The book presents human history as being a conflict between what Augustine calls the City of Man and the City of God, a conflict that is destined to end in victory of the latter. The City of God is marked by people who forgot earthly pleasure to dedicate themselves to the eternal truths of God, now revealed fully in the Christian faith. The City of Man, on the other hand, consists of people who have immersed themselves in the cares and pleasures of the present, passing world. Though The City of God follows Christian theology, the main idea of a conflict between good and evil follows from Augustine's former beliefs in Manichaeanism. A philosophy based on the idea of primordial conflict between light and darkness or goodness and evil. In the case of City of God, it is the City of God (representing light) and the City of Man (representing darkness). Though his book follows an ideology of Manichaeanism, he still distances himself from them by calling them heretics: ..". I say, so just and fit, which, when piously and carefully weighed, terminates all the controversies of those who inquire into the origin of the world, has not been recognized by some heretics ..." Later, when Augustine converted to Christianity he at one point accepted Neo-Platonism. He ends up adding an idea of Neo-Platonism with a Christian idea in The City of God when he says: "As for those who own, indeed, that it was made by God, and yet ascribe to it not a temporal but only a creational beginning ..."

The Kingdom of God is the Christian answer to the most vital question that man has to solve, the question of the purpose of his being. Our Saviour's teaching on the subject is closely connected with hopes and convictions in full currency at the time of his Advent on earth; but he so used these convictions and hopes as to give a new meaning to life, and to open a new direction to human aspiration and effort. The Kingdom of God in his hands is a many-sided conception; to do justice to it has been the problem set to his followers in the long and varied course of the Church's existence.... My fervent hope and prayer is that, whatever its faults, this volume of Lectures may do nothing to hinder, but by God's mercy may rather in some degree, however slight, set forward the Kingdom of Christ and of God. I would make my own the prayer of one of my predecessors: 'Domine Deus, quaecunque dixi de tuo, agnoscant et tui; si qua de meo, et Tu ignosce et tui.' from the Preface

Civitas is an interdisciplinary collection of essays on the meaning of the city as human artifact, repository of memory, and the image either of heaven or hell. Drawing on scholars of Bible, theology, worship, literature, and the visual arts, the collection traces religious notions of the city from biblical times to the present. This work is especially suitable for courses on the city, whether those courses be sponsored by departments of religious studies, literature, sociology, or history.

Although many studies have been devoted to Augustine's City of God and its most important theme, viz. the antithesis between the civitas Dei and the terrena civitas,until now no consensus has been reached concerning the sources of this doctrine. Was Augustine decisively influenced by Manichaeism, by (Neo)Platonism, the Stoa or Philo, by the Donatist Tyconius? Or should we look in another direction and refer to preceding Christian, Jewish, and especially to archaic Jewish-Christian traditions? This lucidly written books opens with a survey of the research carried out so far on the aim, structure and central theme of the City of God. Chapter 2 analyzes the essentials of Augustine's life, of his City of God, and of his doctrine of the two cities. Making use of one of the recently discovered letters of Augustine in Chapter 3 the author describes the City of God as an apology and as a catechetical work. Chapter 4 provides an investigation into the possible sources of Augustine's doctrine of the two cities in Manichaeism, in (Neo)Platonism, the Stoa and Philo, and in the works of Tyconius. The idea of two antithetical cities proves to be present most clearly in writings in which, closely related to Jewish thinking, archaic Christian concepts occupy an important place. In a final chapter some pertinent remarks are made on Jewish and Jewish-Christian influences on pre-Augustinian Christianity in Africa.

The thought of Saint Augustine stands as one of the central fountainheads of not only theology but Western social and political theory. Political Augustinianism examines modern political readings of Augustine, providing an extensive account of the pivotal French, British, and American strands of interpretation. Bruno guides readers through these modern strands of interpretation, examines their historical, theological, and socio-political context, and discusses the hermeneutical underpinnings of the modern discussion of Augustine’s social and political thought.