Aspects of Mediaeval Thought on Church and State
Gerhart B. Ladner
“Two loves,” St. Augustine says in De Civitate Dei , “have made two cities, love of self unto contempt God the Earthly City, Heavenly City,” City God. These “cities”— civitates —are, course, not states, but societies; himself tells us that term civitas is an equivalent society. They are societies, however, a special kind. The Ciyitds “mystical” society all elect, past, present and future. Civitas Terrena identical neither with earthly state nor any particular such as Roman Empire, merely human society, it too impious, damned.
The Review of Politics