Therefore he used, from a pragmatic point of view, the Roman Empire – what enhances good citizenship in the Roman Empire is of philosophical value. And the ideas which enhance are: providence, God, freedom, immortality, rewards, and things like that.
Augustine was in exactly the same situation. But for him it was not the civitas terrenae but the Christian city of God; it was the Christian tradition. So he developed a pragmatic philosophy, with Platonic and other elements, on the basis of the need of the Christian life and not on: the basis of Roman citizenship. But the basic form was very similar – it was pragmatic-eclectic. Augustine is not an original philosopher in the sense in which Plato or the Stoics were. But he is a philosopher in whom the great synthesis between the Old Testament idea of Yahweh and the Parmenidean idea of being, was combined. He is responsible for the communion of Jerusalem and Athens, more than anybody else in the history of the Church.
Paul Tillich, A History Of Christian Thought – Table of Contents
