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Distributed for University of Scranton Press

Living in Two Cities

Augustinian Trajectories in Political Thought

TeSelle examines the theme of St. Augustine’s "two cities" against the background of the ancient world’s civic vision, with the polis as the chief model for political life. Against most interpreters’ assumptions, TeSelle shows that the sojourner, while not fully at home in the earthly city, is nowhere understood as an "alien" and thus has certain rights and responsibilities in the earthly city.

230 pages | 6 x 9 | © 1998

Religion: Christianity


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Table of Contents

Preface
Abbreviations
 
Chapter 1: Augustine’s Political Journey
1. Upward Mobility
2. The Lure of Contemplation
3. Reentering the Active Live
4. The Writing of The City of God
 
Chapter 2: The Civic Vision in Its Ancient Setting
1. The City as a Living Community
2. The Ideal and the Reality of the Polis
3. The Birth of Empire
4. The City of God
5. Relating the Two Cities
 
Chapter 3: The Sojourner: Neiether a Citizen nor an Alien
1. The Peregrinus in the Ancient City
2. Augustine’s Understanding of Peregrinatio
3. The Way of the Traveler
4. Rituals of Liminality
 
Chapter 4: Toward an Augustinian Politics
1. Justice or Love?
2. The Viability of the Christian Ethic
3. The Social World of a Captive Humanity
4. Liberalism versus Communitarianism Today
 
Chapter 5: The Analogy of Peace
1. Why Peace?
2. Domestic Peace in the Ancient World
3. Conflict and Peace
 
Chapter 6: Looking for a Civic Bond
1. The Ordering Process
2. Political Community
3. Politics as Distribution
 
Chapter 7: Purposive Action and Human Fulfillment
1. The Quest for Human Fulfillment
2. The Limits of Politics
3. The Context of Purposive Action
 
Bibliography
Index of Modern Authors
Topical Index
Scriptural Citations Index
Index of Passages Cited: Scripture, Ancient and Medieval Writers, Augustine’s works

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