Augustine’s City of God: The Dark Side of Human Dignity

Two Contrasting Conceptions of Human Dignity In Book I of the City of God, Augustine contrasts Greco-Roman (pagan) and Christian conceptions of dignity. Cato the Younger and Lucretia are paragons of pagan virtues, of man and woman, respectively. They committed suicide out of a strong sense of dignity. Lucretia killed herself to protest her innocence as a rape victim; Cato the Younger, a Stoic, would rather die as a free […]

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