These are great paragraphs about a great book (Augustine’s City of God) found in a great biography (Augustine of Hippo by Peter Brown):

“…We should not forget, that together with the ‘Confessions,’ the theme of the title suddenly crystallized into Augustine’s mind; and, once formed, it is written into every line of the book.”

“The ‘City of God’ cannot be explained in terms of its immediate origins.  It is particularly superficial to regard it as a book about the sack of Rome.  Augustine may well have written a book, ‘On the City of God’ without such an event.  What this sack effected was to provide Augustine with a specific, challenging audience at Carthage; and in this way the sack of Rome ensued that a book which might have been a work of pure exegesis for fellow Christian scholars (somewhat like the great commentary on Genesis, in which…