titutional apparatus and system of belief came to dominate the eastern Mediterranean from the first through much of the seventh centuries A.D., Judaism as a religion predated Christianity and survived the suppression of Hellenistic religious practice. Because Christianity was an outgrowth of Judaism, a philosophical encounter between the two lines of religious thought was inevitable. Augustine interrogates Jewish scripture with a view toward answering what he sees as its limitations with reference to Christian scripture and doctrine.
Educated in the Roman rhetorical tradition and having had complete familiarity with classical political and philosophical texts of Greece and Rome, as well as with Christian and non-Christian religious factions that grew up in the Mediterranean, Europe, and Asia Minor in the post-apostolic period, Augustine could speak with some authority about both non-Christian and Christian lines of thought. Three of his texts are the most influential: the Confessions, The City of God, and On Christian Doctrine. An account of these various lines of thought, and Augustine's decision for Christianity, is provided in the Confessions. Partly to offer an alternative analysis of civil society to that in Cicero's Commonwealth, Augustine elaborates City of God, which is not only an essay in political organization but also a moral journey from pre-Christian ignorance to a community distinguished by the collective experience of grace and the preeminence of the persuasive/coercive moral authority of the Church. According to Paolucci, Augustine's elaboration of the "classical account" of the formation of political/social organizations includes "the insight of Christian pessimism," or a response to a profoundly negative example of found civil society. Augustine disposes of details of religious belief per se and answers doctrinal ambiguities with reference to authoritative Christian texts, in On Christian Doctrine.
Augustine's ...