The City of God
by Saint Augustine · first published 2017
31% recommend69% neutral
Why HN recommends it
A classic Christian work covering the history of ideas and the account of the earthly and heavenly cities. It suits readers interested in early Christian thought, theology, and the history of economics.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…is abundant wisdom and deep truths to be found in the classics of Christianity. The apologetics of C.S. Lewis (Screwtape Letters, The Problem with Pain, The Great Divorce), Augustine's Confessions and City of God, Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton and G.K. Chesterton's Everlasting Man. These are seldom read (or known) by young people today and I see that as a tragedy. Western spirituality was demolished…
on “Why read Dostoevsky? A programmer's perspective” ↗St. Augustine - Confessions (first spiritual autobiography) or City of God G. K. Chesterton - The Everlasting Man
on “Ask HN: Which is the best spiritual book you have read?” ↗…focus on economics before Adam Smith since I knew only about Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas's contributions prior to reading the book. Rothbard's take-down of Marx was both thorough and satisfying. "City of God" by Augustine of Hippo The history lesson here was helpful as was the perspective on how the church should view the state though I should have invested more money in a better version for Kindle. The…
on “Ask HN: Best book you read in 2011” ↗4th-5th century: Confessions and City of God by St. Augustine 13th century: Summa Theologica by St. Thomas Aquinas 14th century: The Divine Comedy (includes Inferno) by Dante Alighieri 20th century: Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton, Mere Christianity…
on “Ask HN: Which is the best spiritual book you have read?” ↗Relating to it being the "oldest problem ever", there are some interesting philosophical properties of certain numbers. Augustine wrote about certain numbers quite a bit in his voluminous City of God (and probably elsewhere). If you can find it online, it's worth a read.
on “Math’s ‘Oldest Problem Ever’ Gets a New Answer” ↗Sure, how about some classics like: The Didache Anselm, Cur Deus Homo Anselm, Proslogion Augustine, City of God Augustine, Confessions Augustine, On Christian Doctrine William Law, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life Luther, The Bondage of the Will Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion Pascal,…
on “Standard Ebooks” ↗…on the Universal Destination of Goods (Summa Theologica) St. Thomas Aquinas on Distributive Justice (Summa Theologica) Pope Francis’ Laudito Si Anything by or about Bl. Oscar Romero St. Augustine’s City of God Most of Pope Benedict XVI’s scholarly work, Jesus of Nazareth already mentioned as a highlight.
on “Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan shaped modern politics” ↗I'm surprised and happy to see something like this posted and upvoted on HN. The first time I read through Confessions and City of God, I thought they were both very tough reads (thou, thee, etc.), much like John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion (which I haven't actually finished yet), but very good reads nonetheless, full…
on “On St. Augustine's Confessions” ↗I recommend you check out City of God to see what happens when people are housed away from economic centers - a necessity for suburban lawns, trees and plants. Moreover, these things take time to care for, and money - something that is missing,…
on “Can Oregon's tiny houses be part of the solution to homelessness?” ↗"[A] good man, though a slave, is free; but a wicked man, though a king, is a slave. For he serves, not one man alone, but what is worse, as many masters as he has vices.” ― Augustine, "City of God" “The first two facts which a healthy boy or girl feels about sex are these: first that it is beautiful and then that it is dangerous.” ― G.K. Chesterton “I had motives for not wanting the world to…
on “The Invention of Free Love” ↗…It contains explicit scenes of adultery and pagan worship. St. Augustine of Hippo, the greatest of the Western Fathers of the Church, cited that novel as a partial inspiration for his own work, The City of God. None of his contemporaries faulted him for this. I'm going by memory, so I don't have citations for some of the above claims. I have a few ideas about the origin of the modern mentality of "every…
on “R.I.P. Ray Bradbury, Author of Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles ” ↗…questioning rather than just inserting data into brains in a linear fashion. I did find the unapologetically mechanistic perspective here interesting though, since I just got done teaching St. Augustine ("City of God") to a class of very bright students at an Ivy League university. They hated it and I couldn't figure out why at first. To me its a treasure trove of fun minutiae about weird Roman deities, a deep meditation…
on “Teaching is Selling” ↗Speaking of Saint Augustine, one of the most amusing parts of the City of God is the point where he refers to people who "have such command of their bowels, that they can break wind continuously at will, so as to produce the effect of singing".
…praise of peace they are sincere. They seek war to achieve their peace. Even violent criminals demand peace, if only for themselves. They do not love war; they aspire to an unjust peace. St Augustine, The City of God
…Huckleberry Finn War and Peace Catch-22 Stranger in a Strange Lan The Hobbit (3rd read) The Illiad The Odessey Walden Leisure, The Basis of Culture The Seven Storey Mountain Confessions The City of God Ways of Life St Augustine Catechism of the Catholic Church These Truths Battle Cry of Freedom The Complete Guide to Fly Fishing The Lure and Lore of Trout Fishing The Duck Huntingest Gentlemen
on “Ask HN: Books you plan to read in 2020?” ↗