The City of God and The Dying World - Coursework Example

According to Christopher Dawson, the world seems to be coming to an end, as its failing powers are apparent. There is not enough rain to fertilize the seeds during winter, and the summer is not warm enough to ripen the plants. Spring is not mild as before nor is the autumn rich in fruit. Anything that is now old cannot have the same powers it had in the prime of its youth. It is inevitable that anything dying and about to decay must be weak, and the word that is passed around is that it is Gods will that all that has risen is to fall and all that has grown will be old. After they get weak, they will end. The following is a summary of the dying world and the city of God.

St. Augustine has always been viewed as standing beyond his age, an of the Christian empire that has been criticized by historians, but on the other hand, marks one of the significant moments in history. He made history by leading from the old world to the new. Rome on its turn made sure it enslaved the world. Roman capitalists, tax-gatherers and slave traders went to the east and controlled the dependent communities. The classification of the Roman Empire into provinces led to increased taxation on the people and anyone who evaded tax was arrested and treated like a runaway slave. The oppression resulted in a social revolution that saw much of the people in the society being pagans. However, paganism did not prevail. Constantine made a break with tradition and allied with the outlawed Christian church. The City of God was written with a controversial aim (Dawson, 2014). But the work developed from being controversial into something that embraces the human race history.

In the beginning, Christianity based its teachings on sacred history instead of the myths that were characterized in Greece. The said history was not only a record of past events but also a revelation of the divine plan that embraced every community. The coming of Christ marks the turning point of history. This means that all things became new and the old had passed. The idea of two societies is not found in the same form. It played a significant role in St. Augustines mind when working on The City of God. But there seemed to be two opposing orders, the kingdom of the world and the kingdom of God. The church represented the future while the empire represented the past. Christianity followed a different order of development in the west and Africa. The attention of the church concentrated on the problems of its corporate life (Dawson, 2014). It is through these conceptions that St. Augustine has been viewed as the founder of Roman Catholicism.

All in all, Dawson was more developmental amid his Oxford years than his perusing of St. the Augustine's City of God. He was permeated with an Augustinian feeling of history as an excellent and profound show. It was this sensibility when joined with his preparation in human science and in the best techniques for verifiable research, which represented Dawson's virtuoso. His two articles on St. Augustine, "The Dying World," and the "City of God," republished in Enquiries into Religion and Culture, are, in some estimation, magnificent both as far as their feeling of an Augustinian sense of history. On the off chance that it is as yet workable for somebody to be an Augustinian, Dawson was the genuine thing.

Reference

Dawson, C. (2014). Enquiries into religion and culture. Johanneshov: MTM.