St. Augustine's Optimism Is a Resilient Quality

Augustine's mature years framed many of the most nightmarish events of the late Western Empire. He knew of the great Gothic war unfolding in what's today Romania and Bulgaria from three seventy-six to three eighty-two. Augustine could be bleak and grim about the nature of humanity, his pessimism never extended toward divinity. God, to Augustine, was not to blame for the woes of the Western Empire's twilight.