St. Augustine and the Christian Idea of Progress: The Background of the City of God

Abstract

Saint Augustine was well aware of both pagan belief in eternal and eschatological speculations of his fellow-Christians. The denial of pagan belief in eternity of Rome and rejection of any connection between Christian eschatology and specific historical events occupy, however, only a rather minor place in whole context of The City of God. But many Christians showed them willing to go even farther and actually hoped and prayed for continuance of Roman Empire. This affirmative attitude grew out of certain historical and eschatological ideas which went back to both pagan and Jewish traditions. The accusation was very old that Christianity was responsible for miseries of world. To Augustine truly problematic and most objectionable theory of history must have been a conception which may be called the Christian idea of progress.