Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-6bf8c574d5-t27h7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-21T10:37:33.039Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

14 - Books 21 & 22

The End of the Body: Heaven and Hell in The City of God

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2021

By
David G. Hunter
Edited by
Fr. David Vincent Meconi, S.J.
Fr. David Vincent Meconi, S.J.
Affiliation:
Saint Louis University, Missouri
Get access

Summary

As we arrive at ciu. Dei 21 and 22, we reach the final destination of the two cities after their long pilgrimage on earth. Book 21 deals with the final repudiation of the ciuitas terrena, the eternal punishment of the damned in Hell. Book 22 examines the ultimate fate of the ciuitas Dei, the eternal reward of the blessed in heaven. But, as I will argue in this chapter, one can also read the final books of the City of God as the endpoint of a specific intellectual journey on which Augustine had embarked decades earlier, one that led him to abandon much of the mental furniture of a late antique philosopher and to embrace – even to pioneer – a cosmology and a theological anthropology with specifically Christian contours.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Augustine's City of God , pp. 276 - 296
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Further Reading

Burrus, V. (2009). Carnal Excess: Flesh at the Limits of Imagination. Journal of Early Christian Studies, 17, 247–265.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burrus, V. and MacKendrick, K. (2010). Bodies without Wholes: Apophatic Excess and Fragmentation in Augustine’s City of God. In Boesel, C. and Keller, C., eds., Apophatic Bodies: Negative Theology, Incarnation, and Relationality. New York: Fordham University Press, pp. 79–93.Google Scholar
Hunter, D. G. (2002). Augustine, Sermon 354A: Its Place in His Thought on Marriage and Sexuality. Augustinian Studies, 33(1), 39–60.Google Scholar
Hunter, D. G. (2012). Augustine on the Body. In Vessey, M., ed., The Blackwell Companion to Augustine. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 353–364.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miles, M. (1979). Augustine on the Body. AAR Dissertation Series, vol. 31. Missoula, MT: Scholars Press.Google Scholar
Rombs, R. J. (2006). Saint Augustine and the Fall of the Soul. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press.Google Scholar
van Bavel, T. J. (1995). “No One Ever Hated His Own Flesh”: Eph. 5:29 in Augustine. Augustinianum, 45, 45–93.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×