ABSTRACT
St. Augustine's philosophy of law constitutes the decisive transition from ancient classical legal and political thought to Christian legal and political philosophy. In keeping with certain fundamental aspects of ancient philosophic tradition, St. Augustine frequently treats "law" and "order" as two essentially synonymous concepts. St. Augustine's philosophic and jurisprudential thought may indeed be called the crossroads of ancient and medieval intellectual history and possibly the decisive instance in the transition from pagan to Christian intellectualism. According to St. Augustine, the state or body politic is "a multitude of human beings bound together by a certain social tie, "that is, by the bond of concord, and subject to the same laws. St. Augustine explains the relationship of the universal order to the "inner order" which is characteristic of each individual creature or thing. Aside from being eternal and immutable, the lex aeterna, in the words of St. Augustine, is also "all-encompassing".
