The love as the foundation of the theology of history in Augustine of Hippona

Abstract

This article presents a reading of the theology of Augustinian history in the light of the XXVIII chapter of book XIV of the work De civitate Dei (The city of God) in which love as desire underlies the allegorical theory of the duae civitates (the two cities): the heavenly city and the earthly city. In this work, although it brings together several themes faced from a philosophical perspective, such as, for example, the problem of will, the binomial faith and reason, temporality, the theory of knowledge, etc., Saint Augustine addresses the meaning of history based on data of revelation accepted through belief in the biblical God. Therefore, even though one can certainly interpret it from a philosophical point of view, one must consider the last ten books of De civitate Dei as an essay on eschatology and the first theological treatise in history.