The History of Christianity: From the Disciples to the Dawn of the Reformation

•    Augustine’s sermons and biblical commentaries brought both literal

and allegorical methods into creative harmony, while his tractate

On Christian Doctrine provided a framework for all subsequent

medieval interpretation of the Bible.

•    His City of God, begun in 413 in response to the Visigoth sacking of

Rome in 410 and the pagan charge that Christianity was responsible

for the fall of the empire, provided a political theology that had a

profound impact on medieval church and society. His vision of a

society on earth that sought to embody and foreshadow the “city of

God” in heaven was a vision that was distinctively Christian, owing

little or nothing to classical antecedents.

Brown, Augustine of Hippo.

Von Campenhausen (Hoffman, trans.), The Fathers of the Latin Church.

1. How did the characteristic problems of Latin Christianity in the 4th and
   5 th centuries differ from controversies in the East?


2. Discuss the distinctive political, literary, and theological contributions
   made respectively by the three doctors, Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine.

Suggested Reading

Questions to Consider