Politische Gerechtigkeit bei Cicero und Augustinus (Political Justice in Cicero and Augustine)

Abstract

The paper first analyses the Ciceronian sources of Augustine’s idea of justice, then argues that Augustine maintains a kind of “supernatural” view of politics (that is, an interpretation of politics on the background of divine forces), which leaves no room for a normative evaluation of the socio-political sphere. The specific feature of Augustine’s political “supernaturalism”, in fact, is the idea that original sin, depriving man of divine grace, prevents the earthly world from being an improvable copy of an ideal model.