 118 - 143Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020