The City of God

In the year 413, when Augustine began writing the City of God, Christianity had been a permitted religion in the Roman Empire for exactly a hundred years. At the end of the 300s and the beginning of the 400s saw terrible problems for the Roman Empire. Could it be that with old pagan temples slowly growing cobwebs under their eaves, that Rome was suddenly dying precisely due to Christianity? The second of the three main things that Augustine does in the city of God is to offer a long, careful account of pagan history and culture - and not a favorable one.