How long does it take to read The City of God?
The City of God by Saint Augustine takes about 7 hours 59 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 7 hours 59 minutes
A weekend read
First published 1440. 435 pages, about 119,625 words.
16 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 13 hours 18 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 7 hours 59 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 4 hours 59 minutes |
The page count is the median across 114 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
This is the first new rendition for a generation of The City of God, the first major intellectual achievement of Latin Christianity and one of the classic texts of Western civilisation. When he began to write The City of God in 413, St. Augustine's intention was to defend the Christian Church against the charge of having brought about the Sack of Rome in 410. Outgrowing this initial purpose, the work evolved into a detailed critique of the political and moral tradition of Rome and a synthesis of Platonism and Christianity which must stand as one of the most significant achievements in Western intellectual history. Apart from its intrinsic interest the Christian account of social and political relations which Augustine gives was to furnish one of the most fertile sources of material for the controversial literature of the middle ages. R. W. Dyson has produced a complete, accurate, authoritative and fluent translation of The City of God, edited together with full biographical notes, a concise introduction, bibliographical note and chronology of Augustine's life.
Subjects: Latin Manuscripts, Kingdom of God, Theology, Apologetics, Moral conditions, History
