Citizens of the Earth

Abstract Citizens of the Earth presents the first comprehensive account of Augustine’s engagement with traditional religion. A multifaceted case study in the Christianization of the Roman Empire, it anchors Augustine’s works in their intellectual and social context, narrating political and intellectual renegotiation of the public cults of North Africa, from the 390s until after Augustine’s death in 430. At the same time, it tests modern conceptions of the role of religious conviction and religious difference in late antique society against the ideas of one of the most influential late Roman thinkers. Interweaving synthesis of Augustine’s ideas with diachronic narration of his polemics and their social context, the book is divided into four broad parts. Drawing on sermons, letters, and treatises, the first part uses the ideas of Augustine and his interlocutors to reset modern assumptions about how religious debate and difference worked in Augustine’s world. The second part reconstructs both political and intellectual reactions to imperial restrictions on public cult in 399. The third part revisits the anti-pagan arguments of City of God, from the Roman historical reflections of books 1–5, past the engagement with Varro and the Platonists in books 6–10, to the rethinking of Mediterranean proto-history in the late book 18. The book closes with a fourth, brief part that begins with Augustine’s still-vigorous outreach to educated pagans in the 420s and surveys the diminishing evidence for traditional Roman practice after 430. Concluding reflections consider how Augustine’s theoretical contributions may still inform modern approaches to late antique religion.