{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"2c014d9278f8276229e8096023de45dd67ff1ac7b060f3096c046329bbfed6f9","edition_title":"The City of God, Volume I","edition_translators":["Marcus Dods","George Wilson (Book IV)","J. J. Smith (Books V-VIII)"],"edition_year":1871,"explicit_reference_candidates":[],"headings":["THE WORKS OF AURELIUS AUGUSTINE,","EDITOR'S PREFACE."],"id":"pg45304-paragraph-9","license_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html","note_targets":[],"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"original-paragraph-unclassified","review_required":["work and recension attribution","original-work chronology","Bible reference numbering and citation kind","English edition rights and attribution"],"review_status":"needs_review","rights_evidence":"Provider catalog reports public domain in the USA. Original transcription title leaves state T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1871; printed translator allocation retained. Gutenberg credits Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries without an exact scan identifier. Full provider license preserved with acquired original; republication and per-work metadata remain unreviewed.","source_anchor":null,"source_ebook":45304,"source_html":"<p>But the interest attaching to the <i>City of God</i> is not merely\r\nhistorical. It is the earnestness and ability with which he\r\ndevelopes his own philosophical and theological views which\r\ngradually fascinate the reader, and make him see why the\r\nworld has set this among the few greatest books of all time.\r\nThe fundamental lines of the Augustinian theology are here\r\nlaid down in a comprehensive and interesting form. Never\r\nwas thought so abstract expressed in language so popular.\r\nHe handles metaphysical problems with the unembarrassed\r\nease of Plato, with all Cicero's accuracy and acuteness, and\r\nmore than Cicero's profundity. He is never more at home\r\nthan when exposing the incompetency of Neoplatonism, or\r\ndemonstrating the harmony of Christian doctrine and true\r\nphilosophy. And though there are in the <i>City of God</i>, as\r\nin all ancient books, things that seem to us childish and\r\nbarren, there are also the most surprising anticipations of\r\nmodern speculation. There is an earnest grappling with\r\nthose problems which are continually re-opened because they\r\nunderlie man's relation to God and the spiritual world,—the<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_xv\">[Pg xv]</a></span>\r\nproblems which are not peculiar to any one century. As we\r\nread these animated discussions,</p>","source_sha256":"d89e9a2b80bb59f394f0fb1bf313b39fab162f06af6642166d62c5912c1195f1","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45304/pg45304-images.html","text_sha256":"331a02568e9908d77ccfeab9ec6281885f41a28333baa7d1d54708c63021a280","verified":false,"work_id":null}