Comparison of St. Augustine and St. Paul

Thesis

The formation of the early Christian communities was found to harmonize with the question to the Christians of Jewish origin and those of pagan origin. Augustine and Paul both have responded to this question by writing against Pagans.

The City of God

The City of God against the Pagans is a work in twenty-two books of Augustine of Hippo. The first book was written in 413, the twenty-second was completed thirteen years later. It is also one of the fundamental works of all patristic literature. The design of St Augustine rejects the classical notion of the city or its equivalent as a whole self-sufficient person could carry their accomplishment all the needs and aspirations of all individuals based. Without renouncing their citizenship in temporal society to which they belong, Christians belong to a form of temporal society to which they belong, Christians belong to a universal form of society, although invisible, which alone provides the salvation. To defend his thesis, Augustine must necessarily address almost every important aspect of life and of Christian thought (Deane, 67).

The occasion that prompted Augustine to undertake this "large and hard work" is the sack of Rome by Alaric and the Goths in August 410. Although the event has little changed the lives of the Empire - the invaders retreated after three days - he left a deep impression in the imagination of people and revealed more clearly than ever face the vulnerability of Rome posed to its security for the hordes of marauding barbarians on its borders. Christianity was quickly accused of this disaster by his opponents, and the old accusation of hostility to the welfare of the Empire took over against them in the pagan population. Rome had won its greatness through the favor of its gods. Rejecting them, it had incurred their anger and was deprived of their protection. The calamity that befell it was an act of revenge on their part, a conviction of Jupiter. Only in the City of God, where life is in total agreement with Divine Revelation, we find true justice (Deane, 67).  

The moral ideal of Augustine summarizes the biblical commandment to love God and neighbor, associated with the Ciceronian notion of an eternal law and natural defined as "the law that controls and maintains the natural order and forbids to disturb "(XIX, 15), and elsewhere as the law which requires that ...