AD 426

The City of God

Augustine completes the 22-book City of God

Augustine’s distribution instructions told Firmus to lend the manuscript to only one or two copyists at a time, who would then pass copies onward.

Completion, not a launch

At Hippo Regius, Augustine brought the long composition of De civitate Dei to its complete twenty-two-book form. The Stanford Encyclopedia dates completion to 426.

What happened was completion and dissemination of a work whose individual books and installments had already circulated for years — not a publication launch in the modern sense.

The date is reconstructed rather than recorded: O’Donnell says the work was complete by Augustine’s Retractations of 426/427, while some scholars have proposed that all twenty-two books were finished around 422 and others date portions as late as 425–429.

Instructions to Firmus

Augustine sent the complete work to Firmus in Carthage after rereading it, and supplied instructions for dividing and copying its twenty-two books.

It was too bulky for a single codex, so he proposed either two volumes — ten books and twelve — or five smaller ones.

He named Cyprian as the associate whose persistence helped get the reread books sent to Firmus.

A chain of copyists

Augustine asked Firmus to let one or two people at a time copy the books that Christians in Carthage did not yet possess, after which those copyists could pass the text to others.

Carthaginian readers could now obtain the missing portions by hand-copying Firmus’s exemplar, and the entire twenty-two-book text could circulate as a coherent work.

“Published” is anachronistic here if it implies printing, a commercial edition or simultaneous release.

Sources

Researched 23 Aug 2026 4 sources not yet audited Date disputed

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet and rewritten from that sheet. This article has not yet had an independent model audit. How the pipeline works →

Date disputed. Sources disagree; the research places it at ~0426.

What the sources leave uncertain

The exact completion date is reconstructed rather than recorded as a publication day.
The Stanford Encyclopedia gives 426; O’Donnell says the work was complete by Augustine’s Retractations of 426/427, while noting divergent scholarly chronologies for some later books.
Some scholars have proposed that all 22 books were finished earlier, around 422; others date portions as late as 425–429. The complete work was certainly in Augustine’s retrospective account by 426/427.
‘Published’ is anachronistic if it implies printing, a commercial edition or simultaneous release. Manuscript books circulated separately and were copied by hand.