In this book Professor Markus's main concern is with those aspects of Augustine's thought which help to answer questions about the purpose of human society, and particularly with his reflections on history, society and the Church. He relates Augustine's ideas to their contemporary context and to older traditions, and shows which aspects of his thought he absorbed from his intellectual environment. Augustine appears from this study as a thinker who rejected the 'sacralization' of the established order of society, and the implications of this for a theology of history are explored in the last chapter.

'This is a fresh … study of one of Christianity's perennially interesting thinkers.'

Source: The Times Literary Supplement

'It is impossible adequately to summarise this book, which well merits full and carefully considered reading.'

Source: Journal of Roman Studies

''Markus' monograph offers a brilliant introduction to a very subtle aspect of Augustinian thought, and shows once again that the Bishop of Hippo, as in so many other areas, anticipated many of the original insights of modern secularist theology.'

Source: Classical Folia