Augustine’s City of God created the Christian West because it enabled believers to think about a future of Christianity that did not depend on the persistence of Rome. Augustine relativized the story of Rome to the story of the City of God.
How did he do that? Jesus taught him. Jesus taught His disciples to imagine a future of the people of God, the children of Abraham, that did not depend on the persistence of Jerusalem or its temple. Jesus had relativized the story of Israel to the story of the City of God, and Augustine followed suit.
In this sense as in others, AD 70 was an epoch-making event. The Olivet Discourse was the charter of a new world, and spelled the end of the old.
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