ABSTRACT

This chapter explores Augustine’s terminology for types of politically organised communities and discusses the concept of dispensation. It explains the related concepts of felix/felicitas and beatus/beatitudo and examines the implications of iustitia and pax. The political and religious domains were successfully dominated by Charlemagne. The foregoing analysis of Augustine’s understanding of worldly rule and rulership and his definitions of politically organised communities has revealed that in the De civitate Dei, Augustine evidently praises the Christian Roman emperors. Augustinian political thought and ethics, as based on the Old Testament, Biblical tradition, as well as the aforementioned philosophical tradition, will prove to be reflected in Christian Carolingian political thought. Of all the Latin expressions for politically organised communities, civitas appears most often in the De civitate Dei to signify the two spiritual ‘states’. Occasionally, Augustine chooses societas as a synonym for civitas when talking about these two spiritual groups in order to call attention to their community character.