City of God – death and burial

An interdisciplinary discussion about the origins of western views of burial. Co-hosted with the Death Studies Network.

The sack of Rome by the Visigoths in 410 shocked the Roman world by revealing the weakness of the Western Roman Empire. Only two years later, St. Augustine wrote the first book of his influential City of God to defend Christians against the charge that their defection from the Roman patron gods was to blame for this outrage. Pagan authors were also suggesting at the time that their charge against the impiety of the Christians was proved by the fact that Christian bodies had been desecrated by being left dead in the streets for days. Augustine’s answer to this charge was to define the terms in which Christian burial was to be understood in the west for the next 1,000 years.

Preparatory reading: participants are requested to read the two short chapters (800 words) in which Augustine makes his case, in The City of God, I.12-13, which can be accessed here (scroll down to chapters 12-13: CHURCH FATHERS: City of God, Book I (St. Augustine) (newadvent.org)