Salamito, Jean-Marie <br/><br/>
Saint Augustine and the definition of the city: Poles apart in “political Augustinianism” 

 -  2021.<br/>							 
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<br/><br/> This paper consists of two very different parts. Part I examines the development of Henri-Xavier Arquillière’s famous theory of “political Augustinianism” from 1925 to 1955. This theory in no way extends the work of Pierre Mandonnet and Étienne Gilson: it includes a number of inconsistencies and above all an obvious misunderstanding of Augustine’s ideas of nature and justice. It concludes by denouncing “political Augustinianism” as a myth, just as Henri de Lubac already did in 1984. Part II offers a reappraisal of Augustine’s critic of the Ciceronian definition of the populus and a reading of Augustine’s own definition as a neutral, secularized one, perfectly consistent with the idea of the possible concord between the two cities. Thus Augustine’s approach to political society is clearly free from any theocratic tendency: in fact, it is the very opposite of so-called “political Augustinianism.”