Chapter 10 in Gerard O'Daly (Oxf. Univ. Press
2020, 2nd edition) Augustine's The City of God:
A Reader's Edition.
The beginning of Book 19 marks the transition
from authority to reason:
Augustine will proffer a critical survey
of philosophical opinions about the nature
of human happiness and the final good.
His survey of human ills sequences
individual-household-city / or state -
world - angelic society. . . For A.,
the world (Latin orbis terrae ) is first
the Roman empire and second the rest of
the world cut off from Roman rule. For
among the world's evils he reckons civil
wars. . .and wars between emperors and
usurpers.
Wars may be just, a necessity
imposed by the injustice of others;
but they are none the less
terrible!
The word peace (Latin pax) [Book
19 #10] . . . is the final good
for the Christian inasmuch as it
is the condition, in its perfect
form, of eternal life.
The name JERUSALEM means
'vision of peace'. A. provides
a classified and hierarchical series
of definitions of kinds of peace
BODY, irrational and rational SOUL,
the BODY-SOUL conjoint, peace
between humans and God and among
humans themselves, domestic peace,
the peace of the city of God, the
peace of all things as a
'tranquility of order.'
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